By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
We always thought ABC’s everywhere man Stan Grant had a touch of tinseltown about him.
Now, not satisfied with having pretty much every job on the public broadcaster, Grant is making his first foray into Hollywood.
Stan GrantCredit: John Shakespeare
According to sources in the know, Stan has landed a bit part as a TV newsreader in Ricky Stanicky, the Peter Farrelly comedy about a bunch of overgrown teenage pranksters, which wrapped up shooting in Melbourne a few weeks ago.
Grant’s co-stars include 2000s-era High School Musical heartthrob and one-time Byron Bay resident Zac Efron, and wrestler-turned-actor-turned-meme John Cena.
We’re told the affable Grant was very popular on set – maybe it’s thanks to his rather convincing American accent, a trick that’s good to learn if you work for CNN, which he has.
We were keen to discuss Stan’s tilt at stardom with the man himself, but he didn’t return our calls.
TALKING DAN
CBD sounded the alarm on Thursday about NSW Labor Premier Chris Minns, first co-opting Victorian leader Dan Andrews’ fashion sense and then his communications style.
We stand by that editorial decision. It was the right thing to do.
But it looks like we acted too late. This … this contagion has spread all the way to the top of the once-great Australian Labor Party with its supreme leader – the prime minister himself – succumbing to the temptations of Dan-speak.
On Tuesday morning Anthony Albanese was tweeting about the 15 per cent pay increase awarded to aged care workers with this effort.
“Because it’s the fair thing to do,” the PM intoned.
Here’s Andrews, who really should consider presenting bills to his colleagues for this material, on November 22, election-pledging on country rail fares.
“Because it’s the fair thing to do.” Word. For. Word.
OK, the Andrews dude has won three elections and there ain’t a politician in the land that doesn’t want a slice of that action. We get it. But consider your personal dignity, lads, and get your own lines, please. And if Albanese fronts up to a presser wearing a North Face puffer, we’re done.
THAT’S A WRAP
The Institute of Public Affairs’ views on the environmental movement are well documented, but if you’ll indulge a quick recap, green ideals are not only wrong and misguided but “actively harmful to conservation and human progress”, according to a typical IPA rant from back in 2020.
So imagine CBD’s surprise when the right-wing think tank with the murky funding sources dispatched the latest edition of its newsletter to the faithful, The IPA Review – we read it, you don’t have to – in a protective covering made from a material called “Biowrap”.
What tree-hugging, virtue-signalling, Birkenstock-wearing Bob Brownery is this from the institute, we cried.
Turns out Biowrap is a 90 per cent biodegradable material, made in New Zealand – that would have been suspect in itself, back in the IPA’s good old days – and marketed as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional soft plastics.
That’s one question answered, but we still wanted know when and how the institute went soft on what it once might have denounced as economy-destroying eco-babble. We asked the IPA’s frontman, Andrew Hudgson, who cut his teeth spinning for Liberal factional tough guy Michael Sukkar, just what was going on. Hudgson didn’t call us back.
CIVIC VIRTUE
Melbourne lobby shop The Civic Partnership’s bash on Wednesday night was pretty well-attended.
Among the crowd, CBD’s informants spotted senior silk and industrial relations hardliner Stuart Wood deep in conversation with Ian Silk, former boss of the lefty Australian Super fund. Interesting.
John Wylie, investment banker and chairman of the Australian Sports Commission, was there too, along with administrator to the – fallen – stars, Mark Korda.
Andrews government types Nick Staikos and Steve McGhie were reportedly a little surprised when the state’s one-and-only One Nation MP Rickie-Lee Tyrrell sidled up to them at the bar and said hi.
The Liberal opposition was represented too with shadow treasurer Brad Rowswell, Richard Riordan and Evan Mulholland, who all would have much to talk about with Resolve Strategic pollster Jim Reed.
Former Liberal Party federal director Brian Loughnane.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
The Liberal old guard was represented by former federal director Brian Loughnane, ex-Victorian division president Michael Kroger and his ex-wife and Victoria Racing Club director Ann Peacock.
So, a decent turnout. But we hear Civic worked hard for it with eyebrows raised around town at the repeated invitations lobbing into inboxes.
One business type told CBD they’d been invited no less than three times during the month of April despite never having been a client of Civic.
The firm’s managing partner Jason Aldworth explained that the first batch of invites had gone out two months in advance and follow-ups were issued, but only to those who hadn’t replied with a yay or nay.
By-the-by, one of Civic’s better-known faces – former Age scribe-turned all-purpose dude around town Mark Hawthorne – was conspicuous by his absence.
He told us that he was having surgery on Wednesday for a ruptured achilles tendon. We knew it had to be serious to keep “the Hawk” from a party.
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