By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
CBD presented compelling evidence, even before Tuesday’s state budget shenanigans got underway, that Daniel Andrews’ Labor government was going about this year’s effort a bit differently.
And who should show up at yesterday’s lock-up at the swank 55 Collins Street? Only big Dan himself, who has traditionally stayed away from the budget set-piece and allowed his Treasurer Tim Pallas his annual day in the sun – although Andrews does often show his face at the “stakeholders’ lock-up” which is held off-site each year.
With a cup of tea in hand, Andrews mingled with journalists during the budget lock-up with confidence.Credit: Joe Armao
But there was Andrews in the main media lock-up on Tuesday morning working the room from quite early in the piece, cup of tea in hand, delivering his budget promotional spiel to the various tables full of frantic media types and generally looking like he was having a blast.
The premier even took it in his stride when one journo demanded to know “why do you hate big business so much, Dan?”
Now, government operatives were tight-lipped on Tuesday about the thinking behind this change of budget-day tack, so we’re left to speculate. Could it be that this budget is such a tricky sell that the optics of not rocking-up to lock-up might have been awkward?
Or maybe it’s just that in his ninth year in the top job, Andrews’ legendary control freakery, is growing, well, beyond everybody’s control.
LOBBY LIFE
CBD, caring souls that we are, likes to look in on the post-political lives of the many casualties of Victorian Labor’s seismic Adem Somyurek branch stacking scandal. Indeed, we were heartened to note that Adem – still in state parliament somehow – finds time for a side-hustle dispensing political advice in the local US-owned tabloid.
But it’s the faction man’s former close associate, former cabinet minister Marlene Kairouz, who’s had some news on the career front, with the ex-MP for Kororoit following the well-worn path from politics into lobbying and joining GXO Strategies, the lobbying shop run by Cameron Milner, former chief of staff to Bill Shorten who himself made common factional cause with Somyurek more than once.
GXO has only been on the official lobbyists register since August but has managed to put together a bit of a clientele, including Lindsay Fox’s trucking juggernaut Linfox and private health behemoth Ramsay.
Milner also does a little columnising on the side, sending his former Labor comrades over the edge with pieces in The Australian taking pot-shots at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and former treasurer Wayne Swan and heaping lavish praise on the current occupant of the treasurer’s office Jim Chalmers.
So naturally we wondered if Marlene was heading towards the op-ed pages too and called her for a chat. She didn’t call back.
DOCO DISSENT
While Anthony Albanese and his government are rolling out the red carpet to Narendra Modi, the Indian Prime Minister’s local opponents are planning a cheeky statement against Delhi’s strongman, with a movie screening in Parliament House on Wednesday.
Not just any old movie, mind you, but a BBC documentary entitled India: The Modi Question, covering the now-PM’s early career failure to stop a deadly anti-Muslim pogrom, and repression of protest under his prime ministership, which is something of a sore subject with the Indian government.
Nahendra Modi with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in Sydney.Credit: James Brickwood
The doco triggered a full-blown dummy spit from Modi’s administration which invoked emergency powers to try to ban the film in India and proceeded to raid BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai.
But it will take more than the movie screening on Wednesday – which will feature Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John on discussion panel duties with few progressive diaspora types – to dampen the patriotic ardour at Modi’s visit.
He appeared at Sydney’s Olympic Park with Albanese on Tuesday evening before a crowd of 20,000.
FIT OUT
F45, the Aussie fitness franchise chain that briefly became a global sensation – and which seems to get less Australian by the day – continues to flirt with rock bottom, copping a new threat with being punted from the New York Stock Exchange.
It’s less than two years since the company listed on the exchange – after growing from just one Sydney gym in 2012 to 2000 sites in 66 countries – in a glitzy ceremony fronted by Hollywood royalty Mark Wahlberg and Australian co-founder Adam Gilchrist (not the cricketer), who parted ways with the F45 last month.
Back then, investors were willing to pay more than $US16 a share. But the company has been notified by NYSE authorities that its current share price, of just US86¢, puts it in non-compliance of the exchange’s rules (who knew that was a thing?) after trading below $US1 for more than 30 days. It has six months to put things right.
The warning comes just a month after the exchange gave F45 six months to get its corporate governance house in order and file its delayed annual financial report to the report to be filed to the US securities and investments commission, or potentially face the boot.
In response, F45 told investors – and this is a classic of the genre – that it “intends to consider a number of available alternatives to cure its non-compliance”. Sounds like the least they could do.
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