By Mathew Dunckley and Michael Idato
The Victorian Liberal Party faithful descended on Moonee Valley racecourse over the weekend to hear from Federal Opposition Leader Peter Dutton and his state counterpart John Pesutto.
Both were warmly welcomed at the party’s state council, but it was former premier Jeff Kennett, as is his custom, who stole more than his share of the show.
He was honoured with a lifetime membership of the party and used his speech to urge Dutton to establish a royal commission into links between Labor and the CFMEU.
Talking to journalists afterwards Kennett ranged across various topics and was asked what he made of the decision by Cyril Rioli, along with other former Hawthorn players and their spouses, to take claims about racism against the football club to the Federal Court.
That news broke on Friday, and Kennett was quite happy to defend the club where he served as president throughout the relevant period.
The three key figures to have faced allegations, although none are named in the Federal Court material available so far, are former coach Alastair Clarkson, former assistant coach Chris Fagan and former player services boss Jason Burt.
All three have strongly defended their conduct and were cleared in an earlier AFL investigation.
A Human Rights Commission process ended without resolution and now the final assessment will be a matter for the court.
That didn’t stop Kennett offering his own colourful sideline assessment of the Hawthorn coaches.
“I know the three people against whom they’ve made claims well, two of them are the nicest individuals you could ever meet,” he said. Yes, he said “two”.
Former Victorian premier and Hawthorn football club president Jeff Kennett.Credit: Justin McManus
Clarkson, Kennett elaborated, was a “bit of a firecracker, he can go off at times”.
“Nothing he has said to me in any way indicates that the comments were made for racial reasons, it’s Alastair being Alastair, whether it’s putting his fist through the wall or whether he’s abusing people on the ground, that’s Alastair. But don’t tell me anything he’s ever done is racially based.”
Comic-con
San Diego’s four-day Comic-Con is all over bar the shouting, but the comic book, movie, TV show and toy extravaganza closed the show with a bang, a glimpse at Marvel’s new film, Captain America: Brave New World, which shook Comic-Con’s Hall H to its convention centre foundations.
Kevin Feige on state at Comic-Con.Credit: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Marvel’s TED-talkin’ boss Kevin Feige was dropping clangers left, right and centre, including the revelation that Star Wars and Indiana Jones superstar Harrison Ford would join the Marvel universe, playing US president Thaddeus E. “Thunderbolt” Ross, aka Red Hulk.
Feige also dazzled the audience with a glimpse of the new The Fantastic Four, featuring the crowd (and eye) pleasing Pedro Pascal, a pair of Avengers movies, Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, and the casting of Robert Downey Jr. (née Iron Man) as Victor Von Doom.
The real surprise for Australians in the audience was a glimpse of local boy made good Callan Mulvey in the Captain America: Brave New World footage.
Mulvey, who recently starred in Firebite and Last King of the Cross, has played S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jack Rollins in two Marvel films already, Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Avengers: Endgame, and if the Comic-Con bombshell video is anything to go by, he will return to the role for a third time.
All told, it was not a bad Comic-Con for the hometown team: Hugh Jackman was there promoting Deadpool & Wolverine, Yvonne Strahovski attended for a new horror series Teacup, from another Aussie, producer James Wan, and Chris Hemsworth was there for Transformers One.
Doctor Who showrunner Russell T. Davies also revealed that he and Australian screenwriter Pete McTighe (of Wentworth fame) were co-writing a Doctor Who spin-off, titled The War Between The Land and the Sea.
Long haul horror
Hell hath no fury like a delayed economist. With a white paper process in the wings examining Australia’s world-lagging passenger rights regime, the last thing Qantas needed was to annoy one of the nation’s best policy brains.
Yet that’s clearly what happened over the weekend, prompting Saul Eslake to take to LinkedIn and unleash one of the better sprays by an aggrieved customer that CBD can recall.
Saul Eslake addressing the National Press Club in May.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“I am so sick of being stuffed around by airlines!” Eslake began, before detailing how his troubles began with a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Sydney that was more than two hours late departing.
That left Eslake unsuccessfully racing the clock in Sydney to catch his plane to Hobart, which he missed by about 15 minutes. And he was far from impressed at the airlines’ efforts to help him.
Cathay wouldn’t contact Qantas to alert them to his plight nor do anything to “expedite” his “deplaning”, he said. Nor did Qantas hold on for a “connecting” passenger which he said had been known to happen.
This left Saul “twiddling my thumbs” in Sydney’s Qantas Lounge for the best part of six hours - a move Qantas may regret given his deployment of said thumbs to social media.
The tipping point appears to have been when Qantas delayed his flight home to Tasmania.
“Airlines repeatedly fail to deliver what customers like me pay them to deliver, offer BS excuses (if they give any reason at all) for failing to deliver, and expect us to be mollified by repeated expressions of “thanks for our patience” as if that were in inexhaustible supply. I am just so sick of it!” Eslake posted.
Fair to say he wasn’t happy when a half hour delay was attributed to a late arriving crew on a Qantas flight.
”So yet more thumb-twiddling and patience-showing. Great work, Qantas!” he said, before posting a text from the airline that many passengers would recognise, along with his own caption reading: “No Qantas I don’t think you’re ‘sorry’ at all”.
After another text, Eslake’s exasperation was heading sky-high: “Oh Qantas are ‘sorry’ again - BS, BS, BS!!!”
Eslake told his followers that this flight was going to be leaving Sydney 15 minutes after its original scheduled arrival time in Hobart.
“It just staggers me how they all expect you to just “suck it up”. And if you try to take it up with their “customer relations” teams, you get the sort of formulaic BS responses (“we sincerely regret ...” , “we understand” - but we’re not going to do anything) that I used to have to write as a very junior Treasury officer in the late 1970s to people who were naive enough to think that when they wrote to the Treasurer he gave their correspondence his personal attention.”
When CBD caught up with a still-cranky Eslake on Monday, he had more to say about his woes. He told us how he traipsed miles through Hong Kong airport thanks to multiple gate changes, a Cathay-rejected request for an early exit from his row 50 seat and a fruitless plea for understanding from Qantas at the Sydney transfer desk 20 minutes before his Hobart plane left.
A Qantas spokesperson said Eslake’s booking was made with Cathay Pacific which rebooked his connecting flight to Hobart “due to their delayed arrival into Sydney”.
Eslake’s next flight, to Hobart, was one of many disrupted due to the “extreme winds” at Sydney Airport that saw planes grounded and services reduced.
“As frustrating as this may have been, Mr Eslake’s Qantas flight between Sydney and Hobart was delayed due to safety measures in response to the weather conditions,” they said.
We also dropped a line to Cathay. We will let you know when we hear back from them.
We’re almost certain they “sincerely regret” the delay.