By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
The war in the Middle East hasn’t stopped Australian politicians and business types defying travel advice and making trips to Israel.
Last week, former treasurer Josh Frydenberg returned from leading a group of media and business figures on a trip to the Jewish state.
Former premier Daniel Andrews.Credit: Scott McNaughton
And next month, high-profile corporate lawyer Jeremy Leibler, president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, will host a delegation to Israel led by former Victorian Labor premier Daniel Andrews and new NSW Liberal senator Dave Sharma.
We hear the trip will focus on Israel’s tech sector, but the delegation will also visit kibbutzim in the country’s south, which were targeted by Hamas during the October 7 terrorist attacks, and meet high-profile political leaders, including President Isaac Herzog.
Andrews gave a speech at a St Kilda synagogue last November to reaffirm his support for Israel and the local Jewish community as the conflict with Hamas intensified.
Sharma, a one-term member for the Sydney seat of Wentworth is a former ambassador to Israel, and his support for the country helped secure a surprise victory during a hotly contested Senate preselection contest late last year.
It isn’t the first time Leibler has taken an influential delegation to Israel. In 2019, he travelled there with former prime minister John Howard, Howard’s foreign minister Alexander Downer, ex-Labor treasurer Wayne Swan, ALP communications minister turned lobbyist Stephen Conroy and short-lived Liberal leader Brendan Nelson.
A PYNE LIFE
Former defence minister Christopher Pyne hasn’t changed his hyper-competitive approach in his new life as a lobbyist. The South Australian has been quick to note that his firm, Pyne and Partners, has more clients listed than any other outfit on the official register of lobbyists.
And he managed to attract a decent crowd last week for the launch of P&P’s new Melbourne offices, with Will Clancy – a former staffer to Labor ministers Simon Crean, Joel Fitzgibbon and Craig Emerson – at the helm.
Some familiar faces crammed into Buba in St Kilda, just around the corner from the lobby shop’s St Kilda Road digs, which is handy for all the defence industry clients based down the road at Fishermans Bend.
Will Clancy (left) and Christopher Pyne of lobbying firm Pyne and Partners, with copies of Pyne’s memoir, The Insider.Credit: Reno Del Rosario
Former AFL boss Gillon McLachlan and ex-Collingwood footy club president Eddie McGuire were rubbing shoulders with Labor MP Julian Hill, senator Raff Ciccone and former senator and MP Dave Feeney, whom Pyne claims to have “rehabilitated”.
From across the aisle, Liberal member for Flinders Zoe McKenzie, MP for Menzies Keith Wolahan and former speaker of the House of Reps Tony Smith were present as was former Liberal federal director Brian Loughnane.
The state Liberals were represented by frontbenchers James Newbury and David Hodgett.
Christopher Pyne’s firm launched its Melbourne office last week, attracting some familiar faces. From left: Gillon McLachlan, Dave Feeney, Pyne and Will Clancy.Credit: Illustration by Jozsef Benke
McKenzie and Hill said a few words. The former observed that parliament was no longer fun without Pyne, and Hill recalled some sage advice he’d been given as a newbie MP about dealing with lobbyists.
You’ve got to learn how to eat their free food, drink their free drinks and then tell them, to “f--k off”, the Labor MP told the room.
THREE TRIBES
CBD was stuck at work on the weekend, toiling over these modest few lines, but our heart, thoughts and prayers were very much in Albury, jewel of the Murray, where a gathering was taking place that really did have something for everyone.
Whether you detest climate change action and government health measures to combat COVID or just cannot abide the idea of an Indigenous Voice to parliament – and you had $250 to spare for the cheapest seats or nearly $700 for the VIP package – you would have been among your tribe at the northernmost twin city from Friday to Sunday.
The two most famous speakers would have been Nyunggai Warren Mundine, still dining out on the defeat at last year’s referendum of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Voice proposal, and Mundine’s controversial campaign colleague Gary Johns, the Paul Keating-era Labor minister who has re-purposed the Recognise a Better Way outfit into a charity called Close the Gap Research.
So that’s the Voice sorted. On the anti-lockdown, anti-vax side of things, we had none other than Monica Smit herself, leading light of the Victorian right-to-get-a-deadly-virus movement who is back in court next month to face charges (vehemently denied) that she broke fundraising laws while crowdsourcing her legal bills for an earlier courtroom showdown with authorities.
Perhaps less well-known – and that’s an injustice – former Qantas pilot Graham Hood, who insists he was sacked by the airline for refusing a vaccination, was also on the bill.
Hood was the official spokesman for that protest movement that called for 5 million Australians to descend on Canberra in early 2022. About 1000 showed up, but we feel sure that Hood pulled a decent crowd on the weekend.
And if climate, um, scepticism is your bag, what about Saturday night’s “Nyet Zero” – geddit? – black tie gala dinner designed to launch a broader pushback against the idea of carbon neutrality in all its nefarious forms. Former YouTuber Topher Field, best known for soft interviews of Clive Palmer’s former United Australian Party right-hand man Craig Kelly, was hosting that affair, which we’re sure was a hoot.