Coverage of the coronation of King Charles on Saturday will be a scaled back affair for Australian broadcasters in comparison to the Queen’s funeral in September which saw 30 ABC journalists on the ground in London and 100 for the Nine network. Julia Baird and Jeremy Fernandez will host a discussion panel from 5pm, and then the ABC will take the BBC feed. It will be Baird’s first television appearance since returning from extended sick leave.
Stan Grant, fresh from flaying the ABC for its “obsequious” coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth to promote his new book The Queen is Dead, will sit on the coronation panel alongside co-chair of the republican movement Craig Foster and Wiradjuri/Wailwan lawyer Teela Reid. ABC News management may just have listened to Grant’s complaint that they “donned black suits” and took on a reverential tone when the Queen died because the approach to the coronation is different. This royal event will include discussion of how relevant the monarchy is to the lives of Australians and no one has been flown to London. The sole monarchist on the panel is Liberal MP Julian Leeser.
Of course, this news has fired up the national chairman of the Australian Monarchist League, Philip Benwell, who says the panel is “blatantly stacked” with republicans. The league has called for the immediate intervention of the managing director of the ABC, David Anderson.
“The coronation procession and ceremony are not political footballs or invitations for an anti-Crown activist to opine about the various merits of different political systems,” Benwell said on Friday. “It is a sacred moment of consecration to time-honoured oaths between a King, his God, and the people whom he will serve.”
The Australian’s change of heart
Unlike the national broadcaster, the national broadsheet cannot be accused of not taking the coronation seriously. For the first time in 50 years Rupert Murdoch’s the Australian will produce a printed Sunday edition, a 16-page tribute “dedicated to the coronation of King Charles III”.
A digital version of the special edition will also be available to subscribers only. “I’m sure this collector’s edition of the newspaper will resonate strongly with audiences around Australia,” managing editor John Lehmann said.
It’s quite a change for a newspaper that officially backed Australia becoming a republic in the 1999 referendum and even printed bumper stickers for readers in support of a yes vote.
Hot Duttered
The attendance of the prime minister Anthony Albanese at Kyle Sandilands’ wedding on the weekend is proof of just how important popular radio jocks are to politicians. But the leader of the opposition, Peter Dutton, it would appear, already has 2DayFM’s Hughesy, Ed & Erin in the palm of his hand. An interview this week, largely conducted by comedian Dave Hughes and Sky News host Erin Molan, was dripping with adoration for the Liberal leader. Hughes accused Albanese of “gallivanting around the world, just hobnobbing with the hoi polloi” while Dutton is “back here boots on the ground style”. (No matter that hoi polloi doesn’t mean what he thinks it does.) Molan was so in awe of the leader she wanted to call him “sir”. “I could call you, you know, ‘minister’, but then when you’re not, I feel awkward saying ‘Peter’, because I feel like it doesn’t show enough respect and even my mother would message me, and so I say, ‘Sir’ and I think that shows respect.”
The duo then posted a photo of a teenage Dutton on their Instagram account and likened the young Dutton with a full head of hair to Harry Styles.
Hughes finished the interview by telling Dutton they “know that you’re a really good bloke and that you care deeply for Australia and for Australians … how can we change people’s perception of you?”
Check your maths
Courier Mail columnist Mike O’Connor argued strongly this week that the former governor-general Peter Hollingworth’s yearly pension of $357,000 is not deserved.
A five-year review by the Anglican church ruled Hollingworth should not be defrocked despite upholding multiple allegations of misconduct over his handling of child abuse complaints.
“It is, surely, an outrage that a person who has been forced to resign from public office is rewarded with a millionaire’s lifestyle,” O’Connor wrote on Tuesday. Especially, he argued, since Hollingworth’s wife Ann would continue to get his generous pension.
“The largesse will not end with his death with his widow being entitled to five-eighths of his pension for life,” O’Connor wrote. Only Ann Hollingworth died two years ago, in April 2021.
It appears no one reads the Courier Mail, not even the editors, because the article remained uncorrected online as of Friday morning.
ABC’s big loss
The ABC’s head of drama, entertainment and Indigenous, Sally Riley has resigned after 13 years and will leave the public broadcaster in July.
Riley, a Wiradjuri woman, is arguably the ABC’s most successful creative, and her resignation is a major blow to the television division.
Since joining the ABC in 2010 as the inaugural head of the Indigenous department, she commissioned the landmark drama Redfern Now as well as Stateless, Fires, Preppers, Cleverman, Mystery Road, Total Control, Aftertaste, Black Comedy, Janet King, Wakefield and The Newsreader.
Riley, who said she was leaving to seek new creative opportunities, said she was proud of her work as chair on the Bonner Committee on increasing the profile of First Nations people and content. In 2022 she was recognised by Screen Producers Australia as the inaugural recipient of the commissioner of the year award, and at the SPA conference on the Gold Coast this week she was given a round of applause from producers in her absence. Producer Todd Abbott later joked that without Sally Riley there might be downturn in producers coming to the ABC. “No Sal, no ABC”, Abbott said.
Wrong big boy
The Papua New Guinea Post-Courier has apologised for captioning a photograph of Scott Morrison “Australia prime minister Anthony Albanese” on its front page.
Under the headline “PNG Ready for Big Boys” the Port Moresby-based paper published a photo of the former Liberal prime minister alongside US president Joe Biden, Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, New Zealand prime minister Chris Hipkins and PNG’s James Marape.
“We regret the error and offer our sincerest apologies to Mr Morrison, Mr Albanese, PNG Prime Minister James Marape and PNG government, and our valued readers, for this error,” the Post-Courier said.
Without a Hichens
Viewers of 7.30 might recognise Clay Hichens as the grey-bearded chap who has cameos in Mark Humphries sketches. But his day job – for an incredible 30 years – has been “the glue that’s held the program together since it moved to a national format”.
The Liberals are doing plenty of soul searching after a by-election defeat, followed by high-level resignations over the decision to oppose the Voice to Parliament. To help with any further departures, @markhumphries and co-writer @evanwilliams have created a new service #abc730 pic.twitter.com/if0xG7OiVs
— abc730 (@abc730) April 13, 2023
On Thursday, 7.30 political editor Laura Tingle paid tribute to the veteran supervising producer who is signing off after three decades of working with hosts Kerry O’Brien, Leigh Sales and Sarah Ferguson.
Farewell to 7.30 supervising producer @ClayHichens, the glue that's held the program together since it moved to a national format almost 30 years ago. He will be greatly missed. Thank you Clay and we wish you the very best. #abc730 pic.twitter.com/3uMF6lAfan
— abc730 (@abc730) May 4, 2023
Toil and trouble
Theatre companies don’t usually respond to negative reviews but Bell Shakespeare chose to issue a public statement this week calling an Age review of Macbeth “cruel and unfair”.
The company said Age theatre critic Cameron Woodhead’s review was a personal attack on Logie-award winning Palestinian born actor Hazem Shammas.
Shammas starred in the International Emmy awardwinning SBS miniseries, Safe Harbour, for which he received an Aacta nomination and won a Logie Award for most outstanding supporting Actor.
“Cameron’s targeting of the actor Hazem Shammas was, in our view, belittling and contemptuous,” it said.
“The lampooning included language such as, ‘Monty Python’s Hospital for Over-Acting’, ‘By interval you half expect a nurse with chloroform to come in’, ‘Shammas leaves himself nowhere to turn that isn’t stalked by the inappropriate silhouette of the clown’, and so on.
“Whether it be the actor’s manner of vocal delivery, his physical appearance (“vein popping excess”) and even his restraint, all were held up for ridicule.”
Woodhead has been contacted for a response.
