Disclosure round-up Ah, the register of interest, that inconsistently and infrequently updated record of what our elected officials allow us to know about the gifts they receive, the investments they make and the events they’ve attended on other people’s money.
They are usually terse, sometimes impenetrably vague, sometimes flowing and generous, such as Nationals Senator Ross Cadell’s, and sometimes a mixture of candour and reticence, such as veteran Kennedy MP Bob Katter’s. Or they can be nearly silent: Labor’s Ed Husic, Emma McBride, Julie Collins, Brian Mitchell, Alicia Payne, Tracey Roberts, Marion Scrymgour, Michael Freelander, Milton Dick and crossbenchers Dai Le and Rebekha Sharkie have all left the register unchanged since late 2022.
We’ve had a little flurry of updates this past week. Liberal MP Paul Fletcher went to the Midwinter Ball as a guest of Foxtel, which you may remember benefited from $40 million in government funds, some of which was handed out when Fletcher was last communications minister. Ah, the Midwinter Ball — it’s not *just* journalists who use it to have a slightly icky chumminess with the people they’re supposed to hold to account.
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce announced he had bought stocks in Lynas Rare Earths, which, as our old friends at Open Politics pointed out, is good timing. Member for Flinders Zoe McKenzie appears to have booted her partner from her airport lounge memberships (or at least his is removed and hers is not).
As the Australian Financial Review noted, former resources minister Keith Pitt bought a bunch of resources stocks.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “surrendered” an artwork called “Awakening” by Amalia D.L Pellegrini, which must have been a bit of an insult, given he held on to the copy of Scott Morrison’s book he declared.
Keeping council In NSW, Liberals have begun eyeing council preselections — NSW party president and former state upper house MP Don Harwin recently messaged comrades to say there might be a chance to run for seats in Bayside, Burwood, Cumberland, George’s River, Kiama, Maitland, Parramatta, Penrith, Shoalhaven, Strathfield and the Sutherland Shire.
Harwin is seeking “expressions of interest” from party members who want to run for council positions in those places. It’s not certain contests will go ahead in all those local government areas. As Harwin wrote to fellow members, it will depend on the results of “a consultation process with MPs, councillors and other stakeholders”.
As usual, when it comes to NSW Liberal council politics, the most shenanigans are taking place in the Shire — it’s a “shit fight” there right now, one source said, as current, former and prospective council members try to work out the party ticket.
Harwin is said to want one of his former state parliamentary colleagues, Melanie Gibbons, to run for the Sutherland Shire Council. Gibbons apparently hasn’t put her hand up yet, but if she were to end up on the council, she would be working alongside her partner, Kent Johns, a long-time Liberal councillor and former mayor, who requested a leave of absence in March after a video emerged of him “dry humping the air and ridiculing a gay colleague”.
Harwin, we’re told, will have some leeway to put together his own tickets, but will need to submit them to the party’s state executive for a vote. “There’s a lot of games played at the moment,” one Liberal source said.
Other people who sources claim might be interested in running for the Shire Council include Matt Daniel, “a colourful property developer and Liberal party powerbroker in southern Sydney”; ex-Shire councillor Marie Simone, who failed to get preselected in 2021; and Meredith Briggs, wife of ScoMo ally and Cook federal election committee president Scott Briggs.
The election is September 14.
Spell cheque If the events of the past week are anything to go by, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for a few people in Canberra to examine their motivations and prejudices. So hats off to the Productivity Commission, which has put more than $30,000 into training its staff and leadership on unconscious bias. Or should we say “unconschious bias” — which is what the contract notice on AusTender calls it, not once, not twice, but THREE times:
Strong suit The suit guy is beefing on main with Aussies over cummerbunds, comparing Michael McCormack to Mitt Romney, and it’s all our fault. There’s a sentence you never thought you’d read.
Last week, Crikey brought you the best and worst of Australian politics’ night of nights, the Midwinter Ball, as rated by Twitter’s viral menswear guy, Put This On editor Derek Guy.
It was warmly received by you, our dear readers, but as always, Australian Twitter had to ruin our fun. Guy took to Twitter using a number of Australian politicians as examples of how waist coverings seem to be going out of vogue, and his use of McCormack and David Littleproud, as well as Anthony Albanese, sent Australians for a spin.
Policy analyst David Sligar remarked, “If Australian politicians wore waistcoats they would be ridiculed … for such olden days absurdity”, sparking a back-and-forth between the pair and a debate over whether politicians are deliberately daggy or simply naturally look like shit.
