My friends, my stack If you thought the latest batch of Administrative Appeals Tribunal stacks was going to be the last of it, think again — the Coalition has until this morning’s 19-gun salute to mark the start of the caretaker period to get a few more in, and it took advantage. So on the way out the door on Friday evening, Angus Taylor reappointed Steven Skala (who Josh Frydenberg described as his “close friend and counsel” in his maiden speech) as chair of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation for another five-year term, even though his current term doesn’t end until August.
Two other board members retired before their terms were up, and both have been replaced for five years by Taylor. One of the new appointees is Matt Howell, outgoing CEO of aluminium smelter Tomago Aluminium. An attempt by Taylor to maintain influence over the board for the next five years?
Olympic-level stacking Meanwhile, Andrew Liveris, another guy the government seems to have on speed dial, is heading the organising committee for the Brisbane 2032 Summer Olympic Games. Liveris was of course a “special advisor” on the COVID-19 commission and a chief spruiker of the gas-led recovery. To be fair, his work cheerleading for Donald Trump and his work with the Saudi government probably puts him in good stead to deal with the International Olympic Committee.
Not easy being Green Oh, Christ, are we only a day into the election campaign? Last week at the National Press Club, United Australia Party chairman, mining billionaire and agent of chaos Clive Palmer told the ABC’s Andrew Probyn he’d preference the Greens over Labor and the Liberals:
From my personal perspective I think I’ll put the Greens ahead of Liberal and Labor because they haven’t been in government and they haven’t been responsible for this debt. Like the ABC I’d be putting the Greens ahead of Liberal and Labor.
He’s now backtracked, putting out a statement saying it was “tongue in cheek“: “The comment has been taken wildly out of context and twisted by some media outlets. It is nothing more than fake news”, he said, of course. We wonder how many times Palmer will return to the “that thing you heard me say is actually fake news” well before the election.
On a Downer Shoutout to former immigration minister and our very own Boy Mulcaster Andrew Downer for finding ways to get even more, well, Downer about things in his column for The Australian Financial Review: hitting a peak combo of standard reactionary and standard entitled prig in assessing the flood of independents attacking the progressive flank of the Liberal Party, Downer concludes airily that the chief legacy of these (coincidentally largely female) candidates will be as a roadblock in the path of “great men”:
The one thing you can be 100% sure of is that none of these independents, if they get elected, will be anything more but ephemeral holders of seats that could otherwise produce great leaders.
Take Josh Frydenberg in Kooyong and Dave Sharma in Wentworth. These are people who could become truly great men. But if the independents defeat them those independents will be totally forgotten in 10 years’ time.
