OVERNIGHT SUCCESS
Victoria’s Deputy Premier Jacinta Allan will probably be chosen as the state’s next leader when 70 Labor MPs meet today before Daniel Andrews hangs up his hat at 5pm sharp. Andrews says his wandering mind about life outside politics made him realise it was time to go — on Sky News Peta Credlin dearly wished he’d been booted, but the longest-serving Labor premier actually won three elections during nine years (13 at the helm of Labor). Would ghosting the Commonwealth Games have spelt his demise at the next election, or perhaps the quick ciggie he smoked a few days back? I guess we’ll never know. Known as the “activist premier”, Michael West Media says, Andrews revolutionised infrastructure (such as the metro rail link and suburban rail loop, giving Transport Minister Ben Carroll a decent shot at leadership too, as the ABC adds). Andrews also forged ahead with the Safe Schools program, voluntary assisted dying legislation, and a Treaty with Indigenous Victorians.
The First Peoples’ Assembly waved him off yesterday, National Indigenous Times reports, saying their mob will always remember Andrews’ willingness for the shared journey of Treaty. The departing premier knows “we always get better outcomes when Aboriginal people have the ability to make the decisions that affect Aboriginal people”, co-chair Ngarra Murray said. Meanwhile the Herald Sun has laid off 40,000 journalists employed to find new and colourful ways to criticise Andrews, The Shovel reports with a twinkle in its eye. The satirical paper says the Dan Andrews division produced up to “11,000 stories a day” with sub-department “The Dan Andrews Mornington Peninsula Staircase Investigative Division” in the firing line. Today’s top story on the Herald Sun ($) (as of 5.04am) was “The fatal mistake that unleashed Dan’s ruthless reign” — it turned out to be Labor’s decision to give leadership to Andrews instead of Tim Holding. It’s not clear why the record reign was fatal for Labor.
DROP KICKS
Football Australia considered selling the Matildas, Socceroos and A-Leagues to a private equity firm or sports marketing group for 99 years, Guardian Australia reports, in what it dubs an “unprecedented privatisation of football in Australia”. The idea was for FA and the Australian Professional Leagues to get a majority stake and a minor stake to go to an investor. It would’ve seen broadcast rights, sponsorship assets, merchandise and ticketing, youth leagues, e-sport leagues and data all go private. The proposal was pretty far along, the paper says, but data proved an obstacle. Meanwhile Brisbane is the sports capital of Australia… according to Brisbane — and an international index that described Brisbane as Australia’s top-ranking sporting city, Brisbane Times ($) adds. Just look at the line-up ahead: Lions vs Collingwood in the AFL grand final, Roar vs Sydney FC in the Australia Cup final, and Broncos vs Penrith Panthers in the NRL grand final (it should’ve been the Newy Knights, but I digress).
Sunday’s NRL grand final is set to be played in the hottest weather ever, Guardian Australia reports, with an extra 6,000 bottles of water and 20,000 cups of beer ordered. The Bureau of Meteorology’s temperature forecast for Olympic Park on Sunday was 36 degrees. Speaking of our rapidly changing climate, we need more sparkies to work on the transition to renewable energy, the Electrical Trades Union said via The Age ($). Let’s beef up targeted skilled migration and training services, the National Electrical and Communications Association said. But it seems the NSW government has its hands full — NSW Nationals Deputy Leader Bronnie Taylor lodged a complaint after Premier Chris Minns named and shamed her as asking for a $22,000 a year pay rise, the SMH ($) reports. Taylor, the former minister for women, says it shows Minns is a hypocrite for claiming to support women, but Labor’s Penny Sharpe said it wasn’t sexism, just the rules for political office holder pay.
BISHOP ZOOMS IN
Former federal speaker Bronwyn Bishop, who once billed us $5,227 for a helicopter ride to a Liberal fundraiser, will reveal “how Australians are being sacrificed in the name of net zero” and ‘‘why they want fewer people on the planet and don’t care how they die”, the SMH ($) reports. She’s speaking at doomsday event called The Economic House of Cards hosted by former Hillsong minister Pat Mesiti who the paper recalls was kicked out for hiring sex workers. To someone else with their head in the clouds, and former Qantas boss Alan Joyce will not appear before the Senate select committee into the federal government’s decision to bar more flights from Qatar Airways, the SMH ($) reports. He quickly left the country after he quit and Senator Bridget McKenzie says he cannot accommodate the request to explain his role in person or by video link. Why? No internet on your luxury tropical island?
Qantas chairman Richard Goyder and new chief executive Vanessa Hudson will be there today, the AFR ($) reports, along with Qatar’s corporate affairs boss Fathi Atti. Shareholders are calling for Goyder’s head, the ABC reports, despite his assurance last week that he had their support. “We think it’s time for Goyder to step down,” the Australian Shareholders’ Association boss Rachel Waterhouse said. He’s overseen “the ACCC’s legal action over ghost flights, a High Court ruling over illegally sacked workers, and the fallout from the airline’s final [$21.4 million] payout to former CEO Alan Joyce”, she lists. Meanwhile in related news, Australia’s wealthiest 20% are worth 90 times the country’s poorest, a new report via Guardian Australia reveals, thanks to superannuation and property investment. In 2019, “The wealthiest 5% were worth an average of $6.7 million [each], holding one-third of the country’s wealth,” the paper notes.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
Perusing the swish Upper East Side of New York City on Google Maps, the discerning diner might notice a small steak restaurant boasting a near-perfect rating. Some 91 reviews positively gush about the joint — the “best steak I ever had in NY” one declares, another that the chef is a “genius-god among men”. Call the number to get a reservation, however, and a snooty voicemail practically tells you not to bother — Mehran’s Steak House is fully booked for months, as The New York Times ($) tells it. For rich New Yorkers who would never belong to a club that would have them, the allure of the enigmatic restaurant was palpable. Actually, it’s just the four-bedroom share home of no fewer than 16 young whippersnappers working in tech — among them Mehran Jalali. He cooks the absolute yummiest steaks, his roomies reckon, so one of them renamed the address. Friends left hordes of reviews, and the legend was born.
The phone started ring off the hook, so like all good tech-heads they built a website to capture email addresses and phone numbers. What the heck, they figured — let’s just open for one night. Some 150 of more than 900 wait-listers were invited, and the group had a hot chef taste and critique their four-course menu. They asked 60 friends to help on the evening, some coming from as far as Canada, though almost no-one with hospitality experience. A group was hired to stand outside and cheer for rapper Drake (he wasn’t inside) and there was even a staged marriage proposal mid-service. Most diners caught on — the sommelier didn’t quite know how to take a cork out of a wine bottle — but it was definitely a memorable night, and many did praise the steak. One woman told the paper she quickly realised it was the “punchline of some online joke between a bunch of friends” but she wasn’t worried. “I’ve spent more on less. It got us out of the neighbourhood.”
Hoping you pull something off today too.
SAY WHAT?
I don’t think a lot about Mr Dutton really, but I will just say this: it’s great to see him in Melbourne. I’m sure he needed a map to find us and I do hope he felt safe, given he’s had some choice, ill-informed, quite idiotic commentary about Melbourne over the years actually.
Daniel Andrews
The departing Victorian premier was probably referencing repeated 2018 comments from the opposition leader that people were afraid to go for dinner because of “African gang violence” in Melbourne, a sentiment the then-chief commissioner of Victoria Police Graham Ashton called “complete and utter garbage”.
CRIKEY RECAP
“Pezzullo demonstrably hates scrutiny and accountability. He has railed at the auditor-general when the Australian National Audit Office revealed bungling in his department. He attempted to silence then-senator Rex Patrick after the latter criticised Home Affairs. He has described the media as ‘bottom feeders’.
“And he lobbied to impose a censorship regime on journalists after then-News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst deeply embarrassed him by exposing his plan to allow the Australian Signals Directorate to spy on Australians. The Coalition government responded by sending AFP goons to raid and search Smethurst’s apartment.”
“In short, while nothing would make the senator say Yes, there were conditions under which she would stop campaigning for No. ‘I haven’t actually run a No campaign, I’m only responding to media,’ Thorpe told Crikey. ‘But I can run a No camp.
“I can come out very strong and I will until [the government] promises or it shows with evidence that it is prepared to implement those recommendations [from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody and the Bringing Them Home report] and pass the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.” Thorpe said she’d been in discussions with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for the past few weeks and would happily keep quiet if the government did come to the table.”
“Briggs owns a multimillion-dollar waterside mansion in the Sutherland Shire’s Yowie Bay and is married to former Young Liberal Meredith Briggs. He has also worked for Rupert Murdoch at Foxtel, and for James Packer, whose company Ellerston Capital was an investor in Briggs’ greatest gambit (so far) …
“The Australian Visa Processing (AVP) consortium that tried — and eventually failed — to provide a $1 billion outsourced operation for the Australian government’s visa processing operations while Pezzullo was running Home Affairs. None of the messages obtained by Nine newspapers related to that contract.”
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Russia’s Navalny loses appeal against 19-year jail term (Al Jazeera)
Russian Black Sea commander shown on video call after Ukraine said it killed him (Reuters)
‘An extreme record-breaking year’: Scientists see impact of climate change on Antarctic sea ice (euronews)
[Democratic presidential hopeful] Robert F Kennedy Jr expresses scepticism at official 9/11 account (The Guardian)
THE COMMENTARIAT
My grandfather Malcolm Fraser would have found ‘If you don’t know, vote No’ abhorrent — Samantha Marshall (The Age) ($): “First and foremost, Malcolm Fraser was someone who always sought expert advice on the issue of the day. In this case, that would have been from constitutional experts as well as the Indigenous community. Constitutional lawyers have given the Voice the tick of approval and say it will not delay or disrupt government decision-making or the day-to-day operations of Parliament. Polls also show that the vast majority of Indigenous Australians support the Voice, which has been developed over years of consultation.
“The Yes campaign has assembled a constitutional expert panel, a First Nations Referendum Engagement Group and First Nations Referendum Working Group. Collectively, these groups include professors, a former High Court justice, policy experts, community leaders and Indigenous elders. By comparison, it’s difficult to find anyone with relevant and equivalent expertise in the No campaign. Being driven largely by the Liberal Party, the No campaign appears to be rooted in fearmongering and sowing doubt rather than providing evidence and solid examples of why not to support the Voice.”
‘Dictator Dan’ paradox will haunt us for decades — Peter van Onselen (The Australian) ($): “He certainly resented media scrutiny during his time in the job, refusing to appear on state radio programs — even the usually supportive ABC — that he felt were unfairly critical and asked difficult questions without notice. But his testy relationship with the media predated the pandemic. Allegations of branch stacking and abuse of electoral entitlements against members of his government never seemed to dent his popularity. The political success of Andrews would seem in part a consequence of the smaller amount of attention paid to state politics in the modern era, which enabled him to treat the media with a dismissive contempt that is harder to do federally.
“Andrews has been able to sidestep controversies time and again, including state corruption watchdog and ombudsman investigations. For years his government benefited from the secrecy of Victoria’s Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission when conducting investigations. This stands in sharp contrast to the way the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption operates, holding public inquiries. While there have been adverse findings against his state Labor colleagues — including a 2018 ombudsman report into misuse of electoral entitlements dating back to 2014, dubbed the ‘red shirts’ scheme — the premier hasn’t been personally implicated.”
HOLD THE FRONT PAGE
WHAT’S ON TODAY
Online
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Author Micheline Lee will talk about her new Quarterly Essay, Lifeboat, in a webinar held by the Australia Institute.
Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)
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Indigenous leader Noel Pearson will address the National Press Club.
Yuggera and Turrbal Country (also known as Brisbane)
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The Lowy Institute’s Sam Roggeveen will talk about his new book, The Echidna Strategy: Australia’s Search for Power and Peace, at Avid Reader bookshop.
