The United Australia Party leader and former Hughes MP says he’s received several penalty notices from Parramatta Council regarding election posters put up in the area.
Kelly is furious but,to be fair,he’s done quite a bit to irritate much of the population of Australia.
This is the man who spent months bombarding the public with annoying unsolicited texts. His face appeared in millions of YouTube ads and billboards across the country,many of which claimed he would be Australia’s next prime minister. Kelly is,instead,unemployed.
Perhaps someone in the council,which didn’t respond to CBD’s request for a comment,is having a laugh.
Craig Kelly in council strife.John Shakespeare
But Kelly is not amused. He told CBD he’d been personally sent 44 fines,totalling $14,250. The UAP received a further 86 council fines.
“They’re not my signs! They’re not authorised by me,” Kelly said of the corflutes,which displayed the face of the party’s Parramatta candidateJulian Fayad.
“To me it’s a gross misuse of the council’s powers,a malicious issuing of fines.”
While it’s a pretty large bill,especially now Kelly has lost his $211,250 a year backbench salary,surely UAP moneybagsClive Palmer could chip in?
Not a chance. Kelly has already got the party’s Queensland-based lawyers involved,planning to appeal against each infringement in court,and to pursue the council “for costs”.
“To me,it’s a matter of principle,” he said.
“To issue fines during an election period,that’s pretty red hot.”
Butler leads staffing draft
Competition is heating up among Labor’s incoming ministers scrapping for experienced hands,and it looks likeMark Butler (Health and Ageing) has snagged himself a couple of handy hires.
Butler’s office won’t confirm anything,but we’re toldNick Martin, a former Labor assistant secretary who’s spent much of the party’s nine wilderness years working at theFred Hollows Foundation in Sydney,will be his chief of staff.
Martin was formerly married toSabina Husic,spin mastermind for Victorian PremierDaniel Andrews and sister of new science and industry minister Ed Husic.
Also said to be signing for team Butler isCaroline Turnour,federal health department director and a senior adviser toTanya Plibersek when she was health minister.
Turnour is the sister of former Labor MP for LeichhardtJim Turnour,who was part of the “Ruddslide” class of 2007 and who in his maiden speech played tribute to Caroline as “the greatest influence on my political career”.
Jim hardly set the political world on fire,getting flogged in 2010 by LiberalWarren Entsch.
But it was a nice moment all the same.
Hunting for renovations
Departing AGL chief executiveGraeme Hunt has been having a torrid time at work lately and is expected to leave the energy behemoth,along with three fellow directors,after a determined takeover targeting by tech-bro billionaireMike Cannon-Brookes torpedoed a demerger of the company,a plan Hunt helped mastermind.
But now he’s got strife on the home front too.
Keen to move into adjoining terraces in upmarket Windsor,Melbourne,bought by his wifeKaren Hunt for $4.9 million in 2019,the couple got renovating.
Nothing too flash,just a large brick wall out the back,replacing a window with a door and the like.
But when the work came to the attention of Stonnington Council,the Hunts were advised they would have to seek planning permission for alterations to the heritage homes.
The Hunts hired specialistSimon Martin of Fulcrum Planning to secure retrospective permits,arguing the work was nothing major,much of it isn’t even visible from the street and it won’t affect the heritage values of the properties.
Hunt told CBD through official AGL channels “a process is in place and well advanced to ensure all appropriate planning requirements are met”.
Stonnington tells us the application is being assessed in the usual way. But the question of building permits could get tricky. Fulcrum says the works were not worth more than the $10,000 threshold for jobs requiring a permit.
Let’s hope so,because they can’t be issued retrospectively and the council sounds like it won’t be messing around.
“If it is known to council that there has been illegal works or a breach,then the council through the[Municipal Building Surveyor] has the powers to enforce theBuilding Act and could also bring proceedings for offences,” a spokesperson said.
Jacenko senior hits Vaucluse
Meanwhile,in the Hollywood end of the eastern suburbs,Doreen Davis-Jacenko,mother of PR maven and Sydney personality designerRoxy Jacenko, has won approval from Woollahra Council for a $7.7 million demolition and rebuild.
Davis-Jacenko plans to turn a Village Road,Vaucluse,cottage bought for $5 million in late 2020,into one of those characterless neo-modernist monstrosities so beloved by the moneyed class,replete with swimming pool. At least she’s retaining the Jacaranda tree!
The cost of that renovation job,just across the road from Roxy,is a drop in the ocean for the elder Jacenko. Last year,she finalised a bitter,near decade-long divorce fromNick Jacenko,which culminated in the sale of about $78 million worth of property.
With money like that,surely you could afford a nicer-looking joint.
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