NSW Governor Margaret Beazley. Government House is experiencing a high turnover of staff.LOUIE DOUVIS
But it seems life beneath the turrets of Government House is less charmed for some of the gubernatorial staff,four of whom have departed in just the last month. Quite the turnover,given there are about 30 full-time employees.
And given CBD last year that Beazley has gone through four personal assistants since she took on the job in 2019,after a glittering judicial career,we were left scratching our heads over what,exactly,might be going on there.
In 2021,the premier’s department investigated made against the governor,with a final report not stating whether they were found true or not. We’re not suggesting that those things are in any way linked.
Sadly,we’re left none the wiser about the whole thing,as Government House did not respond to CBD’s request for comment by deadline.
PARRA FOR PERROTTET
The NSW state election is,thankfully,well and truly behind us. But the Electoral Commission has only just finished processing the final donations made to political parties during that cursed period.
A few cheques which landed in the Liberal Party’s coffers ahead of the March poll caught CBD’s eye. Weeks out from the poll,the party received a $5000 donation from deep-pocketed financierSimon Fenwick,who’s the biggest bankroller of the campaign against an Indigenous Voice to parliament.
ClearlyDominic Perrottet’s professed support for the Voice didn’t turn Fenwick off the Liberals. When you’re wealthy enough to throw money at lost causes like conservative activist group Advance Australia,ideological purity can sometimes take a back seat.
Meanwhile,the Parramatta Eels became the latest NRL club to wade into the donations game,chipping in $990 to attend a fundraising dinner with now departed customer service ministerVictor Dominello and MPRay Williams.
As regular CBD readers might recall,Souths backed Labor with a $5000 donation at a dinner with Chris Minns and Anthony Albanese,while Roosters bossNick Politis gave $7000 to the Libs.
DOCO’S ORDERS
While the Albanese government is busy rolling out the red carpet to Indian PMNarendra Modi,his opponents are making a powerful statement against New Delhi’s Hindu supremacist autocratic turn ... by screening a movie in Parliament House on Wednesday.
Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John will be on panel duties along with a few progressive diaspora types,and his colleagueDavid Shoebridgewill also be in attendance. But somehow,we don’t think it’ll dent the patriotic ardour going down at Sydney’s Olympic Park,where Albo and Modi appeared before 20,000 people on Tuesday night.
Patriotic ardour:India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Sydney.Getty
To be fair,it isn’t just any old movie,but a highly sensitive BBC documentary entitledIndia:the Modi Question,which covers the now PM’s early career failure to stop a devastating anti-Muslim pogrom,and repression of protest under his prime ministership.
It was so sensitive that it triggered a full-blown dummy spit from Modi’s famously thin-skinned government,which tried to ban it in India and proceeded to raid BBC offices in Delhi and Mumbai.
And while such behaviour seems unbecoming of our partner in democracy,the Albanese government was reluctant to say very much about it.
UNFIT
F45,the Aussie fitness franchise chain that briefly became a global sensation,continues to flirt with rock bottom,and is now at risk of getting punted from the New York Stock Exchange.
It’s less than two years since the company listed – after growing from just one Sydney gym in 2012 to 2000 sites in 66 countries – in a glitzy ceremony fronted by Hollywood royaltyMark Wahlberg and Australian co-founderAdam Gilchrist (not the cricketer),who parted ways with the F45 last month.
Back then investors were willing to pay more than $US16 a share.
But the company has been notified by NYSE authorities that its current share price,of just 86 US cents,puts it in non-compliance of the exchange’s rules after trading below $US1 for more than 30 days,and that it has six months to put it right.
The warning comes just a month after the exchange gave F45 six months to get its corporate governance house in order and file its delayed annual financial report to the US Securities and Investments Commission,or face the boot.
In response,F45 told investors that it “intends to consider a number of available alternatives to cure its non-compliance”.
Sounds like the least it could do.
MILNER’S MOVES
Like any good former Labor apparatchik,ex-Bill Shorten chief of staffCameron Milner is now in the lobbying game.
Milner’s GXO Strategies has been on the official lobbyists register since only August,but has put together a bit of a clientele includingLindsay Fox’s trucking juggernaut Linfox and private health behemoth Ramsay.
Now,Milner has made a new hire,picking up former Victorian cabinet ministerMarlene Kairouz,a close associate of powerbroker Adem Somyurek,with whom she was involved in an industrial-scale branch-stacking operation.
Milner does a bit of scribbling on the side,with regular pieces inThe Australiantaking pot shots at Prime MinisterAnthony Albaneseand lavishing praise on TreasurerJim Chalmers.
We wondered whether Kairouz would also be headed to the op-ed pages,but she didn’t call us back.
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