Having a ball:Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton will both host tables.Shakespeare
It’s an important question,after all,and CBD’s memory is long enough to recall former Liberal MP Sophie Mirabella being seated next toJulia Gillard’s then chief of staff, Ben Hubbard. What a priceless opportunity that was for both to practice their small talk.
But this year there’s been a leak of the draft seating plan. And the source was none other than the prime minister’s office,where a staffer placed the draft plan on a shared hard drive. Of course it was promptly discovered by several other members of the PMO and some of the details were then on-shared with members of the fourth estate and beyond. Oopsie!
Our favourite typo in the draft plan? None other thanThe Australian’s Editor-in-ChiefChris Dorebeing assigned to sit on a PWC-sponsored table full of ABC journalists. The error has regrettably been corrected.
On the VIP tables,PMAnthony Albanese and his partner Jodie Haydon will be joined by Senate presidentSue Lines,Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia Vasyl Myroshnychenko and his wifeLiana and a number of other guests. On the other VIP table,it’s Liberal leaderPeter Dutton, his wifeKirilly along with Nats’ leaderDavid Littleproud and partnerAmelia Dobson.
Parliament House’s big night hasn’t gone ahead since 2019,which was a whole other world. We were reminded of the Qantas table at that do,where Alan Joyce (who won’t be at tonight’s event) and company played host to British pollieLiz Truss.Truss has,of course,just been sworn in as the country’s new prime minister.
There’s a serious side to the annual knees-up,too – it’s a – and this year auction items include a hit of tennis with the PM,dinner withPenny Wong and Tanya Plibersek or a night at the cricket with Dutton.
Nuclear Lights
You’d think that an Extinction Rebellion activist wouldn’t be seen dead at the Australian spin-off of the Conservative Political Action Conference next month,unless they were there to protest outside.
But the chairman of CPAC’s Australian branchWarren Mundine is positively crowing about the planned presence ofZion Lights in Sydney.
CPAC describes Lights as “Co-Founder of the climate activism group Emergency Reactor. She was former UK spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion,and Editor of their print newspaper;The Hourglass.”
True,but that kind of glosses over the acrimony between Lights and her former XR colleagues,who publicly accused her in 2020 of waging “a deliberate PR campaign to discredit Extinction Rebellion”.
XR also says Lights left their group to go and work for pro-nuclear energy lobby group Environmental Progress run byMichael Shellenberger, who will also appear at CPAC in Sydney and whose piece inThe Australian a couple of years ago bemoaning the “climate scare” sent local greenies into meltdown.
Nowadays Lights heads up her own group,Emergency Reactor,lobbying for nuclear power as the antidote to the world’s energy woes. It’s a cause close to Mundine’s heart. Just ask him.
So attendees at CPAC’s gathering,the location of which remains secret,won’t be getting to see a climate zealot up on stage after all. But by checking out some of Lights’ many appearances in the conservative media (Daily Mail,Sky News,Herald-Sun and others) they could have figured that out for themselves.
‘Country clothing’ label causes a stir
A NSW budget estimates hearing had a tense start on Tuesday morning as the opposition and regional health minister argued over whether it was offensive to describe someone as wearing “country clothing”.
Addressing Regional Health MinisterBronnie Taylor,Labor memberGreg Donnelly asked why NSW Health had put out a final report on its rural health plan – delivered after (although not in response to) the 11-month-long inquiry into neglect and malpractice in the state’s stretched regional hospitals – filled with pictures of happy country folk,ambling through fields,riding tractors and beaming through poorly subsidised Telehealth appointments.
“Every photo in there of happy,smiling country people,and almost exclusively good news about health in the bush,” Donnelly remarked.
But it was not the allegations that the report had ignored the evidence of the inquiry which caused a stir. Rather,Taylor took offence that Donnelly had suggested the photographs featured people wearing “country clothing”.
“Sorry,could you just clarify what you meant by country clothing?” she asked.
“Clothing people wear in the bush,” Donnelly said.
“And what would that be?” the Nationals deputy leader replied,later adding she found Donnelly’s implication that country people dressed a certain way “really quite offensive,as a country person”.
But were all of the gleeful field amblers pictured in the report even proud users of NSW’s regional health services? Highly unlikely. A reverse image search of some of the pictures of those smiling,happy,culturally diverse country folk reveals they were pulled from Canadian stock image service,iStock.
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