Those modern young things at the Australian Republic Movement began casting their ballots on Monday to elect a new governing committee to try to jolt some life back into the constitutional debate after the recent changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. So, no pressure, guys.
But electoral nerds are scratching their heads at the movement’s decision to persist with the slightly archaic multiple non-transferable vote system — or block voting — abandoned for Australian public election generations ago, but still in use by clubs, societies and the like.
Former Liberal member for Mackellar Jason Falinski.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
To cut out the boring bits, this type of vote allows like-minded groups to get themselves organised to dominate an election, unlike a proportional representation model where unaligned players or smaller groups might get a sniff of some of the 10 committee spots up for grabs.
The net result is that the highest-profile capital L Liberal contesting the election — former federal MP Jason Falinski — is likely running a losing race because he doesn’t have a crew around him to help snare those crucial block votes.
By contrast, a loose grouping of former Socceroo and refugee rights campaigner Craig Foster, Thom Woodroofe, who works for Kevin Rudd at the Asia Society, former Andrews Labor government adviser Tully Fletcher, Climate 200 executive director Byron Fay, anti-violence campaigner Tarang Chawla, departing Netball Australia chair Marina Go, former Labor senator Nova Peris, and former Multicultural NSW chair Vic Alhadeff, is looking good to emerge as the dominant force on the committee.
An impressive group, no doubt, but where’s the ability to get the conservatives on board for some much-needed bi-partisanship?
We sent questions to the ARM’s returning officer on Monday, but they did not respond and Falinski could not be reached for comment.
HOME-A-LOAN
CBD recently brought word about woes at video tech outfit Atomos, which has grappled with a tanking share price, millions in pre-tax losses, and a wrongful termination lawsuit brought by dumped chief executive Estelle McGechie.
McGechie claims she was fired because of her willingness “to speak up about rampant illegal conduct at Atomos”. The company, meanwhile, says her termination was due to the Silicon Valley-based executive’s refusal to move to Melbourne, where Atomos is based.
But McGechie’s lawyers have what they say is a smoking gun — a $365,000 loan from the company wired through in March this year to help their former chief executive put down a deposit for a house in Melbourne, which landed in her accounts just a month before she was terminated.
″Atomos claims it terminated Ms McGechie ‘because she has not yet relocated to Australia.’ Atomos’ claim is belied by its conduct in advancing a home loan deposit only a month prior,” McGechie said via her American lawyers.
In response, an Atomos spokesperson maintained that in spite of the loan, McGechie was fired because she hadn’t moved by the agreed timeframe of January 2022, as stipulated in her employment contract.
“Ms McGechie’s move to Australia by the agreed date was postponed several times, sometimes for reasons that were unclear to Atomos,” the company said.
″Primarily it was Ms McGechie’s failure to relocate to Melbourne from the US, a condition of her employment contract, that led to her being removed as CEO in April.”
The company has since launched legal proceedings in the Victorian Supreme Court to recoup that loan, action which McGechie’s lawyers say added to their client’s distress.
It looks like there’s plenty of messy litigation to come, which isn’t great for a company whose chair, Christopher Tait, recently apologised to shareholders for a “succession of bad news”.
SPEAKERS CORNER
Former prime minister Scott Morrison is using the freedom of the backbench to dip his toes into the international speakers circuit. After skipping the first sittings of the 47th Parliament to address a conference in Tokyo, Morrison has been officially unveiled as an “exclusive” get for the Worldwide Speakers Group, a US-based agency that links global talent with interested parties.
Credit:Shakespeare
And what talent it is. WWSG’s stable includes former US vice president Mike Pence, ex-Republican speaker Newt Gingrich, Donald Trump’s attorney-general Jeff Sessions who had a typically bombastic relationship with his former boss, conservative provocatuer Tomi Lahren, pro-empire historian Niall Ferguson and his wife, Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
It’s not just leftie-baiters though. WWSG also represents NBA icon and vocal progressive Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, Watergate excavator Carl Bernstein and 2000s-era sex symbol Jessica Alba.
While Morrison’s fees aren’t disclosed, Bernstein charges $30,000-$40,000 a gig, so WWSG’s talent doesn’t come cheap!
Morrison has a very puffy bio, in which the former PM is described as “a globalisation mastermind,” who “shares his boundless influence and experiences to audiences around the world”.
That boundless experience is detailed in a very long list of topics Scomo is ready to opine on, including the ”marginalisation of faith and Christianity [and] perils of identity politics”.
“Prime Minister Morrison is extremely adept at understanding the future of globalism, including threats to the rules-based international order, the role of UN and other multilateral institutions,” the CV-like blurb reads.
It’s quite an about-face for a bloke who once warned the United Nations about the perils of “negative globalism”.
And while that all reads like it was created by a Scott Morrison AI-generator, CBD understands it was WWSG, not the former PM, who put together the hype track.
BLUE MURDER
The state election campaign passed an important milestone on Monday morning: the first apology from an obscure candidate who got suddenly famous after saying something wrong, offensive, dumb — or all three.
Hairdresser Michael Piastrino is the Liberal in a crowded field of challengers to Premier Dan Andrews in his seat of Mulgrave, and somebody thought it would be a good idea for Piastrino to perform a piece to camera with “freedom” activist Rukshan Fernando.
Anti-lockdown activist Rukshan Fernando and Liberal candidate for Mulgrave, Michael Piastrino.
Piastrino declared that an incoming Liberal government would get rid of “all the dodgy policies that Daniel Andrews has put through, and he will be brought to justice for the murder of 800 people”.
Well, that’s one way to get yourself noticed. Unfortunately for the candidate, Liberal Party bosses were paying attention too, and it took only until a little after 9.30 for campaign HQ to tweet out the apology.
“I wish to apologise for the inappropriate language I used in an interview over the weekend,” Piastrino’s statement read.
It is then customary for the offending material to be scrubbed from the social media feeds and various other records.
Trouble is, the party doesn’t control Fernando’s socials, where the video was still doing brisk business on Monday despite — or perhaps because of — the apology.
And the bad news for embattled Liberal state director Sam McQuestin is that the footage is here to stay.
“If anyone were to ask me to remove anything, I would not. I have a policy of not removing anything I put up,” Fernando told CBD.
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.
Most Viewed in National
From our partners
Source: Read Full Article
