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Cozzie livs was the word of the year in 2023, but you might not hear it from any of CBD’s stable of regulars whose taxpayer-funded travel, lavish corporate largesse, swank soirées, and Euro summer jaunts have kept us busy throughout the year.
Maybe it was the state of the economy, or the many Senate hearings exposing the rot and hypocrisy at some of our biggest institutions, but these past 12 months it felt like we saw more than usual of the great and good’s dirty laundry aired in public.
2023: And what a year it’s been. Thanks, readers.Credit: Shakespeare
Exhibit A: Qantas, the national carrier which continued to soil its reputation so badly – what with the illegal mass sackings and selling tickets for cancelled flights – that former boss Alan Joyce fled two months early. We’ve not heard from him since.
Questions mounted about whether giving politicians, corporate titans, even heads of Canberra departments access to the uber-exclusive Chairman’s Lounge was some sort of attempted bribery. Greenies tore up their lounge memberships in disgust. Most pollies stayed. Only Alan Jones got kicked out, only for Joyce to personally intervene to readmit the shock jock.
Former Qantas boss Alan Joyce.Credit: Bloomberg
Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank almost out-did Qantas in the outrage stakes, sacrificing suburban battlers to the inflation gods, and replacing governor Phil Lowe with the equally tone-deaf in Michele Bullock.
Maybe the writing was on the wall for Lowe after we reported in June that he’d taken to the stage of a summit held by investment bank Morgan Stanley with the speakers blasting out Justin Timberlake’s jaunty 2016 earworm Can’t Stop the Feeling!
Y’know, the one that goes “got that sunshine in my pocket …”
We still don’t know whose idea that track was, but we swear we didn’t send the film crew from A Current Affair to bail Lowe up – sorry – outside the Reserve Bank’s Sydney HQ over the song choice.
The political year started with a feeling that Anthony Albanese’s honeymoon with the voters might last forever. Jim Chalmers’ delivery of a first budget surplus in 15 years sure helped.
But after racking up frequent-flyer points, getting on the Time 100 list and repeatedly sucking-up to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Airbus Albo came crashing to earth in the second half of 2023.
The prime minister staked much on the Indigenous Voice to parliament referendum. But then Opposition Leader Peter Dutton went into full terminator mode, the internet trolls at Advance spread their merry lies, and the natural Australian inclination to oppose anything new did the rest.
And let’s not forget Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, the rookie Country Liberal senator from the Northern Territory, whose leading role in the No campaign had some naive conservatives giving her the “future prime minister” tag.
With her penchant for taxpayer-funded business class travel, she’s certainly flying like one, and it helps having Gina Rinehart as a friend.
On the sporting front, the best Ashes series since 2005 was only made better by a historic display of English sookery, lapped up by dozens of Australian pollies who showed up at Lords.
Matildas fans outside Optus Stadium in Perth.Credit: Getty
We were all swept up in Matildas mania, because with respect to other “codes”, we’re a football country now. All except former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce, who somehow managed to watch the wrong Australia v France game. We don’t know how he does it either.
Other ghosts from past Coalition governments continued to haunt these pages.
Scott Morrison still won’t quit parliament, fancying himself these days as a sober foreign affairs wonk, even travelling to Israel with Boris Johnson.
Christian Porter (remember him?) had a nice Byron Bay wedding and is living a mostly uneventful life as a Perth barrister.
Former Australian prime minister Scott Morrison and former UK prime minister Boris Johnson during their visit to Israel.Credit: Bloomberg
Tony Abbott is threatening to write another of his books, working title “Peak Insanity”, but it’s not about his zany two years in The Lodge, sadly.
The ABC developed quite the ruthless streak this year, as bosses swung the axe like they were in a horror movie at anyone deemed to have outlived their usefulness.
Political editor Andrew Probyn’s forced redundancy in June left the press gallery stalwart “pretty flabbergasted” – he’s since joined Nine, the publisher of this masthead – and former Howard-era minister Amanda Vanstone’s Counterpoint got the chop from Radio National amid a big shake-up of that station’s line-up because it has “not seen strong engagement amongst digital listeners”.
But the Ultimo hierarchy saved its most savage blow until the end of the year, making legendary Triple J musical director Richard Kingsmill redundant this week and trying to gloss over the reality of the veteran announcer’s departure with a lengthy hero-gram.
Staff at the youth network were appalled, and judging by the audience engagement with CBD’s coverage of Kingsmill’s demise, so were our readers.
Speaking of big decisions by Aunty’s brains trust, the $150,000 settlement with former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann, who was suing the ABC, News Corp and Channel 10 over the sexual assault allegations by his former colleague Brittany Higgins, must be getting another look in the Ultimo executive suite after Lehrmann’s less-than-stellar showing in the witness box as his case against 10 plays out in the Federal Court.
It would be remiss of us not to mention the retirement of nonagenarian patriarch Rupert Murdoch on a $220 million golden parachute, handing the News empire to his failed litigant son Lachlan Murdoch in a far less bloody succession than the fictional one in that HBO show.
No media outlet showered itself in disgrace like Kerry Stokes’ Seven. First there was Stokes bankrolling war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith’s failed defamation case against this masthead. The cult-like belief in BRS is so strong it led a group of Seven journalists to stage a sit-in at the Walkleys.
To top it off, the network was revealed to have paid Bruce Lehrmann’s rent for a full year – $4000 a week for harbour views no less – after lying about it for months.
BRS aside, the year brought plenty of defamation intrigue. ABC personality Julian Morrow lost his epic four-year legal battle with a former business partner who had dubbed the Chaser star “Voldemort”. His barrister Sue Chrysanthou copped another loss when she got reprimanded for unsatisfactory professional conduct for her decision to act for Porter in his failed defamation case.
Having a nightmare before Christmas is threatening to become an annual tradition for the telecoms giant Optus.
Last year, the company had to explain how the private data of millions of its Australia customers was purloined by online crims, and this year, well it all got too much for CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin, who resigned after weeks of pressure over a network-wide outage that left millions of us unable to cope without our phones and Wi-Fi.
The company, once famed for its wild seasonal celebrations – strippers and everything – told us that they’ll be keeping things low-key this year. Again.
The scandal that engulfed consulting giant PwC after it used confidential ATO information to help its client avoid giving money to the, um, ATO, kept us busy for much of the year.
Our favourite moment came when Labor senator Deb O’Neill, who has gained some mileage from this matter through her Senate committee, was grilling former PwC chief – and Carlton footy club president – Luke Sayers.
O’Neill conceded that she didn’t watch much football after asking Sayers if it was Carlton’s bitterest rivals Collingwood he was “associated with”. Premiership gold!
The man CBD readers really couldn’t get enough of this year was home-grown Hollywood heavyweight Russell Crowe.
When we revealed in February that the Gladiator star and his partner Britney Theriot fell foul of the tough door policy at Chapel Street fusion joint Mr Miyagi after the pair rocked up for lunch – on a 37-degree stinker, in fairness – in their tennis gear, the piece set CBD box office records.
Maybe everyone was taken with Crowe’s reaction. The actor – who’s had a reputation for temperament in the past – took the rejection calmly, decamping to another eatery for lunch and came to an amicable understanding with Miyagi’s owners.
Curiously, CBD’s interest in former premier Daniel Andrews peaked a little after he’d resigned from the top job.
First, there was the frenzy of speculation about what was next for the big man after he was sighted disembarking at New York’s JFK airport, and then came the furore over where Andrews might indulge his golf mania now that he has a bit more time to swing a club.
Melbourne’s US-owned tabloid ran hot with the story that members at the Mornington Peninsula’s Portsea Golf Club were up in arms about a potential application from Andrews to join – even though he hadn’t actually applied to join.
After a bit of back and forth, the affair blew over with the former premier having one of the final words to JOY Media this month, in typical Andrews style. “Bullshit,” is how he described the saga.
Daniel Andrews playing golf during his days as opposition leader.Credit: Justin McManus
But CBD’s soft spot this year is for the Mornington Yacht Club, which weathered an internal mutiny by female members appalled by some of the lewd names chosen by male boat owners for their vessels.
Despite changes to the names of several boats – “Screaming Seamen”, was never going to last – and the introduction by the club of a new code of conduct to regulate such matters, the 26-footer “Himalayan Women” – hilarious – somehow manages to sail on.
So before saying bon voyage for the year, a note of thanks, dear reader, and to all the naughty boys and girls who leaked us things they shouldn’t. You know who you are and we’ll see you next year.
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