But one current member CBD spoke to was quick to remind us that the club’s not just a CBD tabernacle of testosterone.
“It is not as though you go there and it’s only men,” he said.
The official rules say women are “welcome” to use certain floors of the club, with some caveats.
“The First-Floor is limited to Members, gentlemen guests and male Reciprocal Club Members until 5pm.”
Whoever said the club wasn’t modern?
The palatial homes of Gareth Ward
Houses owned by a former NSW government minister turned rapist don’t hit the market very often. But over a month after it was first listed, convicted criminal Gareth Ward’s four-bedroom South Coast pile is proving tricky to move.
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The home in Meroo Meadow has two bathrooms, a “grand facade” and “palatial floorplan”, as well as a $1.3 million price tag. That’s more than double the $450,000 Ward paid for the property in 2011.
The convicted rapist chose Integrity Real Estate to sell the property – of course – and they described the home as “a true pleasure to present to the market”.
Experienced real estate agent Bianca McMillan has the icky listing. But she was surprisingly cheery and upbeat when this column called to ask how the sale of the rapist’s house was proceeding. “It’s been going,” McMillan was happy to disclose. “I’ve been given instructions to not comment, so that’s all I have to say.”
Fair enough.
In real estate parlance, Ward’s current residence might be described as being on much grander scale: Hunter Correctional Centre near Cessnock, with capacity to house 400 inmates. Activities on offer include textiles and upholstery, we’re told, as well as a resistance gym, complete with a chin-up bar. And if exercise is not your thing, we’re told there’s a lot of reading material on the prison-issued electronic tablets.
Hold the front page, Albo likes a beer
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has followed in the footsteps of Australian sporting greats Mick Fanning, Emma McKeon and Cody Simpson, shouting an entire pub of Australians in New York City to a round of drinks.
Following a long day of appearances at the United Nations – speaking at the General Assembly and holding a meeting on Australia’s world-first under-16 social media ban – Albanese hit up Old Mates Pub, owned by a range of Australian stars including Hugh Jackman, Hamish Blake, Andy Lee and Ash Barty.
We got the tip-off from the PR firm representing 36 Months, the charity advocating to raise the minimum age of social media access from 13 to 16. Radio star Michael “Wippa” Wipfli is a co-founder and was in attendance at both the UN and the downtown watering hole.
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The prime minister was introduced to drinkers at the pub as a visitor “on a student visa or a working holiday or something” before he addressed the crowd, telling a few rowdy Kiwis that the Constitution would allow their country to become Australia’s seventh state.
For those concerned with fiscal responsibility, don’t worry. The taxpayer is off the hook for the beers that Albanese began pouring, as the pub picked up the tab.
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