Talk about exquisitely bad timing. On Friday, the federal Liberal Party’s latest leadership spill – a mere nine months after the last one – showed the ability of the members of the federal parliamentary party to lose their heads when all about were keeping theirs.
The result, as history recorded, was Angus Taylor defeating leader Sussan Ley 34-17.
That was all happening in the morning. But while the shell-shocked members said goodbye to the party’s first federal female leader, an email plopped into their inboxes from party president John Olsen, a former premier of South Australia. He had other things on his mind.
Not, as party insiders might expect, the release of the post-mortem into the Liberals’ disastrous 2025 federal election campaign which has sat in the vault for a long time.
“This year we mark the 30th anniversary of the election of the Howard government, a defining moment in Australian history,” the email, possibly written by someone else, said.
“Over eleven and a half years in office they delivered reforms that made Australia a stronger, more prouder and more prosperous nation.
“In celebration of this milestone, I am pleased to invite you and your guests to the 30th Anniversary Dinner of the Howard Government.”
We reached out to Liberal HQ to ask if they had queued up the email ahead of time but they assured it was sent live.
“No, the party room meeting had concluded that morning. We are keen for as many Liberal supporters as possible to attend this important milestone event,” they told us.
It can’t be just us to note the irony of the Libs announcing a massive nostalgia kick on the day the party had once again been tearing itself apart over leadership. Just as it had in 2008 (Nelson versus Turnbull), 2009 (Turnbull v Abbott), 2015 (Abbott v Turnbull), 2018 (Turnbull v Morrison), and last year (Ley v Taylor). Apologies if we missed anyone out.
The dinner will be held on March 13, pretty close to the March 2, 1996, election day when Howard swept the Coalition to a 45-seat majority. Those were the days.
Airwallex gets up to MISCHIEF (on the water)
Airwallex co-founder and chief executive Jack Zhang has spoken publicly about his concerns about the way the financial technology company has been covered in the press – so much so that his company has mounted legal threats, including to this masthead.
So we couldn’t help but chuckle when we saw the company had been roped into a media schmoozefest organised by Airtasker and the Ahoy Club set to take place aboard a “luxury superyacht”, unironically named “MISCHIEF”, on March 6 in Melbourne.
The Melbourne event has been billed as a nautical breakfast timed to coincide with the Australian Grand Prix, which kicks off the same day. We should note the vessel is being supplied by the Ahoy Club, not Airwallex, unfortunate as the name may be regardless. Ahoy Club is run by Dial a Dump founder Ian Malouf and his daughter, Ellie Malouf, and MISCHIEF is listed for hire by them at $6000 an hour.
It was only last month that Australia’s financial crimes agency, AUSTRAC, announced it had ordered the appointment of an external auditor to assess whether the company was doing enough to abide by anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing laws.
At the time, an Airwallex spokesman said the company would cooperate with the audit and was confident it would find the firm’s processes were market-leading.
“Before you head down to the track, join leading Aussie brands Airtasker, Airwallex and Ahoy Club for an inside scoop on all the cool, creative and crazy ways these brands are leveraging sports sponsorships on the world stage,” the invitation reads.
What a blast. Nothing gets us quite as excited as “cool, creative and crazy” sponsorship chatter at eight o’clock in the morning.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
Stephen Brook is a special correspondent for The Age and CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. He was previously deputy editor of The Sunday Age. He is a former media editor of The Australian and spent six years in London working for The Guardian.Connect via X or email.