After bundling up onto the stage of the Theatrette in NSW Parliament House on Wednesday, former NSW premier and foreign minister Bob Carr was quick to offer momentary relief before getting to what he calls “this business of grief”.
“My pockets contain the latest measure of my unsuccess in cooking for myself. I got them from the pharmacy across the road after … seeing a doctor around the corner. One is Lofenoxal, three tablets a day. And the other one is Norfloxacin tablets,” Carr said, offering a brief pause. “It was the worst, the worst indigestion.
“I followed what I thought were all the junctures about kitchen hygiene. And obviously, there was a fatal miscalculation over how long the chicken had been there.”
Carr was setting up the room of current and former Labor heavyweights for a half hour of heartache to mark the launch of his book, Bring Back Yesterday. It’s a tribute to his love and late wife, Helena Carr, and his profound grief following her sudden death.
Among those in attendance was Premier Chris Minns, who offered the room a speech of his own before handing over to the event’s emcee, NSW Labor MP Clayton Barr, who introduced Carr to the stage.
Also in the room was former Keating, Rudd and Gillard cabinet minister John Faulkner, and Linda Burney, the former Albanese government minister for Indigenous Australians. Former defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon was also spotted, as was former NSW premier Barrie Unsworth.
In his address, Minns compared Carr to international man of mystery Peter Paul Rubens, known for his dual careers as a court painter and a European diplomat.
“Friends, we might be forgiven for thinking that for all of Bob’s political successes, the 10 years in office, the smashing of opposition parties in multiple elections, the balanced budgets, the new national parks, the greatest Olympic Games ever, all of it was an excuse to write these wonderful books, these wry, self-deprecating, uncommonly honest books,” Minns told the room, to Carr’s approval.
“And Bob, can I say, in a very hot field with stiff competition, I think this is the best book that you’ve written.”
Spotted: Gillon McLachlan and Matthew Grounds
The bromance between former AFL boss turned Tabcorp chief executive Gillon McLachlan and Barrenjoey co-executive chairman Matthew Grounds is well-documented. So we weren’t surprised to hear the pair fit a quick catch-up into the diary during McLachlan’s whip through Sydney this week.
The pair were spotted at Governor Phillip Tower on Wednesday while McLachlan was in town for some meetings with his Sydney colleagues and to meet the company’s media partners. The Tabcorp boss has been in Sydney since Monday, CBD hears, and tries to fit Grounds into his schedule whenever he’s in town.
Of course, it’s not the first time the old friends have been seen out and about this year. McLachlan and Grounds were seen at the Australian Open last month, where they were photographed mixing it up with recently departed BHP chief executive Mike Henry and REA Group boss Cameron McIntyre.
Labor’s SBS U-turn rankles
Is that a broken election promise we smell? There are MPs in the Labor caucus known to be a little sensitive to accusations the government is going back on its word. Perhaps none more so than Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has been known to get defensive over even the faintest whiff of the charge.
But how else to interpret the Albanese government’s decision to dispense with its promise made before the 2025 election to expand SBS to western Sydney?
The initial plan considering a relocation of SBS headquarters to western Sydney was watered down to a revised western Sydney expansion, following a feasibility study that ruled out the initial plan over costs. Then Labor promised a new production hub for the multicultural broadcaster to a region where roughly half of the population speaks a language other than English.
Now that plan, which CBD hears was set to cost $181 million and earmarked Blacktown as the preferred location, has evaporated altogether. In an email to staff on Tuesday, SBS acting managing director Jane Palfreyman said “it is disappointing” the move was spiked, saying the government “indicated its decision” was made “in the context of the current fiscal environment”.
The timing was cute. On the day of a Reserve Bank cash rate call, and when the Middle East conflict was otherwise dominating headlines, Communications Minister Anika Wells thought time was ripe to “take out the trash” quietly, before Palfreyman’s staff memo was obtained by this masthead.
The reaction from some of her western Sydney colleagues hasn’t been great. The offices of some MPs, CBD hears, would’ve liked a bit more notice of the decision. Others say they saw the move coming from way off, and are more concerned about perceptions of broken promises.
The initial commitment to look at relocating SBS from Artarmon to western Sydney was first pared back under Attorney-General Michelle Rowland during her time in the Communications portfolio. But the pin was pulled under Wells, her successor, as the government scratches around to find savings ahead of the May federal budget.
Regardless of who’s responsible, local stakeholders are apoplectic after being strung along for years. And Rowland is just one of the western Sydney MPs who will be left to face them. Others with seats in the region include Education Minister Jason Clare, Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen, Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke and backbencher Ed Husic.
“The government will not be providing additional funding for the expansion proposed by SBS at this time. We thank SBS for its work in this process,” a spokesman for Wells said in a statement. “We will continue to support the important work of the SBS now and into the future.”
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.