Much was made last year of the Albanese government’s move to open the doors to its budget lock-up to a horde of social media influencers, posting their way through the (antiquated) annual tradition with the enthusiasm of students on a school camp.
But the Albanese government set some of them up to be treated like agreeable interlopers when this masthead reported that Labor had offered to cover some of their travel and accommodation expenses. Even still, many of the nation’s biggest online personalities will be back for more.
Among the highest-profile creators set to go along again this year is Hannah Ferguson, who founded Cheek Media in 2020 after working as an industrial officer at the Electrical Trades Union of Australia. Ferguson, who took exception to being “lumped together” with paid content creators during an address to the National Press Club last year, now reaches more than 233,000 people on Instagram and some more on Substack.
She told CBD that she’s set to touch down in Canberra on Tuesday and has interviews planned with figures across Labor, the Greens and some independents. They’re trying to get some conservatives, too, but Ferguson didn’t sound hopeful.
Who knows, maybe Jacqui Lambie will answer the call.
Also back will be Glen James, the finfluencer who runs the Money Money Money podcast and told his followers that he’ll be back this year. Victoria Devine of the She’s on the Money pod (and a columnist with this masthead) will be back for lockup, too, we’re told. The young folk at The Daily Aus, who we were pleased to see have found time to cover the budget between what seem like weekly product launches, will also be back in the lockup. But not everyone who was invited will be going back for another bite.
Milly Rose Bannister, a content creator with 135,000 followers on Instagram who sat down for an interview with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last year, said she was invited back for the lock-up this year but has decided to give it a miss. Bannister, who also runs the social and mental health organisation “ALLKND”, said she had to stay put in Sydney and didn’t necessarily need to travel to cover the budget.
“After my experience attending last year, I felt I could provide a similarly valuable content breakdown remotely without needing to be in the room again this year, given there were also a couple more barriers to entry,” Bannister told CBD.
These barriers to entry have so far included an EOI process that asked content creators to submit a content plan, sparking a backlash among the new media types Labor has worked so hard to court. Ferguson told us she wrote back to the government expressing concern over the requirement, but that she has since secured access.
But not everyone had to jump through these hoops, we’re told. The Daily Aus is one such Instagram-first outfit to get the green light without conditions, though at this point, the publication founded by Zara Seidler and Sam Koslowski has become a mainstay of the budget day festivities after making its first outing back in 2022. Maybe this is growing up.
What happened to Portia’s?
That’s the question doing the rounds in political and media circles in Canberra this week after staff of the restaurant favoured by former prime ministers Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard and many others told neighbours that the weekend just past was the restaurant’s last.
How unfortunate, we couldn’t help but think, that the favoured budget night haunt couldn’t wait one more week for a proper send-off. The owners told neighbours in the lead up to last weekend, CBD hears, that they simply wanted to retire and that a recent discussion with the landlord led them to bring forward their plans. There would be no final goodbye, no send-off party.
The restaurant has already once been at the centre of a high-profile political send-off, when its founder, Portia Yeung, walked away from the restaurant in 2011 after 25 years. In the years since, the restaurant has continued to be the favoured venue for a political seance. (That now famous 2014 dinner attended by Paul “Boris” Whittaker, then editor of The Daily Telegraph, Abbott and others, just to name one.)
Other regulars known to frequent the Canberra institution over the years have included former prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Paul Keating, as well as former federal treasurer Peter Costello. Abbott, meanwhile, once told The Australian newspaper that the restaurant was his “home away from home”.
In 2011, Yeung told the same newspaper: “I would listen to the news so I knew how they were all feeling.”
But it’s been hard to confirm the restaurant’s closure. On budget eve, CBD drove down to the famous Kingston restaurant to have a look for ourselves. We arrived at a time when the restaurant would ordinarily be closed, between lunch and dinner services, and there was no signage indicating the restaurant had served its last meal. Our efforts to call up during service hours yielded nothing either.
