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The days of parliament missed by Senator Bridget McKenzie late last month appeared to be the last thing on her mind this week as she traipsed the streets of Rome, making the most of the midwinter break.
Imagine our envy to learn the Nationals senator for Victoria had managed to trade our dreary winter for downtime in the European sun. McKenzie was seen touring St Peter’s Basilica in Rome on Tuesday, Sydney time, talking on the phone, when she caught the attention of a CBD spy.
“I could recognise that voice anywhere,” they said, after furnishing us with a photo.
McKenzie is in Italy on a private holiday, CBD hears, and ended up in Rome after completing a leg of the Via Francigena, a 3200-kilometre pilgrimage from England to Italy via France. And we don’t begrudge her. We’re just pleased to see the jet-setting senator out in the world while parliament isn’t sitting.
It was only a few weeks ago that CBD brought word that McKenzie and her former Nationals colleague-turned-One Nation defector Barnaby Joyce had decided to snub parliament during a sitting week for the right-wing Alliance for Responsible Citizenship event in London.
The three-day event, co-founded by controversial right-wing psychologist Jordan Peterson, hosted McKenzie as a speaker. She made the trip north as part of a contingent of Australians who went to press the flesh at the conservative talkfest, including former prime ministers Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott.
The event also heard from a grab-bag of local and international names, including former UK prime minister Boris Johnson and populist UK Reform leader Nigel Farage, as well as US Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
For McKenzie, it looks like the London seance offered up the perfect opportunity for an early holiday.
Surely, we thought, the trip would also give McKenzie a chance to reunite with her former Nationals colleague Keith Pitt, who upped and moved to Rome this year to be our new Bundaberg-born man at the Vatican, as Australia’s ambassador to the Holy See.
We asked McKenzie’s office whether the senator had time to return to Australia before dashing off to Italy, and how the trips were paid for, as well as whether a rendezvous with Pitt was on the cards. No word on the return trip, but her office did say the senator’s Eurotrip was not taxpayer-funded, and that the conservative talkfest paid for her flights to and from London.
McKenzie even squeezed in meetings with the Australian embassies to Italy and the Holy See during her annual leave.
Doctor’s orders
Sir Salman Rushdie, author of books including The Satanic Verses, Midnight’s Children and the memoir Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, has cancelled his Australian tour to have urgent eye surgery.
Rushdie, who survived a frenzied stabbing attack at an event in New York in 2022 where he was preparing to speak on writer safety, was scheduled to appear at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne and the Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney in August. Rushdie was blinded in one eye during the horrific attack.
“It is with real regret that I must cancel my upcoming appearances in Melbourne and Sydney,” Rushdie said in a message to ticket holders this week.
“I need urgent eye surgery and my surgeon has advised me against long-distance travel while I recover. With only one functioning eye, I have no choice but to prioritise this essential surgery. I am deeply sorry to disappoint the readers and audiences. I hope to make the journey to Australia before too long.”
The New York-based writer, who was set to speak on the fight for artistic freedom while in Australia, spent several years in hiding after the publication of The Satanic Verses in 1988 owing to serious threats against his life.
Enquire within
It’s hard to imagine how a corporate affairs boss might have been able to soften the blow after former Parramatta Council boss Gail Connolly appeared at an anti-corruption inquiry last month, when she admitted under questioning to lying to the lord mayor.
But it looks like the council has high hopes for whoever they can get to clean up the mess allegedly left behind by Connolly and her friends, Roxanne Thornton and Angela Jones-Blayney. The trio drew the attention of an Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) investigation for alleged subversion of recruitment practices. Together, they called themselves the Pink Ladies.
In a job listing, the City of Parramatta called for applications for the role of “corporate affairs manager” to help steer the battered council through a period of “significant growth and transformation”, for a salary of between $180,143.82 and $199,713.93, plus 12 per cent super.
We can’t imagine anyone of sound mind will be applying at that rate. The successful applicant will oversee a team responsible for “shaping, protecting and enhancing” the council’s reputation, the ad reads, and will be tasked with increasing “positive media coverage” and monitoring “reputational risk”. Absent from the listing, of course, was any mention of ICAC.
“The advertisement does not specifically mention the ICAC public inquiry as the scope of the role is much broader than that specific matter,” a council spokesperson told CBD.
According to LinkedIn, 45 people have already applied. Godspeed.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
Fiona Byrne is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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