Helping hand:CLP Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.Credit:James Brickwood
In July last year,Franklin spent more than $6000 sponsoring travel between the Northern Territory and Canberra for Price’s family to witness the senator’s first speech,in which Franklin got a special shout out. And in 2019,he donated $15,000 to Price’s unsuccessful attempt at winning a lower house seat.
“As a long-time family friend of the Price family I have been a proud supporter of both the senator and her mother Bess Price in their political careers,” Franklin told CBD.
BRANCHING OUT
Loading
Former associates of Victorian Labor’s former branch-stacker extraordinaireAdem Somyurekcontinue to build new lives for themselves after being,well, relieved of their political careers after the factional warlord’s implosion.
The latest isRobin Scott,part of the group of Somyurek’s Moderate Labor empire while holding down the day job of multicultural affairs minister,and who stood aside from the ministry following IBAC revelations of the faction’s activities and subsequently lost pre-selection for his seat of Preston.
But Scott has reemerged at the Alfred Deakin Institute (ADI) at Deakin University where he has been hired as an “industry professor”.
“Robin … has considerable experience influencing public policy and delivering strategic evidence-based decision-making,” enthused ADI director and ProfessorFethi Mansouri. It’s true that Scott was known around Spring Street as a “thought leader” in Somyurek’s faction.
We can’t imagine where the institute might deploy Scott’s expertise in the dark political arts,but his experience as finance minister will come in useful,so Mansouri might have made himself a handy hire.
CULTURE COUP
Federal arts ministerTony Burke has had a stroke of luck for that National Cultural Policy he’s been banging on about,snapping up one of the nation’s up-and-coming arts administrators from under the nose ofDominic Perrottet’s NSW Liberal government.
Heading to the country? Andy Warhol,Campbell’s Soup series could be part of the travelling exhibition.
FormerSydney Living Museum chiefAdam Lindsay was looking the goods to land the big job at the top of a new entity over there called the Museums of History formed from the merger of 12 museums and the state’s $1 billion archives. But then the state government pulled the pin on the recruitment process,with Lindsay walking away from his Living Museum’s role just days after.
But National Gallery of Australia’sNick Mitzevich has swooped on the opportunity and hired Lindsayto lead the NGA’s $12 million plan to share some of its $6.9 billion worth of treasures with Australia’s regional and suburban galleries,a key plank inBurke’s cultural revolution.
Mitzevich could benefit from Lindsay’s contacts in Sydney philanthropic circles at a time when the gallery is asking federal Treasury for $265 million to make its lakeside landmark building secure and watertight.
Lindsay confirmed the change of city,saying he was hoping to bring the beauty of Brancusi’sBirds in space or Andy Warhol’sCampbell’s Soup Cans to audiences unable,or unwilling,to go to Canberra to see the NGA’s collections.
A cultural guide to going out and loving your city.Sign up to our Culture Fix newsletter here.