A loyal Liberal Party member and associate of right faction leaderMichael Sukkar,O’Grady says he is well experienced in workplace integrity after having responsibility in Cash’s office for “tribunal and statutory appointments”.
CBD wonders if this included the re-appointment,on O’Grady’s watch,of controversial former right SenatorKaren Synon to a new $496,000-per-annum five year term on the Administrative Appeals Tribunal without an interview ahead of her term expiring in 2023. And then there’s the promotion of proven underperformer and failed Liberal preselection candidateRachel Westaway to a $390,000 per-annum five-year senior member post on Synon’s recommendation?
We asked Wade if he was involved in those appointments. We didn’t get an answer.
But those jobs sure look like workplace integrity at its finest.
AZ you were
The 47th Parliament kicks off next week,but senior ministers are still scrambling to finalise their staff.
Climate Change and Energy MinisterChris Bowen has picked upJoanne Cleary,most recently chief spinner for Seqirus – and every health journo’s favourite point person for all things AstraZeneca.
After stints working for shadow ministersKate Ellis,Catherine King and former opposition leaderBill Shorten,she’s returning to politics in a strategic communications role. We’re sure that handling the messaging around Labor’s climate policy will be a cinch compared to spinning the rocky rollout of the AZ jab.
Also joining the new Labor government isNick Butterly,who has signed up to work for Resources MinisterMadeleine King.
Butterly spent more than a decade in Canberra working for News Corp,AAP and (mostly) the West Australian but – along with wife and formerFin Review scribe Sophie Morris – left the cold capital a few years ago for the warmer climes of his home town,Perth.
Meanwhile,Environment MinisterTanya Plibersek has hiredTamsin Lloyd,formerly of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency,and the Australian Metal Workers Union,as communications director. Lloyd’s husband,Daniel Mookhey,is NSW Labor’s Shadow Treasurer – perhaps another rising political power couple to watch.
Blue and green
It isn’t just Labor frontbenchers hiring up.
Across the aisle,veteran politicoAdrian Barrett has joined Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s office as a press secretary alongside long-term spinnerNicole Chant after a career that included stints withTony Abbott, and as chief of staff toAndrew Hastie.
Over in teal land,the expanded crossbench are doing what they can following Anthony Albanese’s decision to cut their staffing allocations. Wentworth MP Allegra Spender’s team has a distinctly British flavour,(only natural given her electorate includes the expat hub of Bondi) with community engagement managementKath Naish and policy adviserJoe Fowles,both from the UK,getting permanent roles following their work on the campaign.
Spender’s still advertising for a media and comms co-ordinator,an operations co-ordinator and a head of policy. But unlike her fellow teal,Kooyong MP Monique Ryan,she doesn’t seem to be insisting that new hires sign a “confidentiality agreement”.
Meanwhile,five years after being ousted from the top of the Greens’ NSW Senate ticket,Lee Rhiannon is returning to Canberra ... in a genealogical sense. The former Senator’s daughter Kilty O’Gorman is office manager to David Shoebrige,the political party’s newest lower house member for NSW.
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