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Daniel Andrews’ Portsea Golf Club membership riles Steve Price

UNION BLUES

It’s bad enough for the Labor Party that the Greens keep taking their lefty inner-city seats, but its really gonna sting the comrades if a card-carrying greenie jags a key leadership role at one of the ALP’s most reliable union bastions.

A key player in the concerted challenge to the long-standing national leadership of the Community and Public Sector Union led by Labor-4-lifer Melissa Donnelly is none other than Adriana Boisen.

Melissa Donnelly, secretary of the Community Public Sector Union. Credit: Louie Douvis

Boisen, who is running to be the union’s national president, is a former ACT Greens candidate who now works as a staffer to the party’s federal housing spokesman, Max Chandler-Maher, who is known — not fondly — in Labor circles simply as “Hyphen”.

But, Boisen told us the internal CPSU insurgency, which has forced the union’s first contested elections in 18 years, was a cross-party effort. Another candidate from her group, which is called Members United, is an ALP member who works for an ACT Labor government MP.

Members United argues that the close relationship between the CPSU and Labor is a problem when union officials faced their ALP mates across the wage bargaining table, to say nothing of the hundreds of thousands of dollars in affiliation fees handed over each year.

Voting is under way and polls close on December 6. Exciting stuff. Donnelly declined to comment.

OPT-OUT

The catastrophic failure of the Optus network last week continues to cramp the style of CEO Kelly Bayer Rosmarin.

Attendees at Thursday’s REA annual general meeting in Melbourne hoping to see Bayer Rosmarin in the flesh there — she is a director of the real estate listings giant — would have been disappointed.

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REA chairman Hamish McLennanno doubt enjoying a break from questions about the bin fire that is Rugby Australia, which he also chairs — broke the news that Bayer Rosmarin would be beaming in from Canberra where she was required for a “public hearing”.

REA’s AGM failed to see KBR .

REA’s AGM failed to see KBR .Credit: John Shakespeare

Which we thought was a little weird because the Optus CEO wasn’t due to front a much-anticipated hearing of the Senate Standing Committees on Environment and Communications, chaired by the Greens’ Sarah Hanson-Young, until Friday morning.

Wasn’t that weird, it turns out, with a source close to the Optus camp telling us that Bayer Rosmarin and her team thought it sensible to get to the capital in plenty of time for the hearing. Nothing to chance and all of that.

PICTURE PERFECT

Former immigration minister Alex Hawke is learning about the price of loyalty. A powerbroker for the Liberal Party’s Centre Right faction, Hawke was Scott Morrison’s loyal consigliere, helping his prayer buddy work the numbers during the 2018 leadership spill.

Alex Hawke

Alex Hawke

Now, Hawke is a backbencher facing a tough preselection fight to remain the member for Mitchell in his Sydney electorate, and perceived closeness with Scomo is not helping his cause.

It’s so tough that Hawke has had to put together a preselection booklet, documenting his achievements for the local branch members and also featuring a pretty dodgy photoshop effort.

The MP’s face was awkwardly superimposed onto a picture of his family, and it didn’t take long for political watchers to find the original picture, of just the family sans Hawke, on his Facebook page.

It’s not the only bit of touching-up in the booklet. There’s no mention of Morrison, and the former PM isn’t even among the published endorsements, which include Opposition Leader Peter Dutton, Deputy Liberal Leader Sussan Ley, and anti-Voice campaigner Nyunggai Warren Mundine.

Hawke has soured on Morrison a little, telling author and Herald columnist Niki Savva that the former PM had gotten “addicted” to power and “wasn’t the greatest listener”. We’ll soon see if the preselectors were listening.

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https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/steve-price-heads-for-the-bunker-in-the-dan-andrews-golf-war-20231116-p5ekm2.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_national Daniel Andrews’ Portsea Golf Club membership riles Steve Price

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