By We wish her all the best.
MAN OH MAN
For those unfortunate enough to have come through the University of Sydney’s feral student politics scene, the name Alex Fitton is a memorable one.
At an infamous Students Representative Council meeting in 2016, Fitton, then a staffer for a state Liberal MP, signed a statutory declaration claiming to identify as a woman in order to win an executive position designated for non-cisgender males under the SRC’s affirmative action rules.
Fitton’s election to the $12,000-a-year position, which came after some truly cooked interfactional horse-trading that requires a doctorate in student politics to understand, was greeted with chants of “yeah the boys”.
But in proof there is life after even the most colourful of stupol careers, Fitton has wound up working as a staffer for deputy Liberal leader Sussan Ley. Among Ley’s portfolios? Shadow minister for women.
Fellow Ley staffers Dean Shachar and Dom Bondar were also prominent Sydney University Liberal hacks. CBD hears the latest hire is raising a few eyebrows among senior Coalition figures, concerned that an unholy trinity of student politics types will only reinforce the office’s reputation as one interested in political games over policy development.
HAWKE WINS
CBD took great mirth in reporting on former immigration minister Alex Hawke’s cringe preselection handbook last week, where the Liberal powerbroker inexplicably Photoshopped himself into a picture of the rest of his family.
Credit: John Shakespeare
Whatever Hawke’s motivations, the Photoshop worked – he comfortably won the right to recontest the division of Mitchell by 140 votes over his rival Michael Abrahams.
Given that the Bible belt seat is reliably blue, we’ll be seeing Hawke around the backbenches for a few years more.
STAR TURN
Our former colleague Misha Schubert was announced on Tuesday as the new face of the industry superannuation funds’ “super lobby”.
The new outfit, a merger of Industry Super Australia and the Australian Institute of Superannuation Trustees, will represent eight big non-profit funds with $1.4 trillion in retirement savings of 10 million Australians, and with big Labor hitters such as Nicola Roxon and Wayne Swan on its board.
So, a big gig indeed.
But the news was in danger of being outshone by the announcement earlier that morning from Schubert’s previous employer, Science and Technology Australia, of her departure, in an effort that must surely go down as an all-time classic herogram.
STA president Professor Mark Hutchinson shared his “deep sadness” that Schubert’s “stellar” four years as chief executive were ending – and it’s hard to imagine a dry eye in the boffins’ Canberra HQ that morning, with Schubert herself admitting to a “heavy heart” and that it was a “wrench to leave this role that she has loved deeply”.
Even we got a little teary after all that.
LITE CHRISTMAS
Looks like we were correct to suspect that embattled telco Optus would be giving the festive season a miss this year.
On Tuesday morning, a spokesperson confirmed that the gang at Optus wouldn’t be doing a lot for Christmas.
“Teams across Optus will be holding smaller gatherings to mark the end of the year and connect with one another,” they said.
Sounds like a hoot.
But not all that different to last year post-hack, when the company faced scarily similar pre-Christmas circumstances.
“Will have a small scale get-together to thank our people for their hard work and customer focus,” was the company line before Christmas 2022.
Here’s to maintaining traditions.
ON THE BALL
While we’re clearing up loose ends, we can eliminate one potential causal factor in the mysterious departure of White Ribbon Foundation CEO Allan Ball.
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The violence-prevention charity told us, in another belated response to our inquiries, that the parting of ways had nothing to do with the backlash-inducing partnership with GiveTree, a crypto start-up founded by Sam Joel who then quit as chief executive after posting offensive comments about women on LinkedIn.
Ball’s successor at White Ribbon helm Melissa Perry, told us Ball continued to be a great ally of White Ribbon – ain’t we all? – but wouldn’t say why he’d quit.
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