By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Recently, two 81-year-old men have both had their dreams of another four years in high office thwarted by concerned party insiders.
But while US President Joe Biden has been altogether supportive of the Democratic cause since passing the torch to Kamala Harris, Hornsby Mayor Philip Ruddock has gone a little less quietly.
Hornsby Mayor Philip Ruddock donated a “priceless liquor pack from his personal cellar”.Credit: James Alcock
Since losing a preselection vote last month, Ruddock, a former Howard government minister and a Liberal elder statesman, has pinned the blame for his ousting on property developers, and the area’s local federal member Julian Leeser, his erstwhile protege.
When former deputy mayor Nathan Tilbury tore up his Liberal membership to run for mayor as an independent in protest over Ruddock’s dumping, Phil backed him.
To suggest that relations between Ruddock and the local branches are currently tense would be an understatement. Which makes the fact that Ruddock has kindly agreed to donate a small portion of his wine cellar to the Liberals’ Hornsby Local Government Conference all the more amusing.
Ahead of Saturday’s local government elections, the conference held a fundraising raffle, with two of the prizes coming courtesy of the Ruddock family. One was a selection of three Wilmotte Williams paintings, each valued at $750.
The other: “A delicious liquor pack from the personal cellar of Philip Ruddock – priceless.“
Would the lucky winner ever see those bottles? Maybe. A source close to Ruddock (a teetotaller, we hear) told us the donations were made before a function in March, where they were meant to be raffled off, well before the mayor was rolled. It’s September, and the raffle is still under way. Which is about what we’ve come to expect from the NSW Liberals.
ALL IN THE FAMILY
They say the pen is mightier than the sword.
Perhaps this thought crossed the mind of bureaucrats at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, a statutory agency within minister Amanda Rishworth’s Department of Social Services. They appeared so enamoured of this concept that they ordered 20,000 of them.
But not just any pens. The good folk at AIFS departed from the zealous adherence to cost control by splurging $14,580 on special branded pens.
We are grateful for an AIFS memo obtained under freedom of information which revealed firm Dynamic Gift Promotions, of Tuncurry, NSW, got the gig.
DGP was found to be “a reliable supplier with quality products” and its previously supplied “Dynamic Wave 10 Interviewer Lanyards” were favourably received by AIFS staff.
The order was signed off by four AIFS officials, who are clearly sticklers for process.
The agency had an anniversary to celebrate after all: 20 years of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, which investigates the effect of children’s social, economic and cultural environments on their wellbeing.
Worthy, we are sure. But worthy of 20,000 full colour two-sided printed twist eco pens? Open for debate, we respectfully submit. We will spare readers a photographic reproduction, but we will describe the style, of muted ecru pebbling, as rather hideous.
We asked the AIFS what the heck was going on. It replied, and we quote in full: “Maintaining participation rates is critically important to the effective management of longitudinal studies, such as the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children. The pens will be distributed as a gift to people that have been involved in the study for up to 20 years, and offered to key external stakeholders as appropriate.”
That’s telling us.
FERG FIGHTS ON
We last encountered former CFMEU NSW boss Andrew Ferguson running as Labor’s mayoral candidate in the City of Canada Bay, that forgotten cluster of unfashionable inner west locales adorning the Parramatta River.
Andrew Ferguson.
Martin, the black sheep of a Labor dynasty – dad Jack Ferguson was Neville Wran’s deputy premier, brothers Martin and Laurie Ferguson were federal MPs – beat branch-stacking allegations (which he denies and which were never investigated) to land a spot on council in 2017.
Since then, there’s been no shortage of entertainment out of Canada Bay. Former mayor Angelo Tsirekas was sacked last year after being found by the Independent Commission Against Corruption to have engaged in serious corrupt conduct.
Ferguson, meanwhile, risks getting pulled back into the drama that has engulfed his old patch, the CFMEU, which has been placed into administration after an investigation by this masthead revealed widespread bikie infiltration and corruption at the union.
Ferguson has been touted as someone to temporarily return to the embattled NSW branch and help administrators clean up the rot.
But back in Canada Bay, Ferguson is busy with more mundane fare – an unprecedented 33 per cent rate hike (45 per cent for apartment-dwellers), which has some residents all steamed up.
He claims he’s the only candidate to have fought back and voted against the rate increase. What then, are we to make of a June 2023 council meeting, where council unanimously (Ferguson included) appeared to vote up the rate increases.
Well, Ferguson said any claim he wasn’t 100 per cent against the cuts was a “total fabrication”, probably pushed by his political opponents. He said the vote in question was simply to approve the budget for the next six months and he pointed out that he’d voted against the increases at an earlier meeting.
A messy situation, but altogether less messy than overhauling the CFMEU.
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