Butting out: Parliament House crackdown on political puffers

Sydney Morning Herald

2 days ago

And practically no pollie will even admit to being partial to a dart any more. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he's never smoked. Ever. Notable exception – firebrand independent senator Lidia Thorpe. Ex-NSW premier Dom Perrottet used to admit to a sneaky vape.
Others known to have indulged include Labor's Karen Grogan and Jo Ryan. CBD would often get a heady aroma outside the Nationals party room. And the party's former Nationals leader, Barnaby Joyce, was certainly partial, although the big fella is now on a health kick, quitting booze after being found sprawled on a Canberra pavement, and having recently undergone surgery for prostate cancer.
Dorinda's digital detox
The nuked Instagram page was a dead giveaway.
Greens senator Dorinda Cox's profile went dark on Monday afternoon, before news of her defection to Labor had even made it onto the homepages. Cox's Twitter (sorry, X) account also went private, and the Greens quickly moved to scrub her from their own website.
But the Instagram deletion was telling, probably because some of the senator's most recent posts were bagging the Labor government's decision to approve the extension of energy giant Woodside's North West Shelf gas project until 2070, which she described as 'catastrophic for many reasons' in the now-deleted pic.
Clearly all water under the bridge for Cox and her new party. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, whose distaste for the Greens Political Party is well-documented, gleefully accepted her change of colours.
Last year, this masthead reported that Cox had been the subject of several bullying complaints among staff, none of which appeared to trouble Labor, who welcomed her with open arms.
Wigging out
The standard career downgrade for journalists looking to leave the game behind is to switch to PR or communications. Indeed, most of the political media flacks that dodge CBD's calls every week tend to be retired media types.
But Paul Farrell, until very recently an investigative reporter with the ABC, has traded the small screen for the courtroom, and is off to become a barrister.
Farrell, who won a Walkley award for longform audio last year, joined 153 Phillip Barristers as a reader (that's jargon for a baby barrister).
'I'm thrilled to be joining 153 Phillip to learn from the brilliant barristers on the floor,' Farrell told CBD. 'I've been very fortunate to have a great career in journalism, most recently at the ABC. I felt like it was time for a change though, and going to the bar is something I've always hoped to do.'
But it's a chambers that isn't exactly a safe space for journalists these days – Farrell's star colleague is defamation barrister Sue Chrysanthou, SC, known for her all-star cast of plaintiff clients including Geoffrey Rush, Lachlan Murdoch, Gina Rinehart and more.
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Coincidentally, Chrysanthou was this week in Tropical North Queensland speaking at Cairns Crocodiles, which describes itself as Australia's premier creative festival, where she offered up a passionate defence of defamation laws, and accused big media outlets of successfully lobbying to shift the balance of power in the legal landscape back in favour of publishers. Given Australia's reputation as being the defamation capital of the world, we'd say it's all long overdue.
Lawyer X sells
Relief for gangland barrister turned police informant Nicola Gobbo, who sold her Melbourne penthouse apartment for $1.25 million last week, ahead of the planned auction.