Wiggles drama hits Federal Court

News.com.au

2 days ago

It seems like yesterday aggrieved Blue Wiggle Anthony Field conjured a tidal wave of vitriol to pour down upon this columnist following the publication of a society 'A B C D List' which ranked the founding Wiggle as a D lister.
It was in fact 2018 and Field would find support on Twitter after posting on the platform: 'So excited to be named on the 'D' List! … Thank you @insharprelief for all the encouragement to retire! Positive reinforcement is such a powerful tool!'
Within minutes an angry mob of Wiggles fans – that bears repeating – was letting fly with stinging assessments of the 12-page newspaper list, my appearance, my intelligence and my parenting skills in a frank and occasionally blue assessment.
One of the more amusing – and gentler – posts came from a guy who worked out he could rhyme the word 'hunt' from the children's song 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' with a female body part – a part you won't find in the children's anatomy ditty 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes', though may glance in 'Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush'.
As the insults piled up over several days Field's brother and business partner, Paul, co-creator of the group, chimed in to call me 'ageist' – a comment laced with irony, I thought, coming as it did from the men who pensioned off popular original Yellow, Red and Purple Wiggles, Greg Page, Murray Cook and Jeff Fatt.
Since the departure of the trio in 2012, there has been no lack of backroom dramas, primarily related to employee turnover.
The latest relates to the departure of newish CEO Luke O'Neill who has filed a claim in the Federal Court under the Fair Work Act alleging the company breached general protections.
O'Neill's court application alleges 'dismissal in contravention of a general protection' and names the group's co-founder, the Blue Wiggle, as a respondent along with the general counsel of Wiggles Inc Matthew Salgo.
The action will resonate with The Wiggles' most famous casualty, one-time Yellow Wiggle Sam Moran who was harshly axed from the group in 2012.
Unlike O'Neill, who is taking his grievance to court, Moran instead went to the media to clarify the circumstances of his dumping from the group after 10 years, five of which he spent as a principal in Page's yellow skivvy.
Field attempted to justify the decision, saying Moran was merely 'a hired hand' who was 'doing a job'.
Older brother Paul meanwhile said Moran had been 'in contract negotiations' for 'months'.
Their comments prompted Moran to flirt with breaking a gag order in 2013 when he said 'I was not at the end of my contract as Anthony has said' and 'There were no contract negotiations'.
'I was under no illusions that they were the owners (of the brand) and that I was not,' Moran told one news outlet.
'As far as I was concerned, I wanted to continue because I loved what I was doing. I didn't want or plan to do anything else.'
Moran's sacking – reportedly by the group's then managing director Mic Conway, aka the voice of Wags the Dog – was the first insight into the at times 'strictly business' behind-the-scenes operations of Wiggles Inc and the apparent disposability of non-original troupe members.
Moran, who was earning a fraction of the founding members, was let go in 2011 to make way for the return of original member and co-founder Page who had left the group in 2006 citing illness, 15 years after The Wiggles were created.
The return of the mellifluous and good-looking frontman five years later was seen at the time as an attempt to revive the group's former magic but within a year Page had departed again, this time at the front of a conga line of original band members along with Cook and Fatt.
It would emerge years later that Wiggles Inc was at the time reeling from a decline in profits from international sales and the decision, in 2009, to walk away from a longtime licencing deal with Disney.
In 2009 the group had made $48 million.
By 2012 that figure had crashed to $17 million prompting Field, the last original member, and brother Paul, a minor shareholder who also variously served as The Wiggles' manager, general manager of operations and managing director, to take drastic action.
Blue Wiggle Field would claim in his autobiography the company, The Wiggles Pty Ltd, was 'up to (the) eyeballs in debt' by 2012.
They needed a revised plan.
Enter the group's first female Wiggle – and two more men – as Page, Fatt and Cook were replaced by new Yellow Wiggle Emma Watkins, new Purple Wiggle Lachlan Gillespie and new Red Wiggle Simon Pryce.
By then the company was on the verge of being majority owned by the Blue Wiggle who would go on to own 36 per cent while Fatt and Cook held lesser shares.
The long overdue appointment of a female Wiggle proved a huge success – though her short-lived marriage to Gillespie from 2016 – 2018 less so.
By 2020 and the pandemic, new controversy engulfed the group when minor shareholder and co-founder Paul Field departed after a 29-year association.
A Wiggles spokesman left the gate open about Field's departure after failing to expressly confirm Field had in fact had resigned.
Instead they offered that Wiggles Inc was going through 'organisation change'.
Then, in a devastating blow in 2021, the band's most popular member in a decade, Emma Wiggle, walked.
Without their most-loved character and their longtime MD, the group embarked upon a latest reboot which would see The Wiggles double in size.
The expansion from four to eight members was intended rejuvenate the band increase diversity but it didn't please everyone.
Among critics was conservative senator Matt Canavan who stated: 'It was nice while it lasted.'
The arrival of a new CEO in O'Neill in 2023 coincided with revived plans to capture the US but O'Neill's quickie departure now threatens to spill into the public domain more tough goings on behind the doors of what has, in the mind of this writer, transformed into Blue Wiggles Inc.
Coates set to give Sydney the slip
Influential former Olympics boss John Coates is readying his Drummoyne harbourfront apartment for sale.
The news comes as the longtime Olympic powerbroker pushes on with plans to relocate permanently to Queensland ahead of the 2032 Brisbane Games.
The 75-year-old and his second wife Orieta, a former dancer and make-up artist he married in 2017, have high hopes for the St Georges Crescent love nest which he bought in 2010 as a four-bedroom three-bathroom offering.
Coates paid $3.4 million for the apartment.
Since then he has renovated the property.
Locals advise that an upstairs balcony had been closed in to create a spacious office for the sports administrator, wheeler dealer and one-time rower.
The apartment has become largely redundant following the couple's decision to relocate to Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast.
Coates could not be reached for comment.
Jacenko and Curtis celebrate birthday and profits
Some Sydneysiders found Roxy Jacenko's social media post from Greece last week – published to coincide with birthday celebrations for her one-time insider trader husband Oliver Curtis's 40th birthday – illuminating to say the least.
There has been much speculation about the company the reunited couple has been keeping since Curtis relocated to Singapore seven years ago to reboot his career following his release from jail in 2017.
In the two years since his limelight-loving wife joined him, there have been few public sightings of the pair and their tweenagers Pixie and Hunter.
So Jacenko's post showing the couple playing host to a large crowd in Athens was always going to arouse interest in business and finance circles back in Sydney where Curtis's redemption tale along with his recent change of fortunes is much envied.
As history relates that redemption tale owes much to the disgraced businessman's well-connected father, mining executive and financier Nick Curtis, founder of China's second-largest mine, Sino.
Within months of his son's release from jail for sharing in $1.4 million in illegal profits, Curtis Sr had backed his son into a blockchain-based venture he founded.
Oliver's next leg-up came in 2021 when he was appointed chief operating officer of Tasmanian-based bitcoin miner Firmus Grid where Daddy was chairman.
Then last year came news 'Oli' had managed to turned a $250,000 investment in a Singapore-based data tech start-up centre into an $81 million holding.
Despite claims Curtis is reserved and has few close friends, with news of his changing fortunes one could almost hear the stampede of his new bosom besties.
Curtis Sr didn't make an appearance in the group photo Jacenko posted from Beefbar in Athens' Four Seasons Astir Palace Hotel but given some have been cropped out, perhaps by request, it's possible he was there.
Others looked to be hiding in plain sight.
Take for instance the man standing behind Curtis in the shot.
Sources suggest it is Ben Madsen, one of Curtis's investors in his Singapore data centre start-up Firmus.
Madsen's firm is credit lender Archibald Capital, a backer of wannabe pub baron Jon Adgemis's fast unravelling dream.
Less sheepish about being photographed – and standing plum in the middle of the back row (white shirt) – is Rose Bay Hotel owner James Auswild.
Curtis's Firmus associate Tim Rosenfield also stands to the rear of frame.
Among the women photographed is Sydney interiors and homewares designer Lucy Montgomery, director of resortwear line Findlay the Label Skye Findlay, cleaning and property maintenance businesswoman Stephanie Deligiorgis and singer Alisa Gray.
It appears the new guard has squeezed out the old guard.
Missing from the celebrations are the couple's longtime friends including the chicken heiress Jessica Ingham and the birthday boy's only sister Sophie.
Some suggest the event may have proved emotional for Jacenko.
It is, after all, the same town in which her former boyfriend, the convicted drug dealer and Australian gangster John Macris, was shot and killed in 2018.
Booty call for MacSween and Hildebrand
A spin-off podcast of long-running TV panel show Beauty and the Beast has its premiere on Monday.
Provocatively retitled Booty and the Beasts – The Podcast, the program will reunite original Beauties Prue MacSween and Carlotta and introduce some outraged and outrageous new talent.
Among the new faces will be barrister Margaret Cunneen, former senator Hollie Hughes, journalist Lucy Zelic and former NSW Liberal Party Vice President Teena McQueen.
Filling the shoes of longtime Australian 'beast', originally played by broadcaster Stan Zamanek, will be a revolving door of commentators including broadcasters John Stanley and Gary Hardgrave, media all-rounder Joe Hildebrand and newspaper columnist Tim Blair.
Produced by Prue MacSween, Booty and the Beasts – The Podcast aims, she said, to answer the growing demand for unfiltered, unapologetic and non-PC entertainment.
'Everywhere I go, people celebrate the original show and ask when it will return,' MacSween said.
'It was a favourite with people of all ages who enjoyed the refreshing honesty, exchange of views, irreverence, battle of the sexes and laughs. This is what Booty and the Beasts – The Podcast will deliver.'
The podcast is set to stream on major podcast platforms from 18 August.