Category: Australia

Catlin did have some skin in the game. He worked on Liberal member Nick Russian’s bid to become Melbourne’s lord mayor (Russian polled a solid fourth), and helped deal with a story that briefly threatened to destabilize that campaign, when Russian’s wife Rozalia was spotted shopping at Tiffany’s during one of Melbourne’s endless lockdowns of 2020.

Most of his experience, however, has been with high-end corporate clients. After leaving the media – he was a television journalist with Seven – he worked in public relations and marketing, spending almost five years as Myer’s PR and events general manager before moving to Swisse Wellness in 2011, for almost four years.

In 2014, he registered the name for his own PR company, Catchy Media Marketing and Management, although its website has since expired.

It was this company that stood to gain from Catlin’s approach to billionaire Liberal donor Jonathan Munz, when Catlin sought more than $100,000 in payments, in addition to his taxpayer-funded salary. Munz said that when he received the email “he rejected it out of hand”. Catlin resigned on Tuesday after The Age revealed the sorry affair.

Few Liberals will go on the record to share their thoughts about Catlin. One senior figure unleashed a barrage of unprintable descriptions of Catlin when contacted, while another shot him as a “name-dropper” who won favor with Guy, with his promises to bring in big donations from corporate supporters.

“A lot of people who knew him quite well have reached out to me saying, ‘we knew this would happen’,” that person said.

“It was only a matter of time before he came unstuck.”

Publicly, senior Liberals are keeping schtum (with the notable exception of former leader Michael O’Brien, who pointedly posted on Twitter, on the day of Catlin’s resignation: “Sick of dodgy politics? So am I.”

But privately, they are reeling. Some predict Guy will lose the leadership, while grimly acknowledging where this turmoil would lead less than four months before the state election.

“I think on the surface, they’re all talking it up as if it’s a storm in a tea cup, but I think deep down, they’re pretty well aware of the severity of it all,” one said of the leadership.

And of Matthew Guy: “I just don’t know how he can survive it, to be honest.”

Talk to people about Catlin, and one episode is mentioned again and again. Not, perhaps, for the reasons Catin might prefer.

Three years ago, Nine star Karl Stefanovic – then facing relentless social media pressure in the wake of his divorce and new relationship – was the subject of a speculative column in the Herald Sun (by the same faithful scribe) describing his apparent signing of a deal to have Catlin kickstart his “reputation reinvention.”

Catlin, readers were told, would help Stefanovic’s “on the road to redemption” to remake his “brand”. Trouble was, it seemed the Herald Sun knew more about this arrangement than anyone else.

“Mitch is a man of enormous confidence and self-promotion”, a well-placed source with knowledge of the episode told this masthead. “He and Karl had a conversation in a marquee at the Melbourne Cup. That’s all it was.” The arrangement, such as it was, was not to last. Catlin declined to tell the Sydney Morning Herald whether he had “leaked” the story himself.

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One person who worked with him before he joined Guy’s office, however, said Catlin was a “bloody good publicist”. They pointed to him bringing US comedian Ellen DeGeneres out to promote “G’day USA” in 2013, and Nicole Kidman for an appearance in the Swisse marquee on Derby Day at Flemington in 2012.

The latter was, that source said: “total genius, to be honest… It was all anybody was talking about.”

But to be genius in PR – knowing which journalists to court, whom to take to lunch, and which celebrities to bring out to Australia to promote your brand – is not the same as being clever in politics.

“He is a rat-cunning, savvy lifestyle product publicist,” one person who knew him well observes.

“So to make this launch to politics, apart from the disdain he had for [Daniel] Andrews, I did think it was a weird move, and the first thing I did think was, ‘gee they must be playing him a shitload of money’ because I thought, you know, why would you?

“I did find it a little bit strange.”

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“There are no signs of demand slowing down through winter. COVID-19 continues to pose a high risk to Victorians and will do some for some time,” said Ambulance Victoria’s interim chief executive Felicity Topp.

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Ambulances were called to 97,928 code one cases from April to June this year, making this quarter the busiest in Ambulance Victoria’s history.

There were 16 per cent (or 13,487) more “lights and sirens” cases compared to this time last year and 4,694 more than the previous quarter.

A small improvement to the number of Victorians waiting for “planned” or elective surgeries was reported, with the wait list now at just above 87,000, a decrease of about 1600. There was also an almost 50 per cent increase in patients receiving their surgeries compared to the previous quarter.

However, the data does not include the peak of the latest Omicron wave, which disrupted elective surgery as beds were taken up by COVID-19 patients and staff fell sick with COVID, the flu and other winter illnesses.

Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said it was not yet possible to say with confidence whether the elective surgery waiting list would continue to decline over the months to come.

“We’re still feeling the impacts of COVID in our healthcare system. In this quarter that we’re in right now, we’ve seen significant hospitalizations with COVID, we continue to see furloughing, but we’ve put in place a series of reforms and I hope to see those continue to deliver outcomes,” she said.

“We are working with all of our health care services to ensure that everyone on a waiting list is being actively managed. If anyone is concerned about increasing pain, or they’re worried about their symptoms, please go and see your GP.”

Although the number of patients being treated in emergency departments has not risen in the past year, the number of those who are presenting seriously ill has, with hundreds more requiring resuscitation.

“We deduce that this is a consequence of people deferring care that they need, so please go and see your GP if you’re at all concerned about your health,” Thomas said.

Shadow health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said the ambulance response times were not good enough.

“Every second counts for a code one, and those targets are nowhere near being met. This isn’t just caused because of COVID. It’s years of underinvestment and mismanagement by the Andrews Labor government.”

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Perrottet announced candidate preselection for the March state election would open in two weeks, directly calling out the federal preselection debacle and conceding branch members were right to feel they had been stripped of their democratic right.

“One of the most important rights of party members is the power to select candidates to represent your values,” he said, insisting he wanted more women and greater cultural diversity ahead of the state poll.

The premier said he did not shy away from his conservatism, but railed against standing still in the interest of tradition, listing freedom, families, faith and integrity as central to his “brand” of conservatism.

“It is about taking the best of our past into the future, but innovating and modernizing everything else,” he said.

“I agree with our greatest prime minister John Howard when he said the Liberal party is at its best when it balances and blends its Liberal and conservative traditions.”

Perrottet’s address attracted a standing ovation from the roughly 800 in attendance at the Rosehill Gardens exhibition hall.

Members said the delivery triggered a lift in the mood of the room, which had been largely flat during earlier motions and a speech by Ley in Dutton’s absence.

Two months on from the federal election, Ley told the party faithful that Labor “want you to believe that Australia, the lucky country, has become Australia, the leftie country. It is completely rubbish”.

“The Liberal party has been written off before but let me assure you, under Peter Dutton’s leadership, we’ve got a big three years ahead,” she said, before seizing on Labor’s dismantling of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Ley said she felt as proud about the party as the day she painted blue a caravan she lived in as a shearer’s cook and covered it in Liberal party logos.

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One party member, not authorized to speak publicly about party matters, said it was an “underwhelming and uninspiring” speech highlighting how much work the party had to do to be in a position to win a federal election again.

“This is the position that was held by Julie Bishop for a long, long time. When you compare the two, it’s pretty grim,” they said.

They added it was “not lost on anyone in the room” that Ley would not be there, were it not for the types of interventions by Morrison and his key ally Alex Hawke that the AGM voted to stop.

Ley’s preselection was under threat during the federal election, prompting a personal intervention by Morrison to override local party members.

An urgent motion on Saturday to expel Hawke, who was in attendance from the Liberal party failed to garner the requisite 60 per cent support, however members in the room said support was as high as 30 per cent.

Hawke was also a target of the so-called Sydney motion, requiring the party to establish a “clear timetable” to select candidates and limit the power of “the leader’s representative” to interfere with the process.

The Sydney motion was drafted by local Bragg and Warringah Jane Buncle, both from the party’s moderate faction.

The state council came days out from Tuesday’s vote by state Liberal MPs for a new deputy leader, after Ayres was forced to resign last week over concerns about his role in the Barilaro trade job saga.

Treasurer Matt Kean and Transport Minister David Elliott will face off for the position, which mainly involves managing internal party matters.

Kean was among state MPs in attendance on Saturday, along with fellow ministerial colleagues Rob Stokes, Victor Dominello, James Griffin, Damien Tudehope, Alistair Henskens and Mark Coure. Other federal frontbenchers at the AGM included Angus Taylor, Paul Fletcher, Julian Leeser, Melissa McIntosh and Hollie Hughes.

Voting also opened on Saturday for the new state executive of the party and to replace outgoing president and party elder Philip Ruddock. Voting will continue over coming weeks.

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