‘Bitchy queens, pitiful losers’: CBD columnists love getting feedback

2 months ago 24

The security guard approached to both acknowledge – and define the limits – of the role of the fourth estate.

We were standing on the footpath outside the media mogul’s mansion, chronicling the confluence of power, money, culture, sport and celebrity also known as Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch’s Christmas party.

SGH managing director and CEO Ryan Stokes runs the gauntlet of your CBD columnists.

But such was the apprehensive stupor on the faces of some guests they failed to recognise us – despite the fact we had known them for 30 years.

“You have your job to do,” the well turned-out security chap said, fittingly for a bloke whose boss had a worth of $3 billion – in no small part due to profits from intrusive journalism.

Mr Security also had a job to do – pointing out where the public footpath ended and the private roadway leading to Murdoch’s Le Manoir began.

It was at this point, filing under a tree in the street, we realised we had become gutter journalists.

Some of our more critical readers certainly thought so.

“Court jester,” “gossip girl”, “bitchy queen”, “pitiful, pathetic loser”. And “the literary equivalent of a bloke drawing something obscene on the back of a toilet door”.

These are a few of the delightful descriptions your columnists have been called in the past week.

Other glowing reviews from 2025 have included such epithets as: “Pathetic and desperate”, “Come on boys, get your lazy arses out of the office and cover the city”, “Comrade Napier-Raman of what Paul Keating once called the Hyphenated-Name-Set”.

Well, season’s greetings to all of you as well!

Despite the brickbats, we’ve had a whole lot of fun with it.

Peter Dutton, pictured in March, tried to make Welcome to Country ceremonies an election issue.

The first months of 2025 were dominated by a federal election which promised political excitement but instead delivered a dull as ditch water campaign as the Labor machine ground a hapless Peter Dutton into the dust.

Coalition senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s holiday snaps in a MAGA hat certainly didn’t help that cause.

While the political obituaries for Dutton were being written weeks out from polling day, team Albo remained anxious enough on election night to try to ban us from the victory party. We snuck in regardless to witness the most uninspiring of landslides.

More excitement followed. ABC election analyst Tony Barry launched into a lengthy Facebook rant attacking . . . the ABC election coverage.

Labor loyalist Nick Dyrenfurth lambasted us for reporting this … but as if we can look a gift horse in the mouth.

The Liberals imploded. Scores of burnt-out hacks left the Laborverse, chief among them former Guardian political editor Katharine Murphy and hot-mess columnist Brigid Delaney, who founded a consultancy specialising in stoicism. Niki Savva penned a new book. In a rare silver lining for the Liberals, Tim Wilson returned after beating teal Zoe Daniel, which is a gift for content.

The state of the two parties was best summed up by their respective Christmas fundraising dos this week. About 250 people turned up on Wednesday in Sydney at the federal Labor Business Forum’s event at AMP which featured a rousing speech from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and appearances from nearly all of cabinet. Notably absent was Communications Minister Anika Wells, embroiled in a good old-fashioned parliamentary perks scandal.

Cometh the hour, cometh the expenses scandal involving Anika Wells.

It was another fizzer for the Liberals. Despite alcohol giant Diageo hosting, only about 80 people rallied, including less than a handful of frontbenchers. Opposition Leader Sussan Ley wasn’t even the guest of honour – that fell to former prime minister John Howard, spotted afterwards holding court over a glass of Johnnie Walker blue label.

As for the protagonists of election 2025, they’ve all gone onto bigger and better things. Albanese walked down the aisle with Jodie Haydon at a top-secret wedding at The Lodge – an event we knew about but were unable to bring to you ahead of time. Albo was spotted DJ-ing at his garden after-party (also known as a reception), with Finance Minister Katy Gallagher among the first to leave.

As for the vanquished, Dutton went full semi-retired property investor, selling his luxury farm, holidaying in the US and maybe auditioning for a Washington DC job.

While CBD tends to concern itself with matters domestic, even we could not escape the gravitational pull of Donald Trump’s presidency. We broke the news that One Nation leader Pauline Hanson had skipped parliament to attend Trump’s Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, alongside Australia’s richest woman Gina Rinehart.

Gina Rinehart and her fellow “Trumpettes” at President Donald Trump’s Florida estate Mar A Lago.

As ever, the billionaire mining mogul provided us with ample copy. There was the Roy Hill Christmas party, where mineworkers sang AI-generated hymns praising their “dear chairman”. Rinehart’s employees clearly love her. How many other bosses are willing to spend thousands evacuating their top spinner from war-torn Israel as the missiles rained down?

We too owe a debt of gratitude to Gina, and to Pauline, and Clive Palmer and Barnaby Joyce, for saving our bacon on many a slow day.

What of other friends of this column?

Well, Mark Latham continued to wage war on just about everyone, and somehow managed to become even more repulsive in 2025.

Mark Latham was escorted out of Grandview Restaurant at Royal Randwick Racecourse.

Thanks to another Optus fail, former premier turned telco Gladys Berejiklian has found herself somewhere almost as embattled as the Liberal Party. At least she is now eligible for a lifetime $200,000-a-year taxpayer-funded pension, as CBD revealed in October.

Disgraced broadcaster Alan Jones, facing court next year over indecent assault and sexual touching offences, appeared at Melbourne socialite Ann Peacock’s party (even though she tried to deny he was ever there).

The Scots College castle finally opened its doors.

Melbourne Lord Mayor Nick Reece popped up in China and recreated ex-premier Dan Andrews’ Tiananmen Square picture. As for Dan, aside from attending Xi Jinping’s propaganda parade, the former premier popped up to help Albo with pre-election debate prep. He hardly needed it.

As ever, our events calendars were jam-packed.

The Federal Parliament Midwinter Ball was delayed until August, thanks to the election. Kate Ceberano and Tony Armstrong turned up to provide the celeb quota, while the Press Gallery event raised $370,000 in total for charity. It was a record amount, thanks in part to teal independent bankroller Simon Holmes a Court shelling out $15,000 so 18-year-old climate activist Katya Zheluk could take a whirl in Ley’s light plane.

Liberal MPs Melissa McIntosh, Senator Anne Ruston, Mary Aldred, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley and Melissa Price go to the ball.

It was a year of many funerals. In June, we lost our dear friend and former colleague John Shakespeare, whose delicious illustrations brought this column to life as he unfailingly brought the good times to all those in the newsroom he came in contact with. He remains sorely missed.

Much-loved former CBD illustrator John Shakespeare.

Later, we watched the good and great turn up for late broadcaster John Laws’ state funeral, where as ever, Barnaby Joyce stole the show. Weeks later, we encountered a dead rat, and a rare moment of bipartisan unity as the Canberra bubble farewelled a true master of the political dark arts, former Labor powerbroker Graham “Richo” Richardson.

And then, before we’d had a moment to blink, summer was well and truly upon us. It’s time for us to take a break, and wish all of you, dear readers, a very happy festive season.

On a more personal note, this is the final dispatch for your Sydney columnist, who is bidding CBD towers adieu but will remain very much active within these pages. It’s been an honour and a thrill pissing off the powerful these past few years. We hope you’ve been entertained.