Embattled Johnathan Thurston Academy calls in the lobbyists

8 hours ago 4

Last month, an investigation by the Herald revealed former rugby league star Johnathan Thurston and his colourful long-time manager Sam Ayoub were embroiled in a bitter legal battle with a former employee.

Samantha Johnson, an ex-general manager of the Johnathan Thurston Academy, launched proceedings with the Queensland Human Rights Commission, accusing Ayoub of serious sexual misconduct, and Thurston of ignoring the behaviour.

Player manager Sam Ayoub, Samantha Johnson and former Australian rugby league representative Johnathan Thurston (right).

The pair strenuously deny the allegations and launched proceedings in the Queensland Supreme Court to head off Johnson’s claim. But the messy legal fight has rocked the JT Academy, the organisation helmed by Thurston which provides education services to disadvantaged youth.

The dispute was set to head before the courts last month, but the parties have since agreed to try to mediate privately.

“The parties have agreed to participate in a confidential conciliation in the Queensland Human Rights Commission to see whether it is possible for all issues between them to be resolved amicably,” a spokesperson for the JT Academy told CBD.

Meanwhile, the academy has quietly hired lobbyists. A firm called Red Rocket listed it as a client on the federal lobbying register last week. The company has no real online paper trail, but appears linked to Ryan Wellington, a one-time consigliere to lewd Sydney shock jock Kyle Sandilands. Wellington and Red Rocket also represent JT’s old club, the North Queensland Cowboys.

The JT Academy didn’t comment on Red Rocket’s lobbying. But CBD understands the academy works closely with government on service delivery, receiving $10 million in federal funding in the past seven years.

They no longer received funding, even before details of Johnson’s lawsuit and Ayoub’s alleged misconduct became public. High time to call in a friend to help work the corridors of power.

Fungal frenzy

Stand by for a veritable Krakatoa of mushroom trial content – anything and everything from podcasts/books/essays/documentaries and interviews. And don’t get us started on the TikToks.

Helen Garner has attended the mushroom murder trial in Morwell.

An early candidate for OG podcast is surely going to be Helen Garner and Sarah Krasnostein’s proposed mushroom trial podcast. CBD hears that the pair have been all about the chat on the long drives from Melbourne to the Supreme Court location in Morwell, recording their dialogue two-handers for a planned podcast series, fuelled no doubt by $1 Foodary coffees and Mentos Chewy Fruit.

We asked publisher Schwartz Media for more details but did not hear back before deadline.

Garner’s true-crime books include Joe Cinque’s Consolation and This House of Grief but as far as we can tell, a podcast will break new ground for her, although she has guested on everything from Chat 10 Looks 3 to our own Good Weekend Talks.

Krasnostein is famous for her true-crime book The Trauma Cleaner and latest piece for The Monthly was a long read on Preston Brass Band.

The podcast project is unconfirmed, unlike local publisher Allen & Unwin’s mushroom trial book. On Monday the Herald’s live blog reported the first guilty verdict trial verdict at 2.18pm. And at 3.28pm CBD’s inbox went ping with the breathless news “Allen & Unwin to publish The Mushroom Murders” boasting about how the publisher had acquired the world rights to the book from Greg Haddrick, the “Logie Award-winning screenwriter and film and television producer (whose) credits include the TV series Underbelly, Janet King”.

The book will be published on November 11, which was previously known as Armistice Day.

A case of indecent haste or first mover advantage? You be the jury.

Stan, which is, like this masthead, owned by Nine Entertainment, has a documentary series on the way by the name Death Cap, under its Revealed banner. Directed by Gil Marsden, Stan Original Revealed Documentary Death Cap features The Age’s Marta Pascual Juanola and John Silvester and is a co-production between Dreamchaser, Den of Martians and Fifth Season.

Cranes over Cranbrook

At Sydney’s wealthiest private schools, the bulldozers and builders are never far away.

The garish faux-Scottish baronial castle (officially known as the John Cunningham Student Centre).

CBD is still recovering from the grand opening of Scots College’s $60 million baronial castle, the greatest monument to educational inequality this city has ever built.

We’d been hearing rumours for some time now about another building spree down the hill at Cranbrook. Surely not, when the campus had unveiled its state-of-the-art swimming pool and auditorium, part of a $125 million facelift that was completed three years ago.

Turns out the school is planning something, but more of a minor nip-tuck than yet another full-blown cosmetic procedure. According to a development application filed with Woollahra Council last week, the school is seeking consent for minor alterations and additions to its Furber building, at a cost of about $1.69 million.

Small change for a school like Cranbrook, which raked in $25 million in parent donations for the swimming pool update alone. With an alumni network boasting the likes of billionaires Mike Cannon-Brookes and James Packer, plus its long-awaited co-educational shift beginning next year, we reckon it’s only a matter of time before Cranbrook makes its next big move in the great private school arms race.

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