Maribyrnong mayor makes comeback after child-on-lap driving incident

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It wasn’t so long ago that a Melbourne mayor briefly became a wanted man for failing to appear in court to face a dangerous-driving charge.

Now, Pradeep Tiwari has shrugged off his legal woes and is back as mayor of Maribyrnong City Council.

Pradeep Tiwari has returned as Maribyrnong mayor after his legal proceedings ended this week.

Cue jaunty video of Tiwari standing outside Footscray Town Hall, to the tune of The Boys are Back in Town.

The story begins when he was spotted travelling at 80 km/h on CityLink with a young child on his lap. This happened in June 2024, before he was elected to the council.

Tiwari was charged with one count of dangerous driving, one count of touching a portable device while driving and one count of failing to ensure a passenger was not in the same seat as the driver.

In August this year, a warrant for Tiwari’s arrest was issued after he failed to attend a scheduled hearing at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court. Hours later, after the court received further information from Tiwari’s lawyers, it withdrew the warrant.

The legal matter finally wrapped up on Tuesday, when Tiwari escaped conviction and was fined $450 after the more serious charges were withdrawn.

His lawyer told the court his client had been suspended from the council as a result of the driving charges, and suffered not only income loss but media coverage over his “inadvertent failure” to appear in court in August.

The lawyer also said Tiwari’s young son had managed to escape from his car seat at the rear of the vehicle on the day in question in June last year.

A magistrate told Tiwari he had placed his child at significant risk, but that he had also suffered some penalty by virtue of his council suspension.

“Learn from the experience, Mr Tiwari,” he said.

Tiwari then got on Facebook to declare his return to the top job, complain about “disproportionate and misleading” media coverage and describe his child as a “houdini”.

“Dear community, I’m back,” he wrote on Tuesday.

“My child is a houdini, and had slipped out from the seat belt and I sat them on my lap, safely, while driving to the nearest place at which I could safely pull over,” he wrote.

Tiwari said he had not been evading court in August, but rather “had not been made aware of the court listing or charges”.

“I remain deeply committed to serving the people of Maribyrnong, my ward, and our wider city with transparency, responsibility, and respect.”

Candace Owen’s expensive High Court failure

Did far-right provocateur Candace Owens really expect to come to Australia?

Hours after the High Court rejected Owens’ appeal against Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s decision to deny her a visa, the phone number for her tour promoter, Rocksman, was disconnected.

Owens is known for spewing all manner of garbage online, including claims that Israel is a “cult” and that “secret Jewish gangs” control Hollywood. She planned to tour Australia last year, before Burke cancelled her visa.

But Owens seemed persistent, hiring silk Perry Herzfeld, SC, to argue that the visa denial infringed the Constitution’s implied freedom of political communication. That argument was unanimously rejected by the court, which noted that Burke had denied Owens a visa on the basis that her “extremist and inflammatory comments towards Muslim, Black, Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities” had the capacity to “incite discord” in the community.

No idea how much Owens coughed up for the appeal, but retaining a silk plus junior barrister, on top of solicitors’ fees, isn’t cheap. The court also ruled that she will be on the hook for the government’s legal costs in defending her challenge. Owens is also defending a defamation case in the US brought by French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, over her claims that the country’s first lady is transgender. The Macrons in their lawsuit have accused Owens of waging a lie-filled “campaign of global humiliation”.

French President Emmanuel Macron is suing Owens.

But despite the High Court ensuring that Owens won’t be coming to Australia any time soon, and her promoters being unable to be found, tickets for a show at Perth’s Riverside Convention and Exhibition Centre scheduled for January 2026 were still available for $95-a-pop on Wednesday afternoon. With about half the theatre sold out, that’s a lot of refunds.

It’s a deal

To hospitality news. Celebrity chef Guy Grossi recently confirmed plans to sell the much-loved Grossi Florentino restaurant and other venues on Bourke Street that have been managed by his family for 26 years. The sale followed an investigation by The Age revealing allegations of Grossi’s inappropriate behaviour, which Grossi denies, stretching back more than a decade.

Corporate filings provide more details of the sale to the hospitality group run by Rebecca Yazbek, who owns Nomad restaurant and Reine & La Rue in Melbourne and other venues in Sydney. The group is running from its own semi-recent public relations crisis.

Documents filed with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show that on September 18 Yazbek signed the deal to take over Florentino for an undisclosed sum, using an ABN for a Sydney bar that closed last year called Beau Bar. Grossi, meanwhile, is doing a residency at a Hawksburn venue, Bar Bianco, owned by almost billionaire biohacker Tim Gurner’s property group.

Rebecca’s husband, Alan Yazbek, stepped down as a co-director of the company after displaying a Nazi symbol at a pro-Palestine rally last year. He pleaded guilty to knowingly displaying a Nazi symbol but escaped conviction and was handed a conditional release order. He also promised to spend some time at an ashram in India.

When our reporters contacted Rebecca Yazbek and her representatives last week about the deal, she steadfastly refused to confirm any sale — only insisting Alan had nothing to do with “any deal with the Grossis”.

Corporate records obtained by the reporters confirm she signed the deal on September 18 and has transferred the Florentino business name to a company registered to her home address — owned jointly by the married couple. Maybe they won’t talk about restaurants around the kitchen table.

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