Scott Briggs (Image: Supplied/Private Media)

The Section 44 mess gives us yet another genuinely faceless man. The Victorian MP starting Twitter biffs with anonymous accounts. There’s a good reason you’ve never heard the phrase “woke accountants”. Plus: is Jamie Briggs making new friends? 

From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Totally Briggs’d. Last night it was Labor’s turn for budget week fundraising, with a major function held at the National Museum of Australia (moved from Hotel Realm, near Parliament House, due to higher-than-expected interest from donors). The Labor do was sponsored by PwC and Visa. They’re two corporate heavyweights you wouldn’t normally associate with a progressive agenda, but with the polls still suggesting a Labor win at the next election, companies aren’t allowing ideology to get in the way of access and influence.

And who represented PwC? The former Liberal member for Mayo, Jamie Briggs, these days a PwC director. As PwC was an event sponsor, he got a seat at the top table … along with Bill and Chloe Shorten. We wonder if the conversation might have been somewhat stilted. Or perhaps Briggs gave Shorten the good oil on how he thought the Mayo byelection would work out for the Liberals, with Georgina Downer (yes, daughter of Australia’s own Boy Mulcaster) expected to defeat Rebekha Sharkie, thus simultaneously restoring Mayo to the Liberal fold and removing the journalistic burden of having to remember how to spell Sharkie’s name.

Faceless man. There are some moments which serve as a gorgeous synedoche for the state of Australian politics, and surely this is one. A tipster let us know that David Smith — even his name is comically anonymous — who is set to replace Katy Gallagher in the Senate, was surrounded by political journalists on budget night (at Public Bar in Manuka), with none of them actually realising who he was. Who can blame them? It’s hard to keep up with the cavalcade of Steven Bradburys already there.

Parents just don’t understand. Remember when you were young, and an adult tried to explain a topic that wasn’t all that that interesting to you by jamming in as many trendy words and popular culture references as they could? Remember how well that worked? Well, for reasons best known to themselves, accounting firm William Buck have produced a millennials’ guide to the 2018 budget:  

The whole thing is magnificently tone-deaf. There are many highlights, but Ms Tips’ favorite is “the ATO is throwing shade on your tech side hustle with increased review activity on R&D claims”, which we’re fairly certain doesn’t actually translate into anything. 

US tax cuts cut from the debate. For those of us following the course of the Trump company tax cuts in the US — something the AFR and The Australian seem curiously incurious about — the outcome has been fairly predictable. But now there’s another lesson for Australian conservative politicians and crossbenchers who might think there is some political mileage in giving large corporations a windfall.

According to Reuters, Republican candidates in this year’s elections have stopped talking about the tax cuts, reflecting how it’s now accepted that the bulk of the trillion dollar cost has gone to shareholders. As Reuters noted, Republican senate leader Mitch McConnell declared when the cuts were passed “If we can’t sell this to the American people, we ought to go into another line of work.” US voters might make that decision for them.

Dalidakis acts a twit. Is the pressure starting to get to Philip Dalidakis (the former Conroy cruncher who became innovation minister, lost a premier startup conference to Sydney and then gave Federation Square to the Apple corporation)? He’s facing objections of Cabinet members including planning minister and Richmond member Richard Wynne.

The butterknife right in the Andrews government thought anger at the Apple giveaway would blow over. Instead the storm is brewing, with the “Our City, Our Square” campaign recently launching. The giveaway won’t do much for the economy — Apple wasn’t not going to come to Melbourne — but it’ll boost their rivals in inner-city seats where Labor’s Batman result had given new hope of holding back the Green tide.

That’s especially so in Richmond, where Wynne’s personal vote was a buffer, but his acquiescence is now a problem. Has Dalidakis — these days sporting a hipster beard to talk to the techies — advanced his own career by giving away majority government post-November? Does that explain his Twitter war with a disgruntled voter?

Arrogant contempt. That’ll get ’em in Big Phil. 

Grand misunderstanding. Ms Tips noted with a wry smile this morning that Chip Le Grand’s coverage of Hillary Clinton’s discussion with Julia Gillard last night opened with the observation that Hilary was dressed in one of her  “signature pantsuits”. Quite apart from the fact that Clinton was just wearing pants and top (not a pantsuit), the discussion spent a good portion dealing with the fact that female politicians are constantly assessed on what they wear in a way no male politician ever would.

Pictured: Very much not a pantsuit

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