Elizabeth Farrelly tips and murmurs
(Image: Private Media/Supplied)

Fair weather Farrelly We bid farewell to The Sydney Morning Herald‘s long-term columnist Elizabeth Farrelly. The SMH’s new editor Bevan Shields brought the relationship to a close after Farrelly wrote a piece criticising Liberal and independent councillors in the Strathfield municipality, without disclosing that she had registered as a candidate for the Labor Party in the Strathfield local government elections. Farrelly has described the move as a “ruthless king hit”.

We are left to remember what was. Farrelly, like anyone allowed to write a column for more than three decades, had her fair share of odd moments. Probably the peak was her May 2017 piece about moving house. You may recall that she crossed a picket line to do it — her colleagues at what was then Fairfax were striking over the loss of 125 jobs. But hey, there was an urgent need for a piece about Farrelly moving house, so what was she to do? But she got an immediate lesson in what happens when you file for a publication where all the subeditors are striking: her piece was topped with the immortally weird headline: “I have no experience of ghosts but house is always haunt as moving proves”.

Fun with FOI We’re often critical the Morrison government’s the lack of transparency, up to and including wilful obfuscation regarding freedom of information applications. However, we’re inclined to believe that the following response — initially picked up by our former colleague Josh Taylor, to someone who identifies themselves, fairly grandly, as “All Citizen’s [sic] of Australia” — is probably genuine:

Having been asked to provide “all knowledge and documentation regarding the New World Order Project”, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet say it has searched for documents “within the scope of your request” and found that none exist. But then again… it would say that…

Jonesing for the spotlight As predicted by Crikey, frequent Tips and Murmurs target Alan Jones is back. The spurned shock jock is making a return to broadcasting by pivoting to digital. In a remarkably poorly produced press conference on Friday which was broadcast on his Facebook page, the Parrot said he had signed with “Australian Digital Holdings” and would produce a show not dissimilar to his previous Sky News venture. A website has just been launched too:

But who is behind Australian Digital Holdings?

Well, public records filed with ASIC show it was created late last month and is registered to a Jack Bulfin, who also registered alanjones.com.au. Bulfin, who was at UTS as of this year, works for a property development company headed up by his father. And what’s his link to Jones? Well a cursory look at his social media reveals that Bulfin is close with Jake Thrupp, Jones’ protege, producer and an occasional News Corp columnist. Looks like Jones has kept this one in the family!

Bess better bested Representation matters. And so we join LGBTQ Nation in praising Cameron Bess, who this weekend proved being an out pansexual furry is no barrier to travelling into space (they are the first to do so, hopping on the Blue Origin), as long as you work hard, never let discrimination stop you, and have a venture capitalist father who will buy you a ticket on Jeff Bezos’ private space flight. Inspiring.