By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
While some key American progressives are busy cooking up ways to fight the Trump administration, not-so-former vice-president Kamala Harris and failed candidate for the big job, will be heading to the Gold Coast to speak at the Australian Real Estate Conference next month.
Kamala Harris is about to share her love of real estate at a Gold Coast conferenceCredit: Bloomberg
To be honest, this isn’t a sentence we imagined ourselves writing last week, let alone a few months ago, when the pollsters rated Harris a coin-flip chance of winning the White House.
And yet, here we are, with US President Donald Trump wreaking havoc, and Harris hanging out with the nation’s finest realtors at the Gold Coast Convention & Exhibition Centre while mulling a run for Governor of California. Remarkably, this is her first speaking engagement in Australia, and we hear she’s on a tight schedule, jetting in and out of the Gold Coast just for the AREC speech.
But who/what/where/how, exactly? Informed sources tell us it’s because the conference’s organiser, real estate king-pin John McGrath simply ... asked. He’s had success attracting A-lister types, with past conferences featuring Ryan Reynolds, Reese Witherspoon and Caitlyn Jenner, albeit via satellite.
We reckon Harris’ appearance isn’t just down to McGrath’s undeniable rizz, and could owe more to his willingness to stump up what is an undoubtedly eye-watering speaker’s fee. Harris recently signed with Hollywood speakers’ bureau, Creative Artists Agency, and while details of how much she cost McGrath are tightly confidential, a former politician of her ilk could generally bill upward of $US200,000 ($319,000) for their insights.
Also flying in to address the Tarocash-clad horde on the GC is Los Angeles property bro and reality TV star Mauricio Umansky, a villainous side character on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Umansky was represented in a real estate dispute involving a Malibu mansion and the vice-president of Equatorial Guinea by Los Angeles lawyer Doug Emhoff, whose main gig over the past four years was as the Second Gentleman of the United States, in other words, Harris’ husband. They’re all connected.
No interviews allowed, although CBD hears the final call will be with Harris’ people. We imagine the prized sit-down will be a toss-up between 7.30’s Sarah Ferguson and Luxe Listings Sydney’s Monika Tu.
Unhappy change leads to change
Uproar among students at Trinity Grammar in Kew has prompted students to start a petition in an unlikely location.
Principal Adrian Farrer’s decision to move form periods from their slot at the start of the morning to before lunch has been taken by some as akin to messing with the school’s very DNA. In response, students have turned to activist website change.org for help.
A petition there had attracted 850 signatures when CBD was heading for deadline – not too shabby given the school’s student population numbers about 1500.
The petition is a masterclass of the genre, complaining the changes mean students are now “rushed abruptly” into learning, with “the added stress of potentially arriving at school and having to complete a test or assignment first thing in the morning”.
The petition says the change disrupts the sleep of Year 12 students “preventing them from getting the rest they deserve after studying late into the night”.
“As Trinity Grammar students, we deserve better,” it states, adding teachers will also be affected.
“Mornings are busy and tiring for them, and under the new format, they no longer have time to grab a coffee or breakfast and adequately prepare to deliver the highest level of teaching and pastoral care to their students.”
Quite the masterclass in political messaging, and we can only salute the petition’s originator Harry Nelson.
While waiting to hear back from Nelson and the school, we happened upon this comment from school’s legendary headmaster Frank Shann in 1929: “Trinity differs from other independent schools chiefly in one particular. The aim has been to emphasise the value of moral training as distinct from merely intellectual.”
A career tinkering
Alcoholic beverage Hard Solo had the last laugh when Kylea Tink, the teal independent member for North Sydney who had campaigned against the alcopop, had her political future killed off by the Australian Electoral Commission last year when they abolished her seat.
Kylea Tink will not stand in the lower house at the next election.Credit: Edwina Pickles
Despite some initial chatter about Tink running in neighbouring Bradfield or taking a potshot at the Senate, none of that has played out. Instead, Tink is off to Queensland to fight Peter Dutton. She’s just landed a gig as director of the Community Independent Movement, another organisation set up to raise funds for teal wannabes, which will give even more ammunition to the Liberals’ desperate claim that the teals are indeed another political party.
Tink has been campaigning in Dickson, held by the opposition leader by a slender 1.7 per cent margin, and where Ellie Smith is the teal-ish challenger.
“Ellie Smith is an outstanding community-backed candidate for the community of Dickson and could very well unseat the alternative prime minister on May 3,” Tink said.
That might be a moonshot, but Tink and the teals have their eyes set on the Sunshine State, also targeting Gold Coast seats. We’ll see if their whole “politics done differently” schtick still resonates without a cartoon villain like Scott Morrison around to rev up their supporters.
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