Cost-cutting could get costly
Back in September, Inside Mail broke the news that respected director of Nine.com.au Kerri Elstub had been shown the door after 26 years.
Her redundancy was supposed to save the company money as Nine Entertainment seeks to slash $100million in costs – a plan reaffirmed at its annual general meeting earlier this month.
Sadly for the bean-counters at 1 Denison Street, it may well be an expensive sacking: we can exclusively reveal that Elstub is taking Nine to the Fair Work Commission.
Unsurprisingly, her complaint relates to Section 365 of the Fair Work Act, which deals with unfair dismissals.
Such an application must usually be made within 21 days of the sacking. The FWC will then handle the dispute, typically through mediation, before a court can be involved.
While it’s impossible to tell how these things will go, our money’s on the matter being quietly resolved very soon – with Nine offering Elstub a fat stack of cash.
Why are we so sure? ‘She knows where the bodies are buried,’ one source said.
Making Nine.com.au director Kerri Elstub redundant could prove costly for the media giant as she takes the company to the Fair Work Commission for unfair dismissal. (Elstub is pictured left with former Nine News weather presenter Amber Sherlock, who was also recently laid off)
The matter is being heard on Thursday morning, probably as you’re reading this column
Nine CEO Matt Stanton (pictured) reaffirmed the company’s commitment to slash $100million in costs at its annual general meeting earlier this month
Elstub was at Nine for well over two decades. She understands the company from the bottom to the top, across multiple departments.
And when she was fired, she didn’t just leave with institutional knowledge.
She left armed with the sort of intel that would be – frankly – devastating for a network already reeling from a damning culture review that found Nine’s broadcast division so toxic, 57 per cent of staff had experienced bullying, discrimination or harassment – courtesy of a broken culture enabled by shoddy leadership and gender inequality.
Now, if Inside Mail were running the joint, we’d feel awfully nervous if someone just walked out the door with detailed recollections of every problematic figure to walk through Nine’s glass doors since 1999.
Especially if that someone was upset about their dismissal – which one tends to be if the FWC is involved.
Anyway, the matter is being heard on Thursday morning, probably as you’re reading this column.
Nine’s publicity department was contacted but didn’t respond by the time of publication. Elstub declined to comment when we called her.
Never mistake lack of talent for genius
Environment Minister Murray Watt (pictured) is on the warpath over the Bureau of Meteorology’s budget blowout for its widely panned website redesign
The Bureau of Meteorology promised Australians a slick, modern website. What did we get? A national punchline.
Rain radar maps vanished, navigation turned into a maze, and the price tag? A jaw-dropping $96.5million – twenty-four times the original $4million estimate.
That’s more than a luxury yacht for a site that can’t even tell you if it’s raining.
Inside Mail can reveal that one of the many cooks who spoiled the broth was global consulting firm Accenture.
You may know Accenture Song – the creative and digital marketing arm of the business – as the agency that butchered Jaguar’s 2024 rebrand, scrapping the iconic leaping cat for a minimalist ‘J’ and running ads showcasing everything but cars.
Think androgynous models, moody vibes and zero horsepower. And what happened when a brand like Jaguar was made to resemble a transgender dating website? Sales nosedived by nearly 50 per cent.
Jaguar dumped them.
Environment Minister Murray Watt – a textbook case of nominative determinism – has launched a review into the BOM website saga, saying he has ‘very serious concerns’ and wants the Bureau to explain how this spiralled out of control.
The Bureau of Meteorology has endured a rain bomb of criticism – and rightly so – after its website redesign had a jaw-dropping $96.5million price tag
Courtesy of the creative geniuses at Accenture Song, this was apparently an ad for Jaguar
Internally, we suspect there’s a bit of a blame game going on.
When we went to Accenture for comment this week, they forwarded us to the BOM – who they said were handling all ‘media queries’ about the website.
Then, hours before deadline, the Bureau surprised us by saying the website’s design ‘cost $4.1million and was not completed by Accenture’.
Something’s not adding up.
Dress for the job you want
The Sydney Morning Herald’s corduroy-clad editor Bevan Shields stepped aside this week – days after The Oz predicted he’d be out by 2026.
In his farewell to the newsroom, he said, ‘The time has come for me to focus on my health and well-being, and to think about the next chapter in my career.’
That ‘next chapter’ has led to some head-scratching among media insiders, given the official line is he’s returning to the masthead next year ‘in a senior writing role’.
You’d think he’d change career – four years leading a metro masthead would surely open a lot of doors in corporate comms or even government. It feels a bit odd to us that in a few months’ time he’ll be sitting with the reporters he used to boss about…
The end of Bevan Shields’ tenure as SMH editor is expected to usher in an era of sharper newsroom fashion, as his fondness for casual dress and corduroy didn’t always impress more traditional staff members
Shields – whose nickname was either ‘Sheffield’ or ‘Brooke’, depending on who you ask – was always a curious choice for the top job anyway.
For one, he didn’t really seem to like sport, admitting in a 2024 ‘note to subscribers’ that he wasn’t a ‘massive fan’ of cricket – something we were reminded of when the SMH was the sole metro masthead to skip front-page Ashes coverage last Friday.
Add to that his pearl-clutching condemnation in February of the NSW government’s taxpayer funding of a UFC event – describing the very mainstream sport of cage fighting as ‘barbaric’ and ‘repulsive’ – which prompted the league’s owner Dana White, fresh from a pally sit-down with Chris Minns, to call Shields ‘the biggest f***ing wimp on planet Earth’. Ouch.
Shields donned a suit when he appeared on camera for a Stan documentary, but Inside Mail is told this is something of a rare occurrence
As for the newsroom response to Shields’ exit, he of course had his supporters and detractors, as all editors do.
But we understand that one person who may have strong feelings on the matter is the Herald’s former long-serving chief sports writer Andrew Webster.
Before he took voluntary redundancy in October last year, we are told Shields and Webster had a nuclear falling-out. We texted him for details on Thursday but didn’t hear back, but apparently word of their rift spread far beyond the editorial floor.
Meanwhile, we’ve also heard whispers this week that the end of Shields’ tenure is expected to usher in an era of sharper newsroom fashion.
Back in the day, the editor of the Herald used to be expected to dress like they were, you know, the editor of the Herald.
But in addition to his aforementioned fondness for corduroy, Shields was known to keep things decidedly casual in the office. ‘Old man-ish’ was how one reporter who used to work for him put it.
At least he was a step ahead of Robert Whitehead (SMH editor 2000-2005) who wore bike shorts to work, or so the story goes.
Nine Newspapers was contacted for comment.
Don’t call it austerity…
Labor is now ordering government departments to cut five per cent of their operational costs right across the board, chasing nearly $6billion in savings to help make next year’s budget look a little better.
In doing so Labor has ironically become the party putting jobs at risk, with as many as 22,500 public service jobs now on the line. This comes in the wake of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese using this year’s election campaign to attack the Coalition for planning almost identical cuts.
The same jobs that were once ‘under threat’ if Peter Dutton became PM are now a ‘practical’ sacrifice in the name of budget repair.
Apparently slashing the Australian Public Service is ‘austerity’ when the other side of politics does it, but it’s ‘responsible government’ under Albo. It must be wonderful to be so virtuous in one’s thinking.
And before anyone asks, yes, here at Inside Mail we see the need to cut the bloated bureaucracy of Canberra – but we always did, including when the other side warned us it had to be done.
To be clear: we aren’t critical of Albo now doing it. We just note the obvious backflip.
Money talks
The latest Australian Election Study confirms that the Coalition has finally lost its one remaining security blanket that just might woo the odd voter here and there.
The electorate now regard Labor as the better economic managers for the first time in the survey’s 38-year history.
Dutton also managed the rare feat of becoming the least popular opposition leader on record, with voters saying his standout missing qualities were ‘inspiration’ and ‘compassion’.
When your brand is tough but competent, yet the data say you are none of those things, that’s when you know you have a serious problem.
Australia is effectively under one-party rule following Anthony Albanese’s triumph over Peter Dutton, with the under-fire Coalition no longer seen by voters as superior economic managers
Dutton, of course, is now out of politics, having lost his seat at the election drubbing. But in irony of ironies, without him the Liberals are more divided than ever, and the polling has continued to get worse.
Are we about to enter a period of one-party rule? We might be a democracy formally, but unless a new party fills the void the dysfunctional Liberals are leaving behind, Labor’s preselection battles will be more contested than actual elections are.
Party time in Canberra
Parliament has been a flurry of Christmas celebrations this year – and Inside Mail was there.
Kicking off on Monday, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley invited members of the press gallery to join her for drinks in the Liberal party room.
While a more muted affair, the event was filled with a number of media types, including ABC 7.30 host Sarah Ferguson – despite the Liberals calling her out for interrupting Ley a whopping 36 times during her interview on the show last week.
In her remarks to the crowd, Ley made a veiled reference to the Ghost of Liberal Christmas Past – one Scott Morrison.
She assured everyone that while she planned to enjoy some downtime over the break, she definitely wouldn’t be heading overseas.
While she didn’t spell it out, we can only imagine she was invoking the memory of ‘Scotty from Marketing’ and his Hawaiian jaunt during the devastating 2019 bushfires.
Fast forward to Tuesday and the ABC was next in the festive party train – rolling out the red carpet for the government in what some have not-so-quietly suggested was a bid to keep its budget intact.
The broadcaster’s end-of-year bash was peak Xmas glamour, drawing politicians, staffers and media heavyweights for a night of schmoozing and star-spotting.
And speaking of stars, the ABC rolled out its full stable: Leigh Sales, Tom Gleeson, Laura Tingle, Patricia Karvelas, Dr Karl and plenty more – with Annabel Crabb reigning supreme as emcee for the night.
But the real showstopper? Bluey and her sister Bingo.
Oh, and don’t be fooled when your local MP posts about their undying love for Australia’s favourite blue heeler. Inside Mail understands a few of them had to be quietly briefed by staffers that Bluey is, in fact, a girl.
Meanwhile, one Liberal staffer told Inside Mail it was ‘clear Labor had taken over the building’ as a parade of fresh-faced Labor MPs queued up to meet Crabb – apparently auditioning for the next season of Kitchen Cabinet.
Meanwhile, across the building, the Nationals were hosting what we’re already crowning the party of the season. Their Christmas bash came with a full-blown 1970s/1980s theme – and a no-phones rule – and they went all in.
Former Deputy PM Michael McCormack stole the spotlight, channeling Elvis in full rhinestone glory while belting out Suspicious Minds. No surprise there – his Riverina seat is home to the Parkes Elvis Festival, after all.
Senator Matt Canavan leaned hard into his ‘Maverick’ persona, rocking a Top Gun flight suit, while Nationals Senate leader Bridget McKenzie turned heads in full equestrian regalia – riding helmet included, attending as ‘herself from the 70s’.
And then there was Nationals Whip and Capricornia MP Michelle Landry, who brought the house down dressed as Anni-Frid Lyngstad from ABBA, leading her office in a spirited rendition of the Time Warp from Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Memo to all political parties: karaoke is always a winning move.
