Q and eh? Karvelas eyes live broadcast from India for flagship program

Although we hope the publisher’s editors don’t rely on Wikipedia for fact-checking: immediately following the retirement news, an unscrupulous contributor altered Franklin’s career statistics to claim he’d scored 1998379826712831 goals. Surely the truth is impressive enough.

PASSING THE BUCKLAND

Accounting went from blah to blood-boiling when it emerged that former PwC partner Peter Collins had leaked confidential government tax crackdown plans to his firm, which used that information to drum up business.

The two-timing only came to light this year when the Tax Practitioners Board published its reasons for disqualifying Collins’ registration for two years.

CBD has chanced upon another fascinating Tax Practitioners Board matter.

The regulator sought an interim injunction against Anthony Dean Buckland, accusing him and Apat, the Philippines-based company that bought his business in 2017, of preparing and lodging tax returns for about 600 taxpayers while not being registered tax agents.

But Buckland, who lost his tax registration in 2017 and now describes himself as an artificial intelligence consultant, has denied providing tax services. He argued these taxpayers may in fact have interacted with somebody purporting to be him – or a bot.

The Federal Court last week said the evidence was “arguably capable” of showing Apat was providing tax services – through people or bots – and restrained Buckland from preparing and lodging income tax returns.

Buckland, who recently advertised one-day courses on AI for “senior government and private firm executives, senior lawyers, senior accountants and other senior industry managers”, did not respond to our request for comment.

HAWKESBURY HEAT

A spectacular spat between Hawkesbury Mayor Sarah McMahon and councillor Nathan Zamprogno came to the boil on Friday at a Liberal state executive meeting, which passed a motion brought by McMahon to suspend Zamprogno from the party.

This tale of woe commenced in 2021, when Zamprogno failed to secure preselection on the Liberal ticket before the local government election. He was granted permission to run as an independent and remain in the party.

Since then, according to a brief of evidence sent to the state executive, “his attacks on good locally elected Liberals seems to have no end”. And in true Gen X style, Facebook is the chosen battleground.

Included in the evidence is a photo Zamprogno posted showing piles of documents building up on McMahon’s desk (although he didn’t name her in the post), which the evidence claims sought to allege she was “lazy, didn’t read her business papers and therefore was not worth a vote”. The authors also took issue with the councillor liking a Photoshop job that “cut Sarah’s head off and jammed it onto a bulldozer” to make a statement about development in the region.

In a letter sent to state director Chris Stone last month, McMahon sent recent screenshots of Zamprogno liking Facebook comments that cast the Liberals as “incompetent and out of touch” and a party of “corruption and self-interest”.

“I am over being embarrassed by this man, reporting it to the party and having nothing done to stop it. Please assist us. We cannot continue to operate like this.”

For Zamprogno’s part, the high school teacher maintained in a letter sent to the state executive that McMahon’s motive was simply to “eliminate yet another rival”.

“When I have taken positions at variance to my Liberal colleagues, it has been in support of sound Liberal principles. I’ve always backed our Liberal candidates and MPs, manning a booth for all our Liberal candidates, even Sarah, since 1996.” (Not our emphasis.)

When approached, Zamprogno declined to comment, citing internal party rules, as did McMahon.

BOOTCAMP IN WINE COUNTRY

Given the allure of a European summer and cashed-up junkets at this time of year, CBD is cheered to note a group of soul-bettering pollies convened in the Adelaide Hills for ministerial bootcamp last month.

Since 2021 the McKinnon Institute for Political Leadership has spirited away a select gaggle of 20 politicians to hone leadership skills, practise “active listening” and cultivate “ministerial longevity” during a five-day residential intensive. Last year’s event was held in the Hunter Valley, leading CBD to believe these learnings can only be achieved while deep in wine country.

The program is backed by the Susan McKinnon Foundation, which aims to “improve our governments and democracy” (we pray they are thoroughly cashed up). The foundation was set up by Sophie Oh and entrepreneur Grant Rule, who sold his SMS marketing technology company MessageMedia in 2021 for $US1.3 billion.

Partnering with Monash University, the foundation shouts politicians the $24,000 course fee. Presenters for this year’s program include former premiers Mike Baird and Jay Weatherill, along with former prime minister Julia Gillard.

Joining this year’s cohort is Bridget Archer, the Tasmanian Coalition MP who has crossed the floor 27 times and was the only Liberal to vote for the censuring of Scott Morrison during Secret-MinistryGate. That’s points for political pluck. As for political longevity, the vast majority of the previous two cohorts remain in their respective state and federal parliaments, with apologies to Tim Wilson and Fiona Martin.

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