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CBD can report there’s a rising star on the consulting scene. Swinburne University vice-chancellor Pascale Quester has been engaged by the government’s medicines regulator.
We spotted a $22,000 contract for “legal services” from the TGA to private marketing firm Hexagon, where Quester is listed as the sole director and shareholder.
Swinburrne University Vice-chancellor Professor Pascale Quester
The TGA tells CBD that the VC, a marketing expert, was engaged “as an expert witness in the field of consumer behaviour” in its recent tribunal battle with weight loss drugmaker Cat Media. You might remember that the TGA banned Cat’s popular pill Fatblaster Max last year, after it was revealed the drug didn’t “blast” fat at all. Apparently, a peek through its paperwork revealed it wasn’t even designed for weight loss.
“Hexagon was contracted through a limited tender process, consistent with the rules,” the TGA assured CBD. The VC gave evidence before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in March, where Cat is challenging the ban, and a judgment is expected shortly.
Quester herself is a “no comment”. But CBD notes that while she ranked among the country’s highest-paid VCs last year, bagging a salary of more than $1million, she did take a gracious $20,000 pay cut compared to the year before.
That $22,000 TGA contract should fill the void nicely.
THE CALMES BEFORE THE STORM
New boss of fashion “e-tailer” The Iconic Jere Calmes has been in the top job for only two months but has reportedly already been making his presence well and truly felt.
According to our spies, on Thursday morning, ahead of announcing 72 redundancies at the company, Calmes told a staff all-hands that the restructure, the second since February, was in part due to “historical mismanagement”. Ouch.
As we know, the former boss of The Iconic, Erica Berchtold, parted ways with the company earlier this year to take the top job at discount chain Best & Less, only to be told “thanks but no thanks” when the company was sold in an off-market deal to retail moguls Brett “Mr Sanity” Blundy and Ray Itaoui.
Berchtold is, CBD understands, still in the hunt for a new role, so were Calmes’ comments a case of kicking someone while they’re down? Maybe he needs to Calmes his farm when there are Gen Z staff with iPhones in the room.
MAKING HIS MARK
Mark Latham wants everyone to know he’s doing just fine after his acrimonious and utterly unsurprising recent political separation from Pauline Hanson.
On Friday, Latham was all scrubbed up alongside Sydney’s D-grade celebrities at the Everest Carnival Long Lunch at Royal Randwick. The former Labor leader was so excited about posing next to television personality Kerri-Anne Kennerley that he posted the same photo of them three times across his two Instagram accounts.
Joe BenkeCredit: Benke
“I’m a well-known celebrity A-lister,” Latham wrote.
We’re sure the pair had plenty in common.
Later in the day, Mark was in a more reflective mood, with a poetic caption accompanying a picture of an espresso martini.
“Expresso [sic] Martini
Royal Randwick Stables
Talking track and other random shit.
Does life get any better?”
For Latham, whose political career continues to take strange twists and turns, we’re not sure if it does.
VR GUYS
Canberra’s lanyard-toting public servants have a particularly dorky idea of fun. Over at the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, they’ve splurged $25,000 on virtual reality headsets.
The department would not say what the goggles were being used for, or if Minister Murray Watt had his own set.
But the company’s website boasts that it caters to all three styles of learning, so that’s a relief.
Still, CBD hopes those public servants are careful out there. A 2020 government review of the tech espoused its virtues for agriculture training, including an up-close-and-personal run through of a cow teat examination, but it also warned of hygiene concerns and debilitating “VR sickness”. Oh my.
ILES AND ILES
The Conservative Political Action Conference might have come and gone, and Beyonce still hasn’t announced Australian dates for her Renaissance tour, but at least one of CBD’s favourite right wing fire breathers is set to make a return Down Under next year.
Martyn Iles, who fled to Kentucky to join a creationist church after his leadership of the Australian Christian Lobby unravelled earlier this year, has announced tour dates for a big Living In Babylon tour in early 2024.
Iles is currently chief ministry officer at Answers for Genesis, the Christian group best known for its Noah’s Ark theme park replete with life-sized dinosaurs, and boasted that the group’s events have already seen around 4000 God botherers register for an evening of fire and brimstone.
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