Today, the Velvet Fog rolls back into the seat of power, beery Biggles shakes his booty, boring is as boring does, and Adelaide’s Biggest Losers.
The Velvet Fog rolls back in
Rik Morris, a central player in Labor’s state election win, is returning to the seat of power in a newly created public service role.
Morris, who earned the title of “the Velvet Fog” during his days as a smooth media man in the Rann Government, is leaving the South Australian Tourism Commission to return to the more prosaic surrounds of the State Administration Centre.
He will essentially become the Government’s public service fixer as executive director of the newly formed Implementation and Delivery Unit in the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
The unit’s aim is to drive policy initiatives and make sure priority projects are actually delivered by the state’s bureaucracy.
“Basically, Rik will be the go to guy driving public service implementation and delivery on key projects and policy decisions,” says our government source.
“Rik has always been the guy who gets things done and that’s what he is being employed to do in the public service – kind of like a fix it guy to get certain important things moving quicker and through the processes.”
We’re assured the position was advertised and that Morris was selected following a competitive interview process. His salary will be “similar” to that he received as general manager in the SATC. Solid, in other words.
Morris joined Tourism after Mike Rann left the Premiership.
He made a surprise return to the Premier’s office late last year, when he was seconded to help Jay Weatherill win re-election.
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The Fog rolls back into State Admin on October 7.
A beer and a boogie with Biggles
The state’s agriculture and tourism minister, Leon “Biggles” Bignell, dances to the beat of his own drum – but this doesn’t mean he has any sense of rhythm.
If your dare, click on the video below (from 46 seconds in) to see Biggles shaking what his mother gave him.
Meanwhile, if you want to catch up with the man in the flesh, Biggles is making a very unusual offer.
He put out a media release this week inviting punters to meet him in a bar at the Royal Show to chat about agriculture in SA. Go here for details.
Nice one Biggles. But stop dancing. Please.
The Boring Index
An accountant, an economist and an academic walk into a bar … yeah, nah, it’s hardly the best intro for a joke.
Australia’s Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens, however, may have plunged the world of boring professions into the “humoursphere” this week after his presentation at an economic forum in Adelaide.
Stevens, the nation’s most influential economist, is known for his cautious tones and less-than-exciting delivery, yet he kept the audience of 350 suits enthralled (and silent) for 30 minutes.
In a vote-of-thanks Ernst&Young’s managing partner Chris Sharpley conceded it would be a stretch for him, as an accountant, to accuse an economist of being boring.
Stevens interjected: “Economists are the ones that lack the personality to become an accountant,” to much mirth in the audience.
Which may go some to explain the debacle of Judith Sloan’s epic speech to last Friday’s Business SA gala dinner, during which audience members starting ostentatiously chatting among themselves after just five minutes. Now, Sloan is not only an economist (and an academic one at that), but also a columnist for The Australian. Is a new scale needed on the boring index?
Meanwhile, several readers haven’t believed the assessment of our business editor, Kevin Naughton, that Sloan’s speech was the worst key-note he had ever heard.
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Some have even demanded a transcript.
Sorry to disappoint, but the Editor has decided that forcing a staff member to do that might be in breach of Occupational Health and Safety laws.
Winning
While on the subject of the Business SA Gala 175th Anniversary dinner – has there ever been a better set of door prizes?
Guests at the annual dinner, held at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre, were all in the draw for a brand new Toyota, 20 VIP tickets to the Paul Simon/Sting concert on the Green at Coopers Brewery this coming February, and a ticket for two to “any destination on the planet” courtesy of Emirates.
The 100 table numbers were placed into a barrel and one by one the tables were eliminated in a reverse draw until three tables remained.
As each table was allocated one of the three prizes, their 10 guests’ names were placed in a separate barrel and an individual winner drawn by MC David Koch.
And so it was that Koch, the Port Adelaide Football Club President, managed to draw Adelaide Crows chairman Rob Chapman’s name out of the barrel for the Toyota (which he promptly donated to charity).
More intriguing, however, was the winner of the 20 VIP concert tickets: it came down to a table full of journalists from News Ltd and the ABC, with The Australian’s Sarah Martin winning the tickets.
Given the close-knit nature of Adelaide’s media pack, if she’s not careful it could become like a scene from Waking Ned Devine. Minus the deceased Irishman, of course.
A weight off his mind
Still at the dinner and former state Liberal leader Iain Evans appears to be in a much better place since announcing his retirement from politics a couple of months ago.
The formerly rather, err, cuddly Evans was almost unrecognisable after losing 27kg on a strict low carb, low dairy diet regime, coupled with a 90-minute daily walk.
As one Liberal insider noted: “If he dyed his hair he could stand as the new candidate for Davenport.”
He can now compete for the title of Biggest Loser with fellow celebrity weight loss champion Peter Goers, who recently attributed his impressive downsizing to an appropriately eccentric diet of cigarettes and black coffee, low-cal jelly, boiled eggs, almonds and Barnacle Bills.
The Outsider appears in InDaily every Friday, digging into places where we’re not welcome, and probing Adelaide’s obsessions.
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