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While many of Bill Shorten’s former staffers wound up in the lobbying game, Alisha Aitken-Radburn took an unorthodox turn, becoming a reality TV star by appearing on The Bachelor.
That career trajectory will now be the subject of a soon-to-be released tell-all memoir, The Villain Edit, charting Aitken-Radburn’s journey from the cut-throat world of University of Sydney student politics to the comparatively friendly reality TV scene.
Alisha Aitken-Radburn during a 2019 federal election rally.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
On the way, we get a behind-the-scenes look at Aitken-Radburn’s time in Shorten’s office and a stint at NSW Labor during the 2019 Independent Commission Against Corruption probe that ended the career of her then boss, Kaila Murnain.
No wonder news of the warts-and-all memoir has left a few political staffers anxious about whether their most Machiavellian moments have made the cut.
Aitken-Radburn told CBD she’d already received some nervy messages.
“I imagine a lot of people will be hitting Ctrl+F when the book is released,” she said.
Moved on, for now, from politics and reality TV, Alisha recently married Bachelor in Paradise contestant Glenn Smith in the dreamy WA coastal hamlet of Denmark (the two are now “Perthonalities”). Among the attendees was Zak Kirkup, the former WA Liberal leader best known for conceding the 2020 election to Mark McGowan weeks before the polls had even opened.
The book’s title is a reference to the villain role Aitken-Radburn was assigned during her first season on The Bachelor. Was it a role the Labor machine had prepared her for well?
“Politics in general tends to create some villainous characters,” was her diplomatic response.
ON THE TILES
We brought word last week that National Tiles boss Frank Walker – of those distinctive radio ads that have won the businessman a cult following far beyond the home building-supplies sector – has embarked on a real estate clearance that would do one of his floor-covering warehouses proud.
There’s the upmarket pad in Toorak he owns with wife Rhonda Walker, where the Myer family and Toll Holdings squillionaire Paul Little are neighbours, on the market and expected to fetch upwards of $25 million.
Also on the block are the Walker family’s – Frank and Rhonda have six daughters and a son – beloved adjoining seaside properties in swanky Mount Martha’s Prescott Avenue, an area the real estate agents call “the Golden Triangle”, just a short walk from the golden sands of the gorgeous south beach.
The price guide there is a tick under $8 million.
But there’s more! In Port Douglas, the Queensland playground for the rich and richer, a villa nicely situated in the Sheraton Mirage resort can be yours for just under $3 million.
We managed to track Frank down to the shores of Italy’s Lake Como – all this is making CBD wish we had gone into the tile business – and he told us that the sell-off was a simple case of the family getting their house(s) in order.
The Toorak sale is a classic case of downsizing for the now empty nesters. The Walkers plan a move to a lower-maintenance place down the road in South Yarra.
After two of the daughters acquired their own Mornington Peninsula getaways, the properties at Mount Martha are now also surplus to requirement, Walker explained, and the Port Douglas villa was a spur-of-the moment investment, picked up at a very good price during the pandemic when the market in the town experienced a wobble, now being flicked on at a profit.
PAST CHAPTERS
Back on the subject of books now, and to former prime minister Tony Abbott, who has been called many things over the years, but “future of the Liberal Party” might not stick as a label these days for the former member for Warringah.
Former prime minister Tony Abott.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
But Abbott is set to launch a book on that very subject titled Dignity and Prosperity, which it is hoped will act as a guidebook back to political competitiveness for the party. The book is edited by former John Howard staffer and PwC partner David Stevens, and the launch is at a Centre for Independent Studies event in Sydney this month.
Clearly some in the broad church still think Abbott has some important electoral lessons to deliver – he penned the book’s afterword, and its pages are populated by other ageing party grandees.
Tony Abbott flanked by John Howard and Alexander Downer.Credit: John Shakespeare
Howard, who headlined the book’s other launch at the weekend, gets the first word as usual, while former foreign minister Alexander Downer and his daughter Georgina Downer both contribute chapters.
We also hear from Howard’s one-time deputy John Anderson, and two of his former ministers: Richard Alston and Nick Minchin.
We’re sensing a theme here. All the book’s political contributors served in the Howard government, and those who never made it to parliament, like Australian columnist Judith Sloan, can hardly be described as exciting young up-and-comers.
So, we wish Stevens and his book well in achieving the lofty goal of “reigniting a renaissance of the Liberal cause”.
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