Last week it was announced the 43-year-old former SAS soldier and barrister, Keith Wolahan, will replace conservative Liberal party stalwart Kevin Andrews after winning a long-running preselection battle to represent the Victorian electorate of Menzies, which covers the north-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.
The Liberal Party currently holds the seat by a seven-point margin, making it a stronghold for the Coalition and a sure thing at the next election.
While party leadership has framed the coup as a “changing of the guard”, conservatives have been left wondering what their new representative stands for. And on the subject of constitutional recognition of Indigenous people at least, Wolahan certainly is no moderate.
OPINION: A video recording of a talk given to the Samuel Griffith Society in 2017 shows Wolahan lay out his opposition for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament.
Room to spare at the Australian Open
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Day one of the Australian Open’s brave new world and already the social and financial hierarchies were firmly establishing themselves. These are uncharted waters (being February), which left many discombobulated and dreaming of the good old days.
It was slow going at the Founders Club behind a wooden paling fence opposite Rod Laver Arena. There, patrons who have dropped up to $70,000 for the privilege can enjoy access all areas over the fortnight of the tournament.
Stan Grant publishes takedown of Peter FitzSimons
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A nine-month old feud between two of biggest egos in national journalism reignited spectacularly last week when
Stan Grant executed a revenge attack on
Peter FitzSimons.
Previously warm relations between the pair have been up and down since their opinion page fisticuffs last year over FitzSimons’ book on Captain James Cook. Grant took to this paper’s opinion pages to label some parts of the book as “ludicrous”.
Fast forward to last week when Grant contributed a chapter to
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Keith Wolahanâs last day of his first tour of Afghanistan was probably his worst.
On July 8, 2008, the Army captain was preparing to fly out of the Australian base at Tarin Kowt when news came over the radio net that Sean McCarthy, a signaller in the Special Air Service Regiment, had been killed when a bomb ripped through his lightly armoured vehicle.
SAS solider Sean McCarthy was killed in Afghanistan in 2008 by a roadside bomb.Â
Wolahan rushed back into the headquarters of the Special Operations Task Group to help his fresh replacement find out what happened. The military hierarchy had to be informed, including the Defence Force Chief Angus Houston, then defence minister John Faulkner and prime minister Kevin Rudd.