The foolish season is simply kicking off and, across the nation, hordes of middle-aged blokes are gearing as much as get on the sauce and debase themselves on the workplace Christmas social gathering.

Final 12 months’s Sky Information affair was a specific traditional of the style: broadcaster Chris Smith was stood down after allegedly making lewd feedback in direction of a youthful feminine workers member after a protracted session on the Ivy.

As CBD has reported, Smith is now proudly sober and is monetising that fall from grace by the use of a new-ish disaster administration agency, whereas interviewing all method of wackos on his TNT Radio present (Vladimir Putin fanboy Simeon “the Aussie Cossack” Boikov is a repeat visitor.)

In the meantime, Smith’s outdated bosses at Sky are taking no probabilities. They’ve ditched the Christmas social gathering this 12 months. A spokesperson for the community confirmed that respective state bureaus can be internet hosting workplace luncheons as a substitute. All of it sounds decidedly un-festive. Plus, we hear managers are even being discouraged from becoming a member of any impromptu “kick-ons” to the pub triggered by staff, lest anybody get the fallacious concept.

Appears to be like like Sky has given company Australia a blueprint for how you can sort out dangerous (male) behaviour within the office: when doubtful, merely throw your fingers within the air, and cancel Christmas.

LOU’S BLUE

CBD reported final Friday on the slightly Trumpian pitch made by former ACT senator Zed Seselja in his makes an attempt to return to persuade NSW Liberals to present him one other shot on the Higher Home.

However Zed might need been outdone by former NSW Higher Home MP Lou Amato, who’s a distant contender within the race for Marise Payne’s outdated Senate spot. Amato, a conservative, was dumped by former premier Dominic Perrottet from the social gathering’s higher home ticket to make approach for extra ladies, and hasn’t gotten over it.

“I AM NOT ONE OF THEM” was the thunderous e-mail despatched by Amato to delegates final week.

“In order for you a cultured politician, I’m not that. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not an professional communicator. I’m not inquisitive about climbing the greasy pole,” he wrote.

So what precisely is Lou? Effectively, in response to his rant, he’s “only a man who believes one thing is critically fallacious with Australia, and that one thing is critically fallacious with our social gathering”.

Or in different phrases: “I’m an outsider.“

Now final we checked, Amato spent eight years in state parliament, first getting the nod over the now impartial member for Fowler Dai Le due to some factional manoeuvring for the boys. Then once more, he hardly set Macquarie Road on fireplace.

Amato reckons he’s going to stay up for the “the tradies, the mums and dads, the battlers” in Canberra.

What higher approach to show your battler bona fides than begging the social gathering apparatchiks and backroom boys to nominate you to a vacant Senate seat with out having to face the voters.

VEXATIOUS VITO

Vito Zepinic’s current historical past is so vibrant that his previous life, as a one-time safety chief for Serbian battle prison Radovan Karadzic, is usually forgotten.

In these pages, Zepinic, who has convictions for pretending to be a psychiatrist, is finest generally known as a vexatious litigant extraordinaire. Because the Herald reported final week, Zepinic has notched up 23 court docket losses since a choose declared him a vexatious litigant in 2017. Make that 24.

The very day after this masthead’s story, Zepinic was handed one other loss by Justice Desmond Fagan within the NSW Supreme Courtroom, stemming from his futile 15-year battle with authorized and medical authorities to let him practise as a psychologist.

Zepinic was struck off as a psychologist in 2010 over convictions two years earlier within the Burwood Native Courtroom for falsely holding himself out as a medical practitioner.

In Zepinic’s newest try and get reinstated, he name-dropped the NSW attorney-general and the Australian Well being Practitioner Regulation company as a co-defendants. As soon as once more, he was self-represented.

No surprises that Fagan wasn’t having a bar of it, tossing out Zepinic’s newest try and get reinstated, and ordering him to pay round $40,000 in complete prices to each defendants. We’re unsure how he retains affording it both.

In maybe the judicial understatement of the 12 months, his honour drily described Zepinic as “a really skilled” litigant “as a search of his identify on Caselaw reveals”.

BAKER’S DELIGHT

Alexi Baker, accomplice (and one-time subordinate) of former 9 boss Hugh Marks is on her approach out on the NRL, the place she’s held the place of chief buyer and digital officer.

Each events declined to remark, though CBD hears Baker is hoping to develop her board work (she’s been a non-executive director at World Site visitors Community since final 12 months) and is on the lookout for related positions.

Baker’s accomplice Marks (the couple had their first youngster, Hugh’s fifth, final 12 months) additionally walked away from the NRL just lately, the place he’d been serving to negotiations throughout a bitter pay dispute between the league and its gamers.

Marks resigned as chief govt of 9, proprietor of this masthead, in 2020 a day after his and Baker’s relationship was revealed.