Lost for words? Albanese’s speechwriter quits just a year after the election

The bulk of departures from Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office trickled out in the weeks following the 2025 federal election, a typical time when most staffers take stock and consider a life working normal hours for more money.

So it was intriguing to hear on Wednesday that James Newton, Albanese’s principal speechwriter, is set to resign less than halfway through the PM’s second term. (For family reasons, of course.) Set to replace him is speechwriter and author Dennis Glover, also a contributor to this masthead, who we hear was one of the architects of those corny “vision statements” Albo dished up in opposition. He will work alongside former Australian columnist and reptile lover James Jeffrey.

In a message to the Prime Minister’s Office group chat this week, Newton, who has already been described in Labor circles as a huge loss for Albanese, told his colleagues he would be wrapping up with the PM after the Labor national conference in Adelaide next month. The PMO declined to comment.

“To keep things brief (for once) my family have had enough and more than four years in to what I originally presented as a one-year deal, they sort of have a point,” Newton wrote to the group chat, in a message leaked to CBD.

“I love so much about this job and consider every day that I’ve spent writing for our Prime Minister the greatest privilege of my working life. All of you are a huge part of that and I will always be grateful to have had the chance to serve alongside such smart, dedicated and passionate Labor people.”

Perhaps Albanese and his chief of staff, Tim Gartrell, are fantastic bosses who everybody loves working for, and one year through the prime minister’s second term presented Newton with, er, a natural off-ramp. Or maybe Newton’s colleagues are also considering their own escape routes.

They wouldn’t be the first. Among the highest-profile departures we’ve seen so far from the PMO this term was Albanese’s press secretary Katharine Murphy, who this column revealed left in June last year after just 18 months in the role, following a decade as The Guardian’s Australian political editor.

Other departures have included senior adviser Phoebe Drake and advancer Prue Mercer, both now at Qantas, and strategic communications director Katie Connolly, now a consultant, along with Lachlan McKenzie, now at Macquarie Group, and media adviser Irene Oh, now at the Business Council of Australia.

Local landmarks to star as Hollywood hits town

Melbourne will double as San Francisco in the 1930s as famous properties including Labassa, Rippon Lea, the Melbourne Town Hall and the Hotel Windsor are used as filming locations in a new Hollywood movie.

Production on Fog City started this week, and the flick is being directed by Dan Pritzker.

Filming will also take place across three stages at Docklands Studio, where extensive period sets have been built, and in some of Melbourne’s well-known laneways. The cast is yet to be announced. Filming will continue until September.

Pritzker, who also wrote the film, is an intriguing character with no shortage of money, according to Forbes magazine. His father was Jay Pritzker, who founded Hyatt Hotels and built the family fortune.

Pritzker previously directed Bolden, based on New Orleans cornet player Buddy Bolden, and Louis, about the life of Louis Armstrong, and is also a guitarist and songwriter in the band Sonia Dada. He is credited with writing the band’s best known hit, You Don’t Treat Me No Good, which was released in 1992.

Following on from the success of the Netflix films Thrash and War Machine, Fog City is expected to inject $60 million into the local economy.

Living the suite life

As the NSW and Queensland teams slugged it out on the hallowed turf of the MCG during the State of Origin match on Wednesday night, high in the grandstand powerbrokers and politicians supped and socialised as guests of Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter V’landys in the appropriately named Chairman’s Room.

Unmissable among then, wearing a maroon outfit with a Queensland scarf draped around her neck, was enthusiastic traveller and federal Sport Minister Anika Wells.

Good to see Wells, while not heading to the US for the World Cup, is back in the air and attending major sporting events. She has kept a relatively low profile over recent months and Wednesday’s State of Origin game 2 has been arguably her highest-profile outing this year.

Only weeks ago she was in the spotlight over having to repay more than $10,000 to taxpayers after the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority found she had incorrectly claimed family travel expenses on four occasions between 2022 and 2025.

No.1 among the VIP guests in the exclusive suite was Anthony Albanese, who had plenty of fellow guests orbiting around him keen for a chat, and was happy to pose for snaps.

The PM was spotted at one point in conversation with Joe Hockey, former federal treasurer turned corporate adviser and now a board member of the Perth Bears NRL club, and asked to be sent a happy snap of himself with Melbourne-born Chicago Bulls basketball star Josh Giddey. The third person in that picture was Wells.

Andrew Abdo, who recently resigned as the NRL’s chief executive to take on the role of Tennis Australia chief executive; his predecessor at Tennis Australia Craig Tiley; Visit Victoria board member and “Mr Melbourne” Eddie McGuire; and Tabcorp boss Gillon McLachlan were also in the suite, as were former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell; Nine national news director Hugh Nailon; former Queensland premier and now ARL commissioner Peter Beattie; Olympic great Cathy Freeman; and Foxtel Group executive director Brian Walsh.

Joining them were Myer executive chair Olivia Wirth and her husband, Paul Howes, the chief executive of Tenet, the advisory firm founded by Luke Sayers. Managing director of Nine publishing Tory Maguire, executive editor of Nine’s metro mastheads Luke McIlveen and Nine newspapers’ national head of sport, Neil Breen, were also present.

Later in the evening Las Vegas Raiders NFL players Jonah Laulu and Atonio Mafi joined the guests.

Victorian Sport Minister Steve Dimopoulos was there too, hobnobbing with the heavy hitters.

As CBD made our way through the MCG gates an hour before kick-off, we spotted the Victorian opposition police spokesman, Brad Battin, heading into the stands, as well as Tapt Media chief executive Tom Malone.

Impossible to miss in one of the lift queues was Cherry Bar operator James Young, sporting his signature gigantic cowboy hat. In 2021 Young was briefly Melbourne’s unofficial “night mayor”.

Posting their Origin experiences from the MCG on social media were Fox FM breakfast co-host Brendan Fevola, Nova breakfast radio co-host Clint Stanaway, fashion designer Effie Kats, PR dynamo Michelle Stamper, Nine News anchor Tom Steinfort, weather presenter Scherri-Lee Biggs and retired wheelchair tennis great Dylan Alcott.

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