From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

Just where is that from? We’re just a few days into the three-month campaign for the marriage equality postal survey, and as we expected, there’s a whole lot of groups trying to get in on the action. A few tipsters noticed sponsored posts in their Facebook feeds over the weekend, advertising merchandise worn by celebrities like Tim Minchin, Ian Thorpe and Keith Urban, emblazoned with the words “I’m voting Yes marriage equality” and “Love is love”.

But the images are doctored, and the celebs never actually wore the shirts (regardless of what their views on marriage are). The picture of Thorpe and partner Ryan Channing, for example, comes from the Daily Mail:

Crikey followed the links on the “LGBT Connection” Facebook page to work out just who was trying to cash in on the postal plebiscite, and they go to “sillygear.com”, which is a website that seems to make slogans on T-shirts and hoodies that are printed in the US, mainly about country music (and also, weirdly, for airplane enthusiasts). Buying the shirts doesn’t contribute to any of the Australian marriage equality campaigns, and the LGBT Connection Facebook page was set up just three days ago — for the purpose of selling merch. 

And on the other side … We’ve also investigated just who is behind a Facebook page called “Vote NO Australia“, which claims that allowing marriage equality in Australia would mean that the words “husband” and “wife” will be banned and children won’t be able to call their mothers “mum”, despite there being no evidence of that in other countries where marriage equality is legal. We were told the website was the brainchild of Lewis Freeman-Harrison, who ran for the seat of Melbourne in the last year’s federal election as a candidate for the Sex Party. He told a local paper in 2015 that he supported marriage equality: “I think its funny that the current government doesn’t want to put a free vote to it.” Freeman-Harrison says he hasn’t started the Vote NO Australia website, but he is building it through his company, Red Internet. He seems to have undergone quite a change in belief systems since last year, recently posting a video of himself being baptised, but he wouldn’t comment on his involvement with the Sex Party to Crikey. Seen some spurious plebiscite advertising or campaigning? Drop us a line.

Not so keen on Ian. On August 8, Commonwealth Bank chief executive Ian Narev had “the full confidence of the board”. This morning, he’s out and will be gone by next June. Not quite a Melba-style departure, but the change of heart on the board is quite amazing, especially when there are three or four directors who should be out the door with him over the AUSTRAC money-laundering scandal. CBA chairperson Catherine Livingstone said Narev would retire by June 2018, subject to when the bank was able to find a replacement. CommBank’s 2016-17 annual report reveals that Narev’s total pay more than halved to a total of $5.506 million from $12.3 million in 2015-16. More than $4.8 million of previous year’s short-term incentive payments were not paid out and in total the CEO and senior staff missed out on more than $16 million in such payments.

What happened since August 8? Well, Reserve Bank governor Phil Lowe rounded on the banks in his appearance on Friday in Melbourne before the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics, saying: “It’s very serious. We have laws for reasons, banks should not be doing money laundering and they should know who is opening their accounts,” he said. If shortcomings are identified then there needs to be accountability, through the court and internally through the organisation.”

Could the RBA’s sound and fury have cost Narev his job?

Spotted. A Crikey spy saw Chief of Army Angus Campbell leaving Parliament House this morning through the underground exit at the front of the building. Maybe he’s been watching Annabel Crabb’s The House for directions?

An eggsistential threat. The headquarters of the Australian Christian Lobby has been egged overnight. ACL managing director Lyle Shelton tweeted photos of the resulting devastation this morning. 

“Our Canberra office was egged overnight. This is the same building which was bombed on Dec 21. Please pray for the safety of our team. Thx.” 

This tweet contains the fairly direct implication that an act as likely to have been carried out by the militant wing of the bored teenager liberation front as any activist is equivalent of bombing a building. And speaking of .. bombed? When was the ACL building bombed? To jog Shelton’s memory (he oddly seems to have a pristine memory of the 1950s, before he was born, but a foggy at best recollection of what happened in December of last year) — police stated the day after the incident, in which a man drove a van into the ACL headquarters building, that they had established the actions of the 35-year-old male driver “were not politically, religiously or ideologically motivated”, and Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin later concluded the man’s “motivation was driven by mental illness and his desire to commit suicide”.

Breakfast of champions. Media monitoring company Isentia has asked journos to enjoy a bit of brekkie and a chat this morning ahead of its financial results, to be released on August 23. The invitation says the company’s C-suite will be keen to chat about Isentia’s:

  • digital transformation and new customer offering, including a sneak-peak of its “Stories” capability;
  • rebrand and consolidation of businesses including King Content and Brandtology;
  • market position and recent legal battle with Meltwater; and 
  • 2020 vision and long-term strategy to address recent results and performance.

It’s that third point that has us interested. Isentia alleges that rival company Meltwater has been using Isentia’s media monitoring data and onselling them to clients, without doing the leg work itself. Meltwater has agreed to orders blocking Meltwater from accessing Isentia’s content, but an application to get hold of Meltwater’s internal documents was denied. We wonder if Meltwater will be launching a similar croissant-and-cappuccino charm offensive?

*Heard anything that might interest Crikey? Send your tips to boss@crikey.com.au, use our guaranteed anonymous form or other ways to leak to us securely