Revolving door
Is public affairs firm Anacta becoming the Club Med for ambitious Labor operatives taking a break between hard-hitting gigs on the political frontlines?
Word from Western Australia is that Anacta WA director Mark Reed is measuring up the curtains at Labor’s state office, after being elected unanimously to become the party’s next state secretary last week.
But wait, as Reed exits stage left, enter Ash van Dijk. The former ACT Labor secretary is rumoured to be joining the firm after resigning his party role with an enviable track record, having served as ACT campaign director for three elections, all successful for the party: the ACT 2024 election, and federally in 2022 and 2025.
Meanwhile, Anacta research partner Talbot Mills, helmed by the firm’s co-founder David Talbot, was among those who received a hat tip from ALP federal secretary Paul Erickson in his post-election victory lap at the National Press Club.
And he apparently had good company during the campaign. Fellow co-founder David Nelson was also rumoured to be giving strategic counsel behind the scenes, perhaps drawing from his 2024 stint in Britain working closely with Keir Starmer’s victorious Labour campaign team during last year’s election.
Nelson’s work on the Starmer campaign drew comparisons to Howard’s old electoral necromancer Lynton Crosby, who earned the nickname “the Wizard of Oz” for his role masterminding Conservative victories in Britain.
Meanwhile, Reed was sharing his wisdom about how to win in WA. (Safe to say he learnt a bit about that while advising the state’s emperor, Mark McGowan, who became Australia’s most popular premier.)
All of which is to say: if you’re eating a pie today, look out. Anacta may well have its fingers in it.
Fitting tribute
It’s been two weeks since we lost our beloved friend and former colleague John Shakespeare, a veteran cartoonist for The Sydney Morning Herald and esteemed illustrator of this column for decades, who lost a battle with an aggressive cancer.
A Shakes illustration of Clover Moore.Credit: John Shakespeare
Since then, the tributes have continued to pour in for Shakes. And on Monday night, he’s set to be commemorated with a minute’s silence at the City of Sydney Council’s monthly meeting.
“John was beloved by not just readers – there has been a huge outpouring of grief from them – but also his Herald colleagues, many of whom own a caricature he’d drawn of them among their most prized possessions,” Councillor Jess Miller will move in a tribute to Shakes.
Miller’s tribute will also toast his love of cycling, and there are even rumours about renaming the Oxford Street cycleway “Shakes’ Way” in his honour.
“Like an athlete, he transformed when he climbed onto two wheels. On a pushbike he could go through the gears on one wheel, which he often did on the streets of Sydney,” she said.
Shakespeare left The Sydney Morning Herald in 2024 after 39 years with the paper, a tenure even longer than Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s time in Town Hall. It’s no surprise, then, that Moore found herself on the receiving end of Shakes’ delicate visual barbs more than once, with his framed illustrations hanging in the Town Hall and her office.
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