West Australian Treasurer Rita Saffioti has declared her disappointment after the editor-in-chief of The West Australian made a series of clumsy jokes about her during a post-budget breakfast on Friday morning.
Chris Dore, who runs the state’s tabloid newspaper, made a number of personal remarks about Saffioti during a welcome speech at the event hosted by the paper.
Dore made light of the deputy premier’s love of “Italian soccer” (Saffioti is the child of Italian immigrants), efforts to “bribe” the public to use the state-funded Metronet transport system, and her supposed aspirations to become premier.
“Like Metronet, you get a feeling that Rita Saffioti is a complicated but magnificent work in progress. The difference being, at least Rita seems to be going somewhere. But right now most importantly, Rita is hitting her key cabinet KPIs, five social media posts a day,” Dore said.
Footage circulated from the event shows the jokes were poorly received.
Following the speech at Crown Perth’s Ballroom in Burswood, Saffioti told journalists the speech was disappointing. “I think the whole audience found it disappointing,” she said, while noting her job is to “take a lot of jokes”.
Audience members were also asked by event MC and West Australian chief reporter Ben Harvey if they supported Saffioti taking over the state’s top job, despite Premier Roger Cook also being in attendance. Only a couple of attendees responded to Harvey’s question.
Saffioti said she didn’t expect people to participate in hypothetical questions “especially when Premier Roger Cook is in the room, doing a great job”.
“He’s here for the long term, and like I said, to be honest, [as the] treasurer, minister for transport, [and] minister for sport, I’m very, very happy with what I’m doing.”
Dore has been editor of The West Australian for two years. He departed from his job as editor-in-chief of The Australian in late-2022 after making a number of lewd, drunken comments toward a woman at a company event in California.
Friday’s event was attended by a who’s who of West Australian business identities after the Labor government delivered the state’s budget this week. Dore also took aim at state Liberal leader Basil Zempilas, who has criticised what he called Saffioti’s “pet project”, the proposed street racing track in Perth Park.
Dore said this was a “problem” because Seven West Media WA chief Maryna Fewster, his boss, is the “number one ticket holder in the Perth Park fan club”.
“Rita is one thing, Basil, but taking on Maryna could well be the dumbest, most short-sighted thing you will ever do, and you don’t have to read the east coast papers this morning to work out why,” he said, referring to a column in this masthead on Friday morning.
This masthead reported Fewster told the boss of the newspaper division’s parent company, Southern Cross executive chair Heith Mackay-Cruise, he knew nothing about the publishing business two weeks ago. Mackay-Cruise announced he would quit as chair shortly after, having lost the backing of the company’s board, including major shareholder and mining billionaire Kerry Stokes.
The future of the paper has been under the microscope in recent weeks after Southern Cross Media acquired Seven West Media in a deal that diluted Stokes’ share in the company from 40 to 20 per cent. He remains the largest shareholder.
Dore declined to comment.
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Calum Jaspan is a media writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, based in Melbourne. Reach him securely on Signal @calumjaspan.10Connect via X or email.
