From the Crikey grapevine, the latest tips and rumours …

A day in pictures. Yesterday — for all the criticism you could aim at the process that got us there — was a good day. It was certainly a good day for parliamentary snappers, who captured an array of indelible images: 

 

As the debate groaned on and on, as opponents of the bill put forward amendment after amendment everyone knew would fail, Yes campaigners congregated outside the above; the picture above of actor Magda Szubanski and Independent NSW MP Alex Greenwich gives some idea of how much dancing went on; but only in motion, with Szubanski and Christine Forster trading moves can you really get a sense of it — exquisite, lovably naff, joyful.

 

When the vote finally took place, and the division gave a visual representation of how conclusively the argument had been decided.

And perhaps the defining image of the evening, the front page image for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. Labor MP Linda Burney — who earlier in the week had spoken so movingly about her deceased gay son in urging the passage of the legislation — throwing herself into the arms of Liberal National Warren Entsch, the burly regional Queenslander and long time marriage equality advocate. It was a raw, human and apolitical moment, and we may not see the like of it on the floor of parliament again.

 

What really happened during the Bennelong scuffles? The battle for Bennelong is being hard fought between the major parties. But in the background of this looming byelection, tension has been a simmering between the minor parties; the bubbling point being a skirmish between volunteers for the Greens and volunteers for Australian Conservatives last week. Cathy Rytmeister of the Greens camp tweeted at the time “Aust Conservatives nasty piece of work viciously pushed 2 Greens prepoll vollies this morning. Disgusting thuggery. #auspoll @crikey_news @smh”,  while Australian Conservatives leader Cory Bernardi told The Daily Telegraph it was an Australian Conservative volunteer who was pushed, and the Greens volunteer “took a dive” as a stunt.

Ms Tips spoke to Rytmeister, who said the Greens volunteer wasn’t seriously hurt but they was “shocked and shaken up by it”.

So it’s my understanding there have been Australian Conservative volunteers who have been quite aggressive over the last couple of days of pre-poll,” Justin Alick, Greens candidate for Bennelong told Crikey. “One of our volunteers was pushed over … He fortunately was not seriously hurt and we are respecting his wishes not to be drawn into the national spotlight as a result of this incident.”

Solid B for Rate Your Boss. Earlier this week, hospo union United Voice launched Rate Your Boss, a Trip Advisor style ratings website were hospitality workers to call out bad (and good) employers. Users can search businesses by rating or suburb, and businesses can anonymously be rated out of five for “respect for staff” and “correct pay”. 

But of course, we know how the internet works. Online rating apps are notoriously difficult to moderate — what steps do United Voice take to ensure that the feedback registered is genuine, and not an employer trying to get an unearned good reputation, or a rightly sacked employee trying to ruin a genuinely decent boss’ reputation? We asked United Voice about their process, but didn’t hear back before deadline.

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