PUBLIC RELATIONS:

The professional body representing public relations practitioners throughout Australia says it is urgently advising its members to be prepared for its annual awards presentation next month to be a clean sweep by one person whose name until now has not even been included in the list of nominees.

The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) will hold its national gala awards dinner in Sydney on 1 December where it will announce winners in 35 award categories recognising excellence in public relations during 2022.

“Although the nominations and judging processes concluded some weeks ago, information has just come to hand about one PR person who is a clear winner in all 35 categories and they are now expected to take home the entire haul of awards come our gala dinner night,” PRIA spokesperson Mark Etting said.

“The judging panel for the awards held an emergency online hook-up this morning following publication of a story in The Weekend Australian about the new spokesperson just engaged by the federal government’s Australian Energy Regulator. (below)

“The information in the story means the unnamed AER spokesperson is not only eligible to be nominated for all 35 award categories, but is absolutely guaranteed to win each one.”

The Weekend Australian today reported federal opposition complaints about social media posts made by the as-yet unnamed AER PR officer prior to starting their new job. (below)

The opposition alleged the AER employee described Liberal Party leader Peter Dutton as a “fucking arsehole” on their Facebook page, and called Liberal and National MPs “rednecks, bigots, misogynists, anti-vaxers, climate change deniers, homophobes, pseudo-religious fuckwits”.

The Facebook page also allegedly included a description of former prime minister Scott Morrison as “snot faced, pants-shitting, smirking, private school prefect fuckface”.

Mr Etting said the PRIA’s awards committee saw no alternative but to present all of its 35 annual awards to the AER spokesperson at the upcoming gala dinner.

“Our judges are bound by the rules of the awards which are aimed at lifting the standard of public communications and encouraging factual public debate,” he said.

“At their online hook-up this morning there was unanimous agreement by judges that they had never seen anything as factual as the Facebook posts by the new AER employee.

“Their only quibble was that Scott Morrison attended Sydney Boys High School which is actually a NSW government school, but they resolved that the rest of the Facebook posts outweighed any concerns about that comment.”

Mr Etting said the PRIA hoped its members would still attend the 1 December event and not cancel their tickets once they learned of the upcoming and unavoidable clean sweep of awards.

“While others may not get a look-in in any of the award categories, the dinner is still a chance to get really pissed and scoff rubber chicken which, let’s face it, is what PR is all about,” he said.