Earlier in the day, the pair were at Canberra Airport for the launch of the airline’s Canberra flights, flanked by ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr and Canberra Airport boss Stephen Byron. And there’s even more on the plate next week as the airline launches five new services. Venus, a Melbourne Grammar graduate, is now back living in his home town and barracking for the Demons. Etihad was famous for showcasing The Residence, its luxury three-room first-class suite. Spruiking Rex’s new Gold Coast routes won’t have quite the same cachet.

Culture counter

Good news for the arts. In January the federal government announced it was giving $9 million to four arts organisations in the first batch of its COVID-19 Arts Sustainability Fund.

Weirdly, the amount each institution was to receive was absent from the release. Happily, the official grant disclosures website has cleared up that little mystery.

The Melbourne Art Foundation was allocated $330,000, while the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra will receive $3 million as a “last resort” because it is “assessed to be at imminent risk” owing to COVID-19.

The timing is great for David Li, who becomes MSO chairman next month. Li, a property developer, takes over from Michael Ullmer, the Lendlease chairman and Woolworths board member, who delayed his departure to help the orchestra survive 2020. Li appears eminently qualified. He’s an accomplished violinist and proud owner of a 1699 Stradivari violin, “Miss Crespi”.

It’s a different story at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, which began this week. Festival director Susan Provan didn’t seek any federal funding. “To be honest with you, we didn’t think we would qualify, from people we know that didn’t get funding,” she said.

The National Institute of Dramatic Art received the biggest grant. NIDA, chaired by former Sydney Dance Company chief executive Noel Staunton and boasting actor Sigrid Thornton on the board, will receive $3.75 million.

Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, chaired by investment banker Lorraine Tarabay, with a board that includes Qantas boss Alan Joyce and former Carnival Cruises chief executive Ann Sherry, gets $2 million.

Word of mouth

Former ABC foreign correspondent Sally Sara’s semi-autobiographical play Stop Girl charts an ABC reporter’s return from Afghanistan and struggle to adjust to life back home outside a war zone. Earlier in the week, News Breakfast host Lisa Millar – also a former foreign correspondent – jetted up from Melbourne to view a preview at Sydney’s Belvoir St Theatre.

Everyone is talking about a scene set at a cocktail party where the two lead characters bitch about a colleague as a “real piece of work” who has “never broken a story”. Let’s hope the journo in question hasn’t bought a ticket.