Newsroom

A photograph of the award winner was uploaded to Tink’s Instagram and Facebook accounts late last month but these have now each been marked as a “corrected post” with a number of revisions.

Gone, we note, is any mention of what the MP had termed “the inaugural Kylea Tink Award”, although it’s still plainly visible on the trophy. Missing, too, is her claim that the award, which didn’t exist prior to her election in May, is “traditionally” provided to a Year 12 student each year.

Importantly, Tink has also deleted her earlier explanation for missing the ceremony entirely. What was originally claimed to have been a commitment in Canberra turned out, via Margin Call’s fossicking, to be nothing more than an avoidable scheduling clash.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there on the night,” the newly corrected caption now reads, with an accompanying note congratulating the winner. No mention of the scheduling clash, of course, but why would we expect that level of transparency from any politician, even the sanctimonious teals.

While we’re on the subject of corrections, there’s another that requires our attention thanks to the clumsy, doddering, boneheaded confabulations of Tink’s predecessor, Trent Zimmerman, who told us on Monday that he’d started this award-giving trend in 2020.

As Zimmerman explained, it was he who purchased a trophy that year for the maiden graduating class of Cammeraygal High School. But unlike Tink, he didn’t have the temerity to name the award after himself. He was unequivocal about that. Only a self-obsessed teal would have the hide to exhibit such poor taste.

By Tuesday afternoon, however, this column was able to obtain a photograph of a large silver trophy from Cammeraygal High School bearing the unmistakeable words “Trent Zimmerman Award” in oversized lettering engraved all over its nameplate.

We contacted Zimmerman and queried the photograph, leading to a great bout of self-flagellation and sheepish muttering. Essentially, he was unable to recall how his name came to be upon the trophy at all, or whether it was his idea or the school’s to put it there.

Some hours later, he called back and said: “The recollection of my staff who were liaising with the school was that we expected the award to say it was ‘Presented by Trent Zimmerman’, not the ‘Trent Zimmerman Award’, per se.”

Make of that what you will. This column has already taken Zimmerman at his word once this week and we don’t intend to make that mistake twice.

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