Stephen Mayne
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Stephen Mayne (born July 23, 1969) is an Australian journalist and self-described shareholder activist, who also ran unsuccessfully as a People Power Party candidate in the Victorian legislative election, 2006.
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[edit] Journalism
Mayne worked for a number of media outlets and as a media adviser to then Premier of Victoria Jeff Kennett, but fell out with his former boss and started the website jeffed.com devoted to complaints about him in September 1999.
He is best known for founding Crikey.com.au, an online independent news service. The combination of gossip and anti-establishment reporting got Mayne into legal (and consequent financial) trouble several times. Despite considerable financial pressures, Mayne persisted and Crikey gradually attracted subscribers and a fair degree of notoriety. It was announced on February 1, 2005 that Crikey had been sold for $A1 million to another independent media operator, Private Media Partners.
Mayne continues to write for Crikey and was a regular business commentator on ABC Radio. Mayne also regularly runs for elections to the board of directors of various Australian public companies to draw attention to issues concerning good corporate governance. He is also a trenchant critic of what he perceives as excessive conflicts of interest in corporate and political Australia.
[edit] Politics
In 1999, Mayne ran as an independent candidate in the Burwood by-election, caused by Jeff Kennett's immediate resignation from politics straight after his 1999 State election loss. Mayne had a primary vote of 1975 votes (6.63%), instead Bob Stensholt of the ALP won the seat by a 3.63% margin.
In 2006, he ran as the lead Southern Metropolitan Upper House candidate for the People Power party.
The Age reported that he "would play a key role in recruiting, organising and funding the People Power campaign."
However, on 29 November 2006, after a poor election showing, People Power co-founder Vern Hughes condemned Mayne as a "cavalier journalist" whose "trivialisation" of serious issues undermined the party electorally. This resulted in explusion proceedures initiated against Mayne, resulting in Mayne's eventual expulsion by the People Power board. Mayne has since denied that his expulsion was legitimate and has published attacks against prominent members of People Power who supported his expulsion [1].
[edit] The Milne incident
At the 2006 Walkley Awards for journalism on 30 November, Mayne was accosted by Sunday Telegraph reporter Glenn Milne on stage, who declared Mayne "a disgrace" and accused him of defiling journalists' reputations without reason.[1].
[edit] Miscellaneous
Mayne is married to Paula Piccinini, a barrister and occasional contributor to Crikey, and has a young family. His sister-in-law, Patricia Piccinini, is one of Australia's best-known contemporary artists.
