Updated July 19, 2026 — 7:58pm,first published 5:59pm

Double, double toil and trouble … the notorious troll truck featuring divisive billboard advertisements that target Premier Jacinta Allan has returned to Melbourne streets.

The truck, which as first reported by The Age was ordered off the road earlier this month after being issued with a defect notice by police, was spotted by CBD late on Friday turning from Exhibition Street into Bourke Street and trundling towards Parliament House with the slogan “It’s time to get rid of this witch” and its doctored image of Allan in full view.

The billboard truck, best known for advertising the Gotham City brothel on its screens, was issued with a defect notice related to the advertising screens and ordered off the road for inspection on July 8. The notice followed a complaint to police by a member of the public in April.

The compliance issue was dropped and the vehicle deemed fully roadworthy by VicRoads last week.

It seems no time was wasted returning it to the road along with an additional slogan: “Truck stays! Witch needs to go.” We get the drift.

Franco Puleo, the owner of the Gotham City adult establishment in South Melbourne, has previously taken credit for organising the “Ditch the Witch” campaign which has been widely criticised by commentators and all sides of the political divide including PM Anthony Albanese and former PM Julia Gillard as being misogynistic, sexist and offensive.

Police confirmed to CBD no further action would be taken on the defect issue.

“The defect notice follows an investigation into the addition of billboards to the vehicle that falls outside the standards of regulation.

“Police have been advised the truck was presented to VicRoads for inspection and the vehicle was deemed roadworthy. As such, police will not be taking any further action in respect to the vehicle.”

The defect notice had demanded the three large LED display screens on the vehicle be removed, and an accompanying email from police explained the complaint from the community member occurred before the anti-Labor ads started appearing on the screens.

“Instead of worrying about fixing up this state, they’re busy picking on little businesses like me and everybody else who wants to speak out about this government by advertising on the truck,” Puleo fumed to CBD on Sunday.

“There was never anything wrong with the truck. We’ve been told by a police officer that issued the notice that Vic Pol won’t hassle us again and won’t take instructions from other authorities. Jacinta should spend her energy on finding $15 billion and helping businesses and family people rather than giving herself a pay rise.”

Bezos slips in and orders a negroni

Jeff Bezos and his wife, Lauren Sánchez, are in Australia – Sydney to be exact.

For what purpose, we don’t know. But if nothing else, how the world’s fourth-richest person chooses to spend his time in the Emerald City has made for some good gawking.

After being seen on Friday out for lunch at upmarket restaurant Mimi’s, in Coogee, Bezos was spotted that evening slipping into the Park Hyatt bar, where he was photographed by a CBD spy with what appeared to be a negroni. The billionaire Amazon founder, clad in black and sporting Cuban-heeled boots, was in the company of an unshaven, yet-to-be-identified man.

Which is to say, setting aside transport and accommodation, Bezos has been living much like the rest of us.

If Sánchez’s Instagram is anything to go by, the pair may well be staying at the Park Hyatt, whose 350-square-metre Sydney Suite bears a striking resemblance to the balcony Sánchez shared a photo of to her 1.1 million followers on Sunday morning. The suite’s nightly rate isn’t listed by the Hyatt, but reportedly starts at about $21,000.

Then there’s the transport. Flight-tracking data shows that one plane widely reported as belonging to Bezos, an ultra-luxury Gulfstream G700 private jet, landed in Sydney at 1.15pm on Friday after flying from the Pacific. Bezos, whose net worth is valued by Forbes at roughly $US260 billion ($372 billion), reportedly owns four private jets.

Just what the pair are doing in Australia, though – and whether they will visit Melbourne – remains a mystery. Amazon does decent business in this market, and is among the tech giants jockeying to build data centres in Australia. The company already operates more than a dozen on Australian shores, and last year beat Elon Musk’s Starlink to secure a multimillion-dollar contract with the National Broadband Network to offer satellite internet to rural and regional Australians. Amazon Australia didn’t respond to a request for comment by deadline.

So our guess is Bezos, who no longer leads the company as chief executive but remains its executive chairman, would surely have a few meetings in the diary, holiday or not.

Where’s Barnaby?

Last week was a big one for One Nation. It was revealed the Senate’s perennial cooker Malcolm Roberts had described Alex Jones, a fountain of conspiracy theories including that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a false flag, as “a beacon of hope around the world”.

Then came leader Pauline Hanson’s Mediterranean sojourn with billionaire Gina Rinehart. Which was topped off with a Hanson podcast appearance alongside the controversial far-right freak show Tommy Robinson, who’s proved too freaky even for UK Reform leader Nigel Farage, and has been dubbed a “thug” by Andrew Bolt.

So when our colleagues revealed late last week that Hanson and Barnaby Joyce were in “constant disagreement”, there was always going to be some forensic tea leaves analysis. Joyce and One Nation, of course, insisted the former Nationals leader and his new boss have a trusting relationship.

Such was the case over the weekend when attention turned to the absence of Joyce’s name from the “team” page on the One Nation website, and the absence of the party name on Joyce’s own website. It’s unclear if Joyce ever made it onto the One Nation website or it’s been changed. Of course, as with anything One Nation, our guess was the omission would probably have more to do with a lack of professionalism and short staff numbers than, say, a looming split. But then again, who knows.

When reached on Sunday, Joyce was “trying to get a pump on”, which we took to mean exercising, maybe lifting weights. He was exasperated by this masthead’s reporting last week, which revealed disagreements between him and Hanson. “Premised on what?” he asked. When asked about the absence of his name from the One Nation website, he said there was nothing to it. Pleasure to be of service clearing that one up.

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Fiona Byrne is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.

John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.