Magellan co-founder returns with a pay cut

It’s been a year from hell for ASX-listed fund manager Magellan Financial Group and its co-founderHamish Douglass,who separated from his wife and later quit the board after taking a medical leave of absence,all as the firm’s share price slumped 64 per cent.

Douglass is on track to return to Magellan next month,as a consultant rather than a permanent staff member,a fall which comes with a hefty pay cut.

According to documents filed with the ASX yesterday,Douglass is set to take home $400,000 a year,a fraction of the $2.49 million he was paid for the 2022 financial year on his resignation. That’s not to mention the dividends he’s getting on the 11.59 per cent of Magellan he still owns. Nice for some!

We’re sure Douglass,who makes a show of taking the bus to work like a normal person,will be able to cope with the change in financial circumstances.

Shippin’ up to Oxford

Former race discrimination commissionerTim Soutphommasane’s status as a darling of Australian lefties slipped considerably after he emerged as something of an anti-lockdown rent-a-quote.

He told this paper late last year that “there is something happening to our democracy and political culture which is deeply unhealthy”.

So maybe it’s for health reasons that Soutphommasane has decided to leave these shores,for a time at least,and try his luck in the old dart where he’s scored himself an interesting new gig.

The University of Sydney academic will start his new job in January next year as Oxford University’s chief diversity officer,the first in the institution’s 920-odd-year history,charged with implementing its race equality strategy.

But if Soutphommasane is seeking a quiet life after a turbulent few years – during which he was a frequent target of attacks byRupert Murdoch’sThe Australianover its crusade to remove section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act – he’s going to the wrong place.

The Oxford University community tore itself apart in recent years over a statue of British uber-colonialistCecil Rhodes,with the dispute acting as a touchstone for a broader national culture war.

Sounds right up Tim’s street.

Prime real estate

Fashion designerCamilla Freeman-Topper (of Camilla and Marc fame) and her husbandDavid Topper lodged plans with Woollahra Council on Wednesday for a $5.2 million full demolition and rebuild job on their Bellevue Hill mansion,with the new pad to include a swimming pool,tennis court and landscaping.

But this soon-to-be-bulldozed house is soaked in Australian political history,once home to former prime minister Billy McMahon and Lady Sonia McMahon. Featuring a stunning Wimbledon-style grass tennis court and harbour views,it was nabbed by the Freeman-Toppers in 2019 for about $16 million.

But residents of Australia’s teal country are notoriously sensitive when it comes to rebuild jobs,and given the historic value of the former McMahon Manor,it may cause a few neighbourly squabbles.

After all,the recent razing ofRobert Menzies’ old house in Malvern,Melbourne was labelled an act of vandalism by the Victorian Liberals.Gough Whitlam’s childhood home was knocked down after a lengthy heritage battle.

Whatever the fate of Drumalbyn Road,Bellevue Hill,we hope with Camilla’s fashion background,the couple don’t commit an act of philistinism all too common among the harbourside set and replace McMahon manor with some kind of hyper-modern chrome-coloured monstrosity.

First Nations’ shindig

Australia’s First Nations people have had a difficult couple of weeks.

There was news of more than 517 Indigenous deaths in custody since theMuirhead royal commission,while wall-to-wall coverage of the Queen’s death brought all of us face-to-face with the nation’s colonial past – and then there were Wednesday’s reports of alleged appalling treatment of Aboriginal players at the Hawthorn Football Club.

So what better day for the Liberal Party’s ideas factory,the Menzies Research Centre,to try to drum up some coverage for its fundraiser,sorry,gala dinner – $280-a-pop – to mark 50 years since the election ofNeville Bonner,Australia’s first Indigenous federal parliamentarian?

The shindig at Canberra’s Old Parliament House next Tuesday was pushed back a couple of weeks because of the Queen’s death and looks like an effort to spruik the Liberals’ First Nations’ credentials.

So there’ll be former Liberal leaderBrendan Nelson,who once wanted a formal resting place built in Canberra for repatriated remains of Indigenous Australians,apparently.

Nelson will be joined by the present leaderPeter Dutton,who famously boycotted the apology to the stolen generations,and opposition spokesman for Indigenous AustraliansJulian Leeser.

Also in attendance will be Coalition senatorsJacinta Nampijinpa Price from the top end andKerrynne Liddle,from South Australia,who have both followed in Bonner’s footsteps as two of the 11 Indigenous Australians in the 47th parliament.

It all sounds like a hoot and we have no doubt the media will be out in force. But hungry hacks be warned:you might want to bring a sandwich because a press pass won’t get you fed.