Power hour at Rockpool as politicians,barristers and a billionaire break bread

Lunchtime at Sydney’s Rockpool was a real power hour on Wednesday. NSW TreasurerMatt Kean sat down with billionaire car dealer and Roosters chairmanNick Politis,GWS Giants chairTony Shepherd,and ex-Liberal state minister turned PremierNational lobbying honchoMichael Photios.

Over on another table,high-profile defamation duoRebekah Giles andSue Chrysanthou, SC,were having what could only be described as a celebratory lunch with their client,former Liberal MPAndrew Laming,who’d just won an apology from Nine Entertainment Co (owner of this masthead) over an allegedly defamatory news report.

It being Rockpool,the business world was also amply represented.

Charles Curran of Capital Investment was out with Goldman Sachs’ Australian chief executiveSimon Rothery,whose new hire,former treasurerJosh Frydenberg,is about to get his feet under the desk.

Meanwhile,former state Liberal opposition leaderPeter Collins was also spotted with IFM investors bossDavid Neal.

Mundine changes channels

Warren Mundine is reaching for the Sky.

Warren Mundine is reaching for the Sky.Shakespeare

SBS’ abrupt announcement thatNyunggai Warren Mundine was quitting his board position as non-executive director midway through a five-year term raised a few eyebrows.

Mundine,a former ALP national president turned defeated Liberal candidate and conservative talking head told CBD it wasn’t a case of differences of opinion with the public broadcaster – although he’d previously landed in breach of its social media policy over rude tweets – but simply because his workload was getting out of hand.

“I love SBS,it’s doing great work,” he said. “But because of my conflicting time commitments,it became unmanageable for me to continue my work as director.”

These commitments include the kind of work that made Mundine’s appointment by the Morrison government back in 2020 so contentious in the first place. He’s chair of the Conservative Political Action Conference,set to hit Sydney next month,and a regular conservative political pundit onSky News.

Looks like he’s got a little more time for all that now.

Robo Redacted

Bless Services Australia,the artist formerly known as the Department of Social Security,which looks after welfare payments.

The whole country seems to have noticed thatScott Morrison isn’t in the Lodge any more,but not the part of Services Australia that goes by the Orwellian name of the “freedom of information legal team”.

There,in response to a freedom of information appeal to the Information Commissioner,a lawyer identifying themselves only as “Spencer” has dedicated nine pages to arguing why a report by KPMG consultants into robo-debt’s unwinding shouldn’t be made public.

Never mind the original report,previously released to this masthead with heavy redactions,only had two body pages. Services Australia clearly didn’t get the memo thatBill ShortenandAnthony Albanesehave ordered the most thorough and most public examination possible of the whole sorry robo-debt saga,in which millions were unlawfully ripped from the country’s poorest.

That’d be a royal commission,presided over by former Queensland court supremoCatherine Holmes,to get to the bottom (and some political mileage) of the debacle presided over variously byScott Morrison,Christian PorterandStuart Robert.

There’s every chance it’ll publish the document that we’re trying to get our hands on in unredacted form. But according to Services Australia’s submissions to the Australian Information Commissioner,which must decide whether to release the document,if the report is unveiled,then government itself will be in jeopardy.

An “inhibition of frankness and candour” will break out among bureaucrats (and consultants who have increasingly taken their jobs). And here we were thinking that both were paid taxpayer cash to provide unvarnished advice to government,come what may. Silly us.

MournHub

St Paul’s College,the elite (still) all-male college at the University of Sydney infamous for sexism scandals and psychopathic hazing rituals is also well known for instilling a cultish devotion to the royal family in its young charges.

Unsurprising then,that dozens of “Paulines” past and present (as the very fine young men are termed) gathered at the college chapel on Tuesday night for choral evensong commemorating the passing of Queen Elizabeth II,accompanied by a sermon from the chaplain.

At least the college’s annual glitzy variety show and defining statement of its imperial nostalgia Victoriana will still go ahead next week,right after the national day of mourning.

“As we gather once more to invoke the strains of ‘God Save the Queen,’ we do not doubt they will be tinged in somber[sic] remembrance of her late majesty Queen Elizabeth II,however the toast shall,as ever,be ‘Victoria!’” a message from the St Paul’s College union executive read.

It’s that kind of place.

Fever pitch

League heads might be rolling,but Saturday night’s preliminary final clash between the Swans and Collingwood at the Sydney Cricket Ground is the hottest ticket in town,well and truly sold out while,at time of writing,the Bunnies v Sharks semi-final next door still has seats available.

Joining the horde of Pies fans heading north will be a bit of business world heft;Collingwood’s board boasts former Australia Post chief executiveChristine Holgate and liquidator to the starsMark Korda while Sydney board members former Property Council of Australia PresidentGreg Paramorand AM Financial founderAndrew Pridhamare likely to be lining up in the Swans box.

But it looks like Collingwood’s talismanic former presidentEddie McGuire might be a rare no-show – he was last seen preparing to embark on a 12-day cruise from New York to Montreal to celebrate the 85th birthday of trucking magnate Lindsay Fox.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news,views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley.Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.

Kishor Napier-Raman is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously he worked as a reporter for Crikey,covering federal politics from the Canberra Press Gallery.

Noel Towell is Economics Editor for The Age

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