Off the Record: Former SA DPP Adam Kimber joins ICAC fight, Lucas goes knuckle on Gannon
In this week’s Off the Record, a former DPP joins the ICAC fight and Treasurer Rob Lucas goes the “knuckle” on Property Council chief Daniel Gannon.
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In this week’s Off the Record, a former DPP joins the the ICAC fight and Treasurer Rob Lucas goes the “knuckle” on Property Council chief Daniel Gannon.
Kimber joins ICAC fight
He was the state’s chief prosecutor for seven years before returning to the Bar. But former Director of Public Prosecutions Adam Kimber SC has had no difficulty receiving briefs, including from the SA’s anti-corruption watchdog.
Independent Commissioner Against Corruption Bruce Lander QC hired the Edmund Barton Chambers silk after he left government.
Taxpayers paid him $4440 for an undisclosed “corruption investigation”, the details of which neither Kimber nor Lander were able to speak about.
Supreme Court Justice Martin Hinton is the new DPP after the role was advertised when the State Government opted to spill the position when Kimber’s term ended in April. Kimber did not reapply.
Kimber’s work, revealed in the ICAC annual report this week, was part of ICAC’s $102,433.33 legal bill.
Over the past financial year Lander also hired top silks Mark Livesey QC for two “corruption investigations’’ for $35,100 from Bar Chambers, and his Hanson chambers colleague Robert “Dick” Whitington QC ($17,160), for “corruption investigations”.
Jeffcott Chambers barrister Holly Stanley earned $16,236.33 for her counsel assisting role during the SafeWork SA inquiry.
Speaking this week as he made his bombshell SA Health corruption claims, Lander said he believed the “good model”, in which the prosecutor was independent of the investigator, worked in ICAC inquiries.
“I do take vital interest in the all of the prosecutions that are launched as a result of my investigations,” Lander said.
“I made it clear when Mr Kimber was the DPP to him that I would respect his decision as to whether a prosecution would be launched because it was for him to make the decision. “Sometimes, and he would know this, … I disagreed with the decision (he) made but it was his decision, not mine.”
Obviously those disagreements can’t have been too heated.
-Andrew Hough
Lucas goes knuckle on Gannon
Some might be surprised to learn that Treasurer Rob Lucas and his former staffer, Property Council state chief Daniel Gannon, continue to catch up socially despite the Treasurer having branded him among the Liberals’ “former friends”.
Lucas tells us he and Gannon remain friends “off the field while opponents on the field for the moment”.
The pair caught up in the city a couple of weeks ago and, according to Lucas, “discussed family, footy and, yes, land tax”.
“My approach to politics has generally been modelled on what happens on the footy field stays on the field — after the game you carry on with your life and have a drink with your opponent!” Lucas declared.
“It’s the (Neil) “Knuckles” Kerley approach to life! Belt s*** out of each other and then have a drink!”
Helpfully, we found a 2008 picture of the pair staging a drinking protest against the early closure of bars and clubs.
Once were warriors
Way back in 2005, two hugely ambitious Liberals waged battle for preselection in the inner southern stronghold of Unley.
More than 14 years later, the combatants caught up this week on Sky News Australia.
This time, The Kenny Report presenter Chris Kenny interviewed state Innovation and Skills Minister David Pisoni.
The latter is also the Unley MP, having easily won the preselection contest against Kenny, who at the time was the-then foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer’s media adviser.
Kenny’s powerbase was the-then dominant Right faction, which included Downer and war lord/finance minister Nick Minchin.
But Pisoni’s Moderates had the numbers, backed by the-then defence minister Robert Hill and an ambitious young backbencher with a bright future, Christopher Pyne.
As one Liberal observed this week when helpfully submitting the picture: “This brought back many memories of the 2005 Unley Liberal preselection … nice to see them breaking bread nowadays.”
PM Pyne
Former Cabinet minister Christopher Pyne has outlined exactly why he thinks he never got to be PM.
During the new Pyne Time podcast, where the former Sturt MP is supposed to put the questions, his friend and first guest, comedian Peter Helliar, asked why he thought he never got to be PM.
Pyne detailed two reasons: SA does not have enough seats for a local to become PM, and a small-l Liberal could not lead the party unless they were a “real star like Malcolm Turnbull” (below with Pyne).
Elon way
ABC finance guru Alan Kohler had just described the “perfect storm’’ of misbehaviour in the banking, superannuation and wealth management industries when the lights went out on his address to the SA Press Club this week.
With the microphones down Kohler went a cappella in the dark to keep the crowd entertained. Kohler would tweet later about the “blackout’’, no doubt confirming SA power stereotypes to his 100,000 followers.
He also tweeted “Where’s Elon Musk when you need him.’’
Goers gone
ABC Evenings broadcaster and Sunday Mail columnist Peter Goers has been axed from the History Trust board, learning of his fate just 18 minutes before the start of a meeting.
Goers’ three-year term, which had almost expired, was not renewed, as he had hoped and expected.
The board’s chairwoman, Elizabeth Ho, is understood not to have been informed about Goers’ departure, so he had to ring Education Minister John Gardner’s office to double-check that he was legally entitled to attend.