Off The Record: Wives of Peter Malinauskas and Vincent Tarzia forging impressive legal careers, Christopher Pyne turns GI Joe
IN Off the Record we reveal where high-flying legal eagle wives of top MPs are forging impressive careers, show how Christopher Pyne has turned from Top Gun to GI Joe and divulge the secret multimillion-dollar IT spending at trouble-plagued Onkaparinga Council.
WHERE are some of the high-flying legal eagle wives of the state’s top politicians forging impressive careers? Find out in this week’s Off the Record.
Plus we show how Defence Minister Christopher Pyne has turned from Top Gun to GI Joe, reveal the secret multimillion-dollar spending on IT at trouble-plagued Onkaparinga Council and detail the lobbyists from across the political divide who’ve forged an alliance.
The first MPs’ wives’ club
LAW firm Thomson Geer is developing its political pedigree as it expands with a $19 million swoop on “old money” banking law firm Kemp Strang, revealed this week.
Off the Record has learned that among its Adelaide-based staff are the successful wives of two of the state’s most powerful MPs while another senior SA politician cut his legal teeth there.
Adding to that, the boss’s wife is a State Government bureaucrat, who holds the record for the most expensive Adelaide house purchase — a $7 million Gilberton mansion.
Annabel West, married to Labor Opposition leader Peter Malinauskas, joined as a corporate team special counsel in May after more than eight years at rival firm Minter Ellison.
Her dispute resolution team associate colleague is Charissa Duffy, recently married to Liberal Speaker Vincent Tarzia. Duffy joined the firm in July from Tolis and Co lawyers.
And newly-appointed Federal Defence Minister Christopher Pyne worked there as a corporate lawyer — when it was know as Thomsons — before he became the Sturt MP in 1993.
Chief Executive Partner Adrian Tembel this week revealed the takeover of Kemp Strang, an established east coast firm.
Tembel declined to comment but has told colleagues the new deal was part of his decades-long “vision to build a national powerhouse law firm” while maintaining its SA roots.
His Adelaide-based colleague, chairwoman Loretta Reynolds, is considered one of the state’s finest legal minds and is a former lawyer of the year.
She also sits on the ASC and Royal Flying Doctor Service boards — the latter as chairwoman.
His solicitor-trained wife, Polly Tembel, is a State Development department industry liaison. She bought the Ivanhoe Mansion for a record price in 2016 from investment banker Mark Britten-Jones.
— Andrew Hough
Top Gun Christopher becomes GI Pyne
A DEFENCE Minister, like Christopher Pyne, must shoulder the immense responsibility of preserving our nation’s security.
But there also are multiple chances for a prized picture opportunity, as the Sturt MP demonstrated during a surprise Middle East visit last weekend.
Instead of watching the AFL Grand Final, Crows fan Christopher was spending time with Australian troops and meeting key leaders in Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates.
This afforded the opportunity to don a combat helmet and flak jacket to pose for pictures — and even produce a video. We couldn’t let the chance slip to reproduce some of Pyne’s fine work, which includes leading troops with a helicopter and, separately, a vehicle convoy in the background.
Back in 2016, the newly minted Defence Industry Minister Pyne mimicked Tom Cruise by posing in the cockpit of a RAAF F/A-18 at Amberley base.
For this effort, he was the recipient of Off the Record’s Rambo award (part of our tongue-in-cheek annual honours for political, legal and business types).
A curious alliance
ONE’S a former Greens Senator, while the other says he’s a “small-l liberal”.
On the face of it, Adelaide City Council Area candidate Robert Simms and Lord Mayoral aspirant Mark Hamilton seem like chalk and cheese.
But the two former councillors — and in Hamilton’s case a former deputy lord mayor — have been spotted at numerous events together over the past couple of weeks.
One was Simms’ campaign launch at Pink Moon Saloon and another was North Ward incumbent Phil Martin’s shindig at Scuzzi’s in North Adelaide.
So, is this the start of an unlikely political alliance?
When Off the Record contacted the candidates this week, they said they had plenty in common when it came to issues facing the city and this was testament to the historically un-politicised nature of council elections.
Hamilton said, despite any perceived differences, he and Simms would agree on a whole range of issues, such as heritage and the Adelaide parklands. He was interested in picking the former Senator’s brain on how to address homelessness.
Simms said he invited three Lord Mayoral candidates to his campaign launch, current Deputy Lord Mayor Sandy Verschoor was an apology but Central Market bookseller Kate Treloar was there.
But he did not invite Adelaide CBD dance studio owner Steven Kelly, simply because he doesn’t know him. Kelly, the self-declared “people’s candidate”, also will not be making an appearance at a candidates night in North Adelaide on Monday. Kelly’s Facebook page — his only communication method — says he is booked in Melbourne.
— Simeon Thomas-Wilson
Secret IT plan
THE IT industry experience of Onkaparinga CEO Mark Dowd was praised in an Ombudsman’s report in March about the council’s ICT Reform project.
Now we hear a council decision to spend $14 million on a new IT system was being kept secret until after elections are finalised next month.
We’re told the spending was approved as a confidential item on September 4, just before the pre-election statutory caretaker period started on September 18. Given the project involves rolling out a new IT system over more than one year, this locks the new council into a relatively major spending decision.
Contacted by the Southern Times Messenger, an Onkaparinga Council spokesman declined to respond to “matters that are still in confidence”.
Odd couple
AFTER a corporate bust-up two years ago at high-powered lobby firm Bespoke Approach, some of the players are getting the band back together again.
Former Bespoke partner Nick Bolkus is joining forces with the firm’s former managing director, Rob Underdown.
The experienced pair have forged a flexible business relationship, helping one another with clients.
Underdown, who cut his teeth as a policy adviser to John Olsen when he was premier, returned to Adelaide in July from Sydney, where he spent three years as Caltex Australia’s head of government affairs. Previously, Underdown worked at Santos and for former industry minister Ian Macfarlane.
Bolkus, an immigration minister in Paul Keating’s Cabinet, chairs Labor’s SA Progressive Business arm, holds directorships of several firms and works as a lobbyist.