By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
The very fine members of Sydney’s exclusive, all-male Australian Club – which counts ex-prime ministers John Howard, Malcolm Turnbull, as well as a smattering of judges and corporate heavies among its crew – hold their annual general meeting this Thursday.
And we’re told it’ll be only the second contested election for positions in the club’s history. It was founded in 1838.
Typically, nomination of the club’s officer bearers on the general committee is done by a small, crusty group, who are able to control the election process.
But our spies tell us Barry Catchlove and Roger Corbett want to bring a whiff of democracy to the secretive Macquarie Street institution by contesting the election.
Catchlove, a former Mayne Nickless executive, is once again trying to get on the general committee, with a platform of admitting women. How very modern.
Corbett, the former Woolworths boss and Fairfax Media chair, is another famously forward-thinking bloke. So forward-thinking he wasn’t at all worried about the internet cannibalising his newspapers’ classifieds business. And when it came to the same-sex marriage debate of 2017, he was one of corporate Australia’s few hard nos.
Australian Club member Barry Catchlove, who is running for the club’s presidency.Credit: Fairfax
Both men declined to comment, and the club relayed a stern warning to members not to talk to CBD.
When we did finally get a hold of Corbett, he furiously spluttered that he wouldn’t comment off the record, on the record – in fact any old record. He then promptly told the club that he’d been contacted by a journalist.
All we wanted to know was whether Corbett was running because he thought the club’s governance needed improving.
Of course, CBD would never dare suggest there’s a problem with the Australian Club’s governance. After all, in 2021 it allowed a group of 15 members to requisition a special general meeting to vote on admitting women to the club. That very same group then successfully set about lobbying and canvassing members by email to vote against their own motion, effectively derailing a patient push to bring the club into the 20th century.
Former Reserve Bank director and Fairfax Media chairman Roger Corbett.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
Truly fine, upstanding behaviour from members of Australia’s oldest gentlemen’s club.
Our spies tell us Corbett has been a member of the club for 26 years, and if elected he promises to be a “strong contributor” to the committee. And we’re told he and other members have been uneasy for some years about the traditional nomination process.
POTTY MOUTHS
News that America’s greatest failson Donald Trump Jr is headed down under this July to talk about the “disease of woke identity politics and cancel culture” no doubt thrilled Australia’s legions of basement-dwelling mouth breathers.
With shows in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, plus the option of a $2500-a-head private champagne dinner with Don Jr and 20 other sweaty men, it’s going to be a big one for the true Trumpheads.
Donald Trump Jr is coming to Australia for a speaking tour.Credit: AP
CBD wasn’t surprised to see some of our favourite grifters Turning Point Australia, who brought Nigel “Mr Brexit” Farage here last year and are helmed by hard right vaccine sceptic Joel Jammal, behind Don Jr’s tour.
But one of the tour’s other listed organisers had us scratching our heads. SBS Fence and Toilet Hire, which has its logo on the Trumplive website, appears to be a portaloo supplier based in south-west Sydney.
Aside from dealing with large quantities of faecal matter, we’re not quite sure what portaloos and Don Jr have in common.
Sadly, we may never know, as SBS Fence and Toilet Hire didn’t return our calls to explain how they got involved in the whole smelly business.
The mystery immediately reminded us of Four Seasons Total Landscaping, the suburban Philadelphia store between a sex shop and crematorium, where former US president Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani held an infamous press conference spouting all manner of nonsense about the 2020 US presidential election.
Trumpworld has always been a weird place.
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