By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Ever since Simon Holmes a Court was kicked out of a 2019 meet-the-candidate event with Josh Frydenberg after a falling out with the then-treasurer, the businessman and son of Australia’s first billionaire has hardly been a welcome face in conservative circles.
Holmes a Court would subsequently provide the financial muscle behind Climate 200, which helped the teal independents sweep the Liberal Party out of its traditional heartland in the 2022 election. And just this month, Climate 200 scored another win for independent candidate Jacqui Scruby in the Pittwater byelection.
Many Liberals are still not over it, continuing to blame Holmes a Court and his “teals political party” for their own electoral failings. If only Josh let him finish his wine inside!
With all that recent history, CBD was surprised to see Holmes a Court make an appearance at the Consilium conference on the Gold Coast, a three-day talkfest hosted by centre-right think tank the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS).
Simon wasn’t just gatecrashing the event for opposition research, he was put up on a panel titled Is Australia Too Late for Nuclear with shadow energy and environment minister Ted O’Brien, and a few other fans of small modular reactors.
A few months ago, the teal puppet master used his substantial Twitter (sorry, X) clout to convince Engineers Australia to cancel a pro-nuclear speech. Now, he’s out there appearing in enemy territory.
While we imagine Holmes a Court’s appearance was all in the spirit of good, healthy debate, some in the Liberal broad church were a little outraged to see their bête noire platformed at a conservative conference no less. The horror! Last CBD heard, a few were considering cancelling their memberships, with whispers about donors looking elsewhere.
It’s not like cash strapped conservatives are short on options these days – from the internet trolls at Advance to the Gina Rinehart-backed Institute for Public Affairs and Jordan Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, the CIS have plenty of rivals for donor dollars.
The CIS, for its part, said it hadn’t heard of any disgruntlement from attendees.
“Consilium, like other CIS events, encourages debate and the exchange of ideas and the delegates were delighted to have Simon Holmes a Court speak there,” the centre’s executive director Tom Switzer told CBD.
“Recently, CIS has played a destructive role in the never-ending Australian energy debate. My hope is that it shifts to a constructive stance, so the opportunity to address members and staff was interesting”, Holmes a Court told us.
CHAMBER OF SECRETS
CBD has been intrigued of late by the mysterious affairs of former Labor Bayside mayor Bill Saravinovski, who abruptly quit local government shortly after the Office of Local Government referred a matter involving him to the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal for determination.
After a few choice words in this column, Bayside Council cancelled plans to give Saravinovski a $15,000 celebratory dinner along with the great and good of southern Sydney, citing the former mayor’s ill-health.
Meanwhile, the mystery of Saravinovski’s legal matter remains, well, mysterious, after a recent tribunal decision restricting the publication of key evidence used in the proceedings.
In March, the deputy secretary, local government, sought orders that the tribunal conduct proceedings based on a departmental report prepared by the Office of Local Government concerning Saravinovski. According to a decision handed down by the tribunal last week, the departmental report contained evidence before the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
The ICAC had allowed the tribunal to use that evidence for “the purpose of NCAT having access and using that evidence in the conduct of disciplinary proceedings against Bill Saravinovski”.
But the content of that evidence against Saravinovski remains suppressed, with the tribunal last week ruling that to avoid risk of prejudice to him and other parties named in the report, it would remain subject to a non-disclosure order until the disciplinary proceedings concluded.
When the matter does conclude, and some of the evidence bursts into the open, we imagine it could cause just a bit of a stir around the bay.
OPEN BOOK
Independent Indi MP Helen Haines welcomes scrutiny of all politicians – including herself.
Unusually, Haines publishes quarterly reports listing donations to her campaign. She discloses the name and amount of every donation above $1000 and donations she receives above $16,900 are disclosed within five days. Oh, and the first $1500 contributed during a financial year to a political party is tax-deductible. Get the hint?
“Reform of donations reporting in Australian politics is well overdue. I am committed to disclosing my donations in line with what I believe all MPs and political parties should be declaring. I invite all political parties, MPs and candidates to disclose their donations in a timely and transparent manner, and to commit to reforming our existing donations laws,” Haines told CBD.
She certainly practises what she preaches. On the July list, a bumper month of more than $34,000 of donations, included from one from a certain Helen Haines. Yes, the indie from Indi donated $1498 to her own campaign. And not to be outdone, her spouse Philip Haines, went a few dollars better and donated $1500.
“Helen has one of the most transparent personal donation policies in Parliament. Donations are made from people of all walks of life, many of whom choose to disclose their donations below the $1000 threshold,” a spokeswoman told CBD. “From time to time, Helen and her husband have also made donations to her campaign, which are also declared under the policy.”
But what’s this? The July and October reports both contain generous donations from Climate 200, Simon Holmes a Court’s impact donation fund – $15000.00 each.
But in the July report, the Climate 200 donation of $15,000.00 is made to look “smaller” by removing the two zeros after the decimal, rendering it as $15000. It is the only donation rendered in this way. The spokeswoman told us: “It is not known why the formatting is slightly different in the July report.”
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