By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
The relationship between James Packer and Israel’s upper crust is the stuff of legend, with the billionaire nepo baby regularly wining and dining the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the astonishing largesse – champagne, cigars, fancy dinners and the like – bestowed by Packer on the country’s most influential figures inevitably attracted backlash and scrutiny. Known as the “gifts affair,” Packer’s generosity to Netanyahu would form part of a still-ongoing corruption case brought against the PM.
Packer has not been accused of any wrongdoing in Israel over his gifts.
Another of the country’s elite close with Packer was Yossi Cohen, the former chief of Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, popularly known as “the model” for his boyish handsomeness. Packer would refer to him as “James Bond”.
A $20,000 gift from the casino mogul to his favourite spook to help pay for Cohen’s daughter’s wedding was the subject of a police probe into the Mossad operative.
But this week, with Israel convulsed by mass protests over Netanyahu’s attempts to kneecap the judiciary (which is, remember, still investigating the whole corruption thing), the country’s attorney-general announced a closure of the probe into Cohen, citing a green light received from Mossad’s legal advisers, plus an expiry of relevant statutes of limitations.
All quiet on hack attack
By now, there should be a handy blueprint outlining what to do, and what not to do, for any company facing a cyberattack. Do not, for example put your media advisers in the firing line for a train-wreck interview. Try to get your story straight with the public, and if not, put out a sufficiently grovelling mea culpa.
When Optus, then Medibank fell victim to cyber warfare last year, their respective chief executives, Kelly Bayer Rosmarin and David Koczkar, both went public in the companies’ earliest communications to customers.
Say nothing: Ahmed Fahour.Credit: Shakespeare
So we were intrigued that when Latitude Financial became the latest to feel the wrath of hackers – on Thursday, it was revealed some 328,000 customers’ data was stolen – we heard not a peep from chief executive Ahmed Fahour.
A business identity best known for outraging the country when his $5.6 million salary as boss of Australia Post was revealed, Fahour is just weeks away from leaving Latitude. Now, we reckon a cyberattack is hardly the kind of shit sandwich anyone would like to be served for their last meal in the job.
But while we hear the company is still figuring out how best to respond to affected customers, a few soothing words from the boss might not go astray.
Prophet and loss
Just weeks ago, the Australian Christian Lobby’s baby-faced frontman Martyn Iles claimed he’d been terminated by the lobby’s board over differences of opinion regarding its direction.
While we haven’t quite got to the bottom of what went down there – the board’s chairman Jim Wallace had a sharply differing view – we can report that the lobby has filled the very hot seat of its managing director with veteran activist Wendy Francis.
Wendy, who said on Thursday that she will act in the job for the next few months, is probably best known as the Family First senate candidate in the 2010 federal election who made headlines for comparing marriage equality and same-sex families to “legalising child abuse”, and linking same-sex families with the stolen generations.
So it looks like more of what we’ve come to know and love from the lobby, with Francis setting out her stall on day one, pledging to campaign on transgender children, hiring practices in religious schools and even promising a position, at some point, on the Voice.
“There is so much work to do as together we serve God by speaking truth in the public square,” she said.
Meanwhile, the lobby seems disappointed that Dom Perrottet hasn’t run NSW like a devout Catholic, with its election pitch focused on minor parties.
A series of candidate forums in western Sydney held this month have featured Iles’ predecessor and likely unsuccessful upper house candidate Lyle Shelton, One Nation state leader Mark Latham, and a more recent turncoat from Labor to Pauline Hanson’s crew: Tania Mihailuk.
ABC battle hots up
With a posse of candidates jostling for the coveted staff-elected position on the ABC board, landing an endorsement from a key union can make all the difference.
Which is why, despite not getting the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance’s official endorsement, 7.30 political correspondent and likely frontrunner Laura Tingle was wise to secure the Community and Public Sector Union’s blessing.
Meanwhile, audio guy Graham Himmelhoch-Mutton, a rank outsider for the position, has deployed a different approach, taking a bit of a swing at the unions. In an email sent to staff on Thursday that began by citing Bill Gates, and focused on the need for Aunty to adapt to technological change, Himmelhoch-Mutton suggested a union endorsement shouldn’t be the only thing his colleagues (or comrades) voted on.
“Despite the unions’ ultimate selections, I have had a great deal more experience dealing with industrial issues within the ABC and can truthfully say that it’s not a glamorous pursuit,” he wrote.
“Let’s not forget also that unions and management are traditional foes, so a flag-waving staff-elected director is going to be viewed with suspicion.”
Still, it’s the flag-wavers that probably hold the advantage here.
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.