By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Cardboard king rich-lister Anthony Pratt does not do things by halves. Why hire one ex-leader when you can have two? The global chairman of Visy Industries and Pratt Industries has signed up not just former prime minister Scott Morrison as a consultant but former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews as well.
The Pratt packCredit: Sydney Morning Herald
Pratt’s admirably bipartisan hiring policy means he now has a Liberal ex-PM and Labor ex-premier on his books. All bases covered. But definitely not a two-for-one deal, judging by the fees, which one source said was in the region of $100,000. Each.
The Melbourne box billionaire – with his family worth $24.30 billion thanks to the Visy global packaging business and US-based Pratt Industries – has always cultivated the powerful and influential to get ahead in business. This masthead’s recent investigation showed Pratt hired former prime ministers Tony Abbott and Paul Keating as consultants, with Keating’s monthly fee of $25,000 eclipsing Abbott’s $8000.
The Dan and Scomo deals were done a few weeks ago when the pair came looking for work. Separately looking, of course!
In their post-parliamentary lives, both men have hung out their shingle in pursuit of coin. In January, Andrews set up consultancy businesses Glencairn Street Pty Ltd and Wedgetail Partners Pty Ltd after standing down as premier last September, ending a nine-year stint.
Anthony Pratt, Scott Morrison and Donald Trump at a Pratt factory in Ohio in 2019.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Meanwhile, Morrison, who left parliament in February after losing the 2022 federal election, has found global advisory roles with US-based venture capitalists DYNE Maritime, American Global Strategies and Dubai engineering group Sidara.
The pair have maintained good relations with Pratt over the years.
Andrews was on the guest list at the Pratt family mansion Raheen in Kew in February, attending a performance by US pop star Katy Perry alongside his successor as premier, Jacinta Allan, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and a bevy of business and political names.
And Pratt proudly boasted to a bemused-looking then-president Donald Trump in September 2019 at a factory opening in Wapakoneta, Ohio, that Morrison was the “Don Bradman of Australian job creation”.
Pratt’s people were unable to comment. We did approach Morrison and Andrews, but emailing them, or indeed any ex-leader whose name is not Malcolm or Kevin, is often like touching the void.
DON’T MENTION THE SUBS
Last week, CBD warned any Australians headed over to Paris for the Olympics not to mention submarines.
But this masthead’s columnist Peter FitzSimons was undeterred when he managed to corner Emmanuel Macron at a reception the French president held for visiting journalists at the Elysee Palace this week.
While CBD’s spies heard Fitz was keen to talk submarines and the AUKUS pact, Macron was more interested in discussing the former Wallaby’s rugby career. FitzSimons played in France during the ’80s, and was involved in an infamous brawl during a Test against France at the Sydney Football Stadium in 1990. The pair had a good chat about some of Fitz’s old onfield antagonists, including French fullback Serge Blanco.
But Macron couldn’t dodge the submarines.
Fitz, in French, told the French leader that he was very famous in Australia for uttering that immortal line “I don’t think, I know,” when asked if Scott Morrison had lied to him over tearing up a submarine deal.
Macron just smiled broadly and replied: “Je sais” (I know).
FULL CREDIT
Billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer never gives up.
At the 2019 election, he burned over $80 million on the campaign without a single MP or senator getting elected. Nevertheless, he persisted, spending $110 million three years later to deliver real estate agent Ralph Babet to the Senate.
The Australian Securities and Investment Commission brought criminal charges against Palmer over alleged breaches of directors’ duties and takeover laws. Years later, Palmer is still battling to prevent the charges being heard in court.
And while the haters said Clive couldn’t build Titanic II, apparently it’ll be ready for the high seas any year now.
But not even Clive can escape the sorry saga of his Queensland Nickel refinery, which reached a denouement of sorts this week. In 2016, Palmer’s Queensland Nickel was put into administration, leaving 800 people out of work. The company went into liquidation, and its director (and Palmer’s nephew) Clive Mensink fled to Bulgaria. He now faces contempt of court charges over his repeated failure to show at court hearings about the company’s demise.
This week, the liquidators FTI Consulting announced that Queensland Nickel’s creditors had finally been paid out in full, to the tune of around $300 million.
It’s been a long road – eight years, nearly 1500 creditors, 27 court applications and over 40 pieces of litigation.
SHELL COMPANY
SPOTTED: News Corp boss Lachlan and Sarah Murdoch at Sydney’s Shell House with Franco-Australian nightclub bouncer Mourad Ayat, husband of former Vogue Australia editor Kirstie Clements, who was sensationally sacked from that job in 2012 while working for … Rupert Murdoch.
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