Thanks to Trump administration, Mathias Cormann on top of the world

Looks like Donald Trump has finally found an Australian politician he likes (no, not former Ashfield deputy mayor turned next US ambassador to Malaysia Nick Adams).

With the Trump administration’s support, Mathias Cormann has had his mandate as secretary-general of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development extended for a second five-year term. Cigars all round!

As finance minister in the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments, the Belgian-born Liberal senator for Western Australia had to shrug off global concerns about the Coalition’s recalcitrant approach to emissions reduction and climate policy to land the top gig in 2021. Those concerns were given weight by Cormann’s former boss Malcolm Turnbull, who tried, unsuccessfully, to lobby against him.

There was no dissent against Australia’s Matthias Cormann getting another crack at the OECD role. Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

Despite being a rank outsider initially, Cormann managed to beat a field of 10 candidates, scraping past Swede Cecilia Malmstrom, who had all the right sort of European credentials, in the final round.

Spurred by a frenetic burst of global lobbying by the then-Morrison government, Cormann went one better than one-time wannabe United Nations boss Kevin Rudd to become the first Australian politician to lead a major international organisation in the modern era.

There was no such dissent against Cormann getting a second term, with member states reaching a consensus and the Trump administration firmly backing him.

Looking back over the yearbook of former high-profile Liberals from the last term, Cormann, a steady backroom operator who loved Senate estimates and won a degree of begrudging respect from the other side of the political aisle, wasn’t who we’d have picked to land the biggest global profile after politics.

Julie Bishop, with the red shoes and the rizz, is merely a UN special envoy to Myanmar. Turnbull spends plenty of time in New York, but his biggest recent stepping out on the world stage was joining adult entertainment star Stormy Daniels for the US presidential election night coverage on UK network Channel 4.

Then there was CBD’s extensive coverage of Wyatt Roy, once Australia’s youngest minister, flying the Saudi Arabian flag (literally) by heading innovation for the autocratic petro-state’s weird futuristic city.

Only Cormann is working out of an 18th century Parisian castle. He will be joined in the French capital by another Canberra ghost — former assistant treasurer Stephen Jones, who quit politics before the last election and was swiftly appointed as ambassador to the OECD by the Albanese government. There are worse places for former pollies to end up.

Heaps awks

Well, this is awkward. About two weeks ago, we brought you the strange story of Daily Telegraph senior reporter Clementine Cuneo, whose byline disappeared from the paper on June 30, only to reappear one day later on a listing page of the Federal Court under the “breach of general protections” provisions of the Fair Work Act. About what we were not quite sure.

Barely a week later, the Cuneo name disappeared from the court list as well.

This was due to her lawyers at Thrive Workplace Consultancy & Legal filing a motion of discontinuance.

Cuneo was made redundant as part of an internal cost-cutting measure. As far as we can surmise, this seems to have been a redundancy gone wrong for Daily Tele owner News Corp, and then a redundancy gone very right for the journo. Usually media companies are well versed in the matter of making journos redundant to cut costs. They have sadly had enough practice.

All sides maintained silence at the time, and we hear they are bound by non-disclosure agreements.

But now the Cuneo name is back in the paper after she was nominated for a prestigious Kennedy Award as one part of a team of reporters for outstanding crime reporting – for the third straight year – following the saga around the discovery of the caravan found near Dural in NSW found laden with explosives (but no detonator) and antisemitic messages.

Of course, it turned out the caravan was part of a hate crime it was an elaborate ploy by criminals to win leniency in the justice system.

All of this will add more than the usual excitement to the awards when they are announced at Royal Randwick on August 15. Although we reckon the non-disclosure agreements by which the parties are bound might put a sock in any banter.

Ward-ed off

When NSW MP Gareth Ward was found guilty last Friday of sexually assaulting two young men, the former Liberal frontbencher held his hand over his mouth and stared intently at the jury.

Throughout the two-month trial, Ward smiled cheerily on entering the courtroom. In fact, on the very first day of the hearing, CBD’s spies spotted the MP at the Crown Hotel in Surry Hills between sessions.

At the last election, Ward managed to retain his seat of Kiama as an independent despite facing criminal charges. The MP has remained active in the local community, posting prodigiously on his Facebook page about attendance at various events on the South Coast.

Those social media pages have, since Friday, gone offline.

Not so Ward, who has astonishingly still not quit parliament. Both Labor and the Coalition want him gone, with the Minns government planning to move a motion to expel him when parliament returns next week.