By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
Racing NSW chief executive Peter “Showbags” V’landys might be the luckiest man in Sydney. Last year, his flagship Everest race went ahead just weeks after NSW emerged from the gloom of lockdown.
And on Saturday, he stopped the rain as 45,000 punters soaked up a vanishingly rare day of glorious Sydney spring to watch Victorian three-year-old Giga Kick stun hot favourite Nature Strip in the $15 million race.
Punters at The Everest on Saturday.Credit: Flavio Brancaleone
V’landys also got his one-time adversary, NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, with whom Showbags was locked in a bruising war of words over stadium funding earlier this year, to turn up and make nice in the director’s suite, continuing the hatchet-burying from their recent date at the NRL grand final.
But the premier has many rings to kiss, and it wasn’t lost on the glamour set that when the time came for the biggest race of the day, Perrottet was watching from the Tabcorp marquee, in the marginally more easy-going company of former Australian cricket captain Michael Clarke and ex-NRL legend Laurie Daley.
Also making up the political contingent was Deputy Premier Paul Toole, Finance Minister Damien Tudehope, Health Minister Brad Hazzard and a couple of racehorse owners from western Sydney, Stuart Ayres and Marise Payne, formerly the NSW Liberal Party’s No.1 power couple.
Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’Landys.Credit: Kate Geraghty
Absent from proceedings was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and state Opposition Leader Chris Minns, who both had the small matter of NSW Labor’s state conference to contend with over the weekend. Besides, horse racing is a cancellable offence in Albo’s inner west electorate of Grayndler.
The PM’s ever-expanding entourage was represented by senior press secretary Liz Fitch, spotted along with Perrottet’s chief of staff Bran Black and treasurer Matt Kean’s man Sean Berry.
V’landys’ rugby league comrade, NRL CEO Andrew Abdo was around, as was WIN chief executive Andrew Lancaster.
And from the News Corp executive class, Foxtel boss Patrick Delany showed up, trailed as ever by whispers that he’d be departing the Murdoch empire to run the AFL. That was speculation Delany and his employer were quick to hose down when contacted by CBD on Sunday.
It’s a shame, since the network has plenty of strong talent waiting in the wings, including chief commercial and content officer Amanda Laing. We guess we won’t find out until AFL boss Gillon McLachlan completes one of the longest farewell tours since Elton John.
Mosman Matt
Robert Menzies, the father of the Liberal Party, would be turning in his grave at the fate of its oldest branch of Mosman, which he established in the 1940s and which presently sits in the deep teal electorate of Warringah.
In parts of the country like Mosman, where Teslas are out-muscling beamers as vehicular status symbols, voters punished the Coalition for its attitude to climate change. So, we’re not sure if Queensland Liberal National Party senator and cosplay coal miner Matt Canavan, who spent the election campaign declaring the Coalition’s net-zero emissions target “dead”, is the best person to win the heartland back for the party.
Nevertheless, Canavan is set to discuss “winning the energy battle” with branch members at Mosman Rowers next month. Perhaps he knows something about the Forgotten People the good burghers of Mosman don’t.
The Crosby Show
It’s been nearly two decades since Sir Lynton “the Wizard of Oz” Crosby departed for London, where he helped the Tories to a series of election victories, including the weird and whacky rise of Boris Johnson.
But the mastermind behind John Howard’s electoral success and the famed thrower of dead cats was back in Sydney last week for a whirlwind round of meetings. Together with Mark Textor, his original partner in crime at political advisory powerhouse CT Group, Crosby gathered with some of the company’s alumni at its salubrious new Bond Street digs.
The guest list included Yaron Finkelstein, former prime minister Scott Morrison’s principal private secretary, along with a smattering of other CT graduands in various modes of employ.
We hear that, naturally, Sir Lynton had some forthright observations to offer on the recent turmoil in British politics over the past few months, after the punting of his former boss Johnson and the ascension of lame-duck Prime Minister Liz Truss.
The CT business hasn’t just been all social lately: former NSW Crime Commission analyst Andrew Macintosh joined the firm this month as a director in the company’s Intelligence practice after a career that included stints at Control Risks in Asia for over a decade, as well as Westpac and MinterEllison.
The company is also welcoming back Ed Macgregor as a director in the advisory business after a jaunt at KPMG, where he was a director for structured finance. It’ll make for a busy time for the enhanced remit of managing director Catherine Douglas, who is now overseeing all the company’s operations in Australia.
Shooting Star
Star Entertainment Group’s new chief executive Robbie Cooke is raring to go this morning on his first day on the job leading a cultural overhaul at embattled casino operator.
Cooke was hired from fintech Tyro Payments (which is chaired by David Thodey and backed by Mike Cannon-Brookes) in June amid a general expectation that Cooke would have to serve out a six-month notice period before taking the reins at Star.
New Star boss Robbie Cooke starts on Monday.Credit: James Alcock
The former Tyro chief’s appointment was announced in June after Star chief Matt Bekier stood down following a public inquiry by the NSW gambling regulator that revealed failures by the company to stem criminal activity and money-laundering within its casinos.
It’s not clear what or who changed Tyro’s mind about letting go of its CEO months before it had to (maybe Star’s desperate board sent out an urgent SOS) but not everybody got the memo on time.
As late as last Monday, Tyro’s spinner Monica Appleby was telling journos that it remained “the plan” for Cooke to be running the company until the end of the year and then three days later, the ASX alerted investors to the imminent changeover.
Guess 72 hours is a long time in business these days.
Star has now matched Crown’s performance of being found unfit to hold a licence in any state it operates, so Cooke will be pretty busy but at least he’s got experience with crisis management from when Tyro’s payments terminals stopped working in January last year.
Correction: Last week we referred to non-payment of freelancers at The Guardian. The Guardian has since responded to say every freelancer and contributor to Guardian Australia is paid for their work without exception.