By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
How good is Melbourne, everybody? The unsung hero of the AFL finals series and the only town in this great nation – go on, prove us wrong – where you can get nearly 550,000 people lobbing up for six games of footy in overwhelmingly good spirits.
Bravo Melbourne! Take a bow.
Dermott Brereton took to the airwaves this week.Credit: Joe Armao
But you always get one, don’t you, and CBD takes only a little pleasure in relaying the concerns Hawthorn legend Dermott Brereton says he had with the conduct of one supporter at Saturday’s blockbuster grand final.
Brereton was moved to take to the airwaves on Monday, calling in to Andrew Maher and Andrew Gaze’s SEN drive slot to praise the conduct of supporters all weekend, but also to report one encounter, while signing autographs for fans on Saturday, that he reckons didn’t go so well.
Brereton’s version of events is worth quoting at length, as they say in the classics.
“He walked up and pushed to the front of the queue and he was really well-dressed. And he said – this is verbatim – ‘You have to have a photo with me.’ And I said, ‘I’m sorry sir, I don’t have to have a photo with you, but I can have a photo with you if you stay in line,’ ” Brereton told the hosts.
Federal minister Don Farrell.
“And he said, ‘No, I’m not lining up. You have to have a photo with me. I’m the minister for trade and tourism.’ And I said, ‘Oh well, I’m sorry. There’s other people in the line who were here first.’
“Then his wife jumped in and said, ‘He is the minister for trade and tourism’, and it was Don Farrell, and I said well, ‘Good luck to you, mate, that’s not how it normally works.’ ”
The minister had a slightly different recollection of the encounter, when we asked on Tuesday.
“It was a fun, good-natured interaction moving between events,” a spokesperson said. “The minister is a former Hawthorn supporter and has a great deal of admiration for Dermott.”
Big giveaway: Barrister Julian Burnside. Credit: Eddie Jim
OPEN BAR
There’ll be some serious legal talent taking refreshments on Wednesday night at the Griffith Library at Melbourne’s brief central, Owen Dixon Chambers, in honour of one of the city’s heavyweight barristers, Julian Burnside, KC.
The Victorian Bar is putting on a few drinks for the veteran advocate, best known in latter years for his human rights work, in appreciation of a generous gift to the library, Burnside’s 600-plus-volume collection of legal books.
The books are mostly “accounts of famous trials and great advocates”, many of them acquired from legendary Melbourne bookseller, and Burnside’s long-time next-door neighbour in Hawthorn, the late Jack Bradstreet.
Bar president Sam Hay, KC, told us the soiree was the least the council could do to acknowledge Burnside’s “really cool and generous” donation of the valuable collection.
There’ll be plenty of judges and former judges from the Supreme Court, the Federal Court and even the High Court, with the likes of Ron Merkel, Jane Dixon, Ian Waller and Geoff Nettle due to attend.
But two barristers who studied, in their youths, under Burnside, Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello, are unable to make it. They send their best wishes.
HAVING A BOWL
You’ve got to hand it to Carolyn Creswell. The squillionaire purveyor of posh (Carman’s) muesli makes being rich look like such fun.
And Creswell was right on form last week in the sunny Croatian island getaway of Vis with 120 close friends and family flown in by the muesli-preneur for the occasion of her 50th birthday.
Amid the frocks, yachts, lunches and dancing, we spotted – on the socials – kikki.K stationery founder Kristina Karlsson and Entrecote restaurateur Jason Jones looking like they were having a blast.
As we say, fun.
BANK ON IT
There’s been a shuffling of the chairs at NAB. As CBD recently reported, the bank’s government relations head, Damian Callachor, (formerly of ex-deputy prime minister Michael McCormack’s office) was recently appointed chief of staff to CEO Ross McEwan.
Now, Chris Venus, previously government affairs and public policy, has been promoted to Callachor’s old role. Venus is another Morrison government alum – taking a year away from NAB (where he’s been since a grad) to work for former treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
NO FAN OF ASIC
Bronte Capital short seller John Hempton has made his feelings about corporate watchdog ASIC abundantly clear by sending a barrage of WhatsApp messages to the commission’s deputy chair, Karen Chester, which were revealed under freedom-of-information laws this week.
“Even after you realise you effed up you can’t get it right. ASIC is truly more problematic than I thought,” Hempton wrote last year, receiving no reply.
ASIC deputy chair Karen Chester.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
“So the Senate made it clear ASIC is an organised crime promotion outfit,” came another message from last February.
Hempton soon clocked that Chester, once his boss at Treasury, would be leaving him unread.
“I know you do not have to talk to me any more. And I have lost patience with ASIC too,” Hempton said in September, before referring her to another issue to examine, the contents of which are redacted.
“You rang, probably a bum dial because you are not talking to me,” he wrote a month later.
Credit: Darrian Traynor
Hemtpon also points Chester to what he calls a “simple” case of insider trading, and threatens to send his thoughts to ASIC’s critic-in-chief in the Senate, Andrew Bragg.
“I have sent to Senator Bragg. I am beyond frustrated watching hardworking people having their superannuation looted because ASIC is too internally effed to actually do anything”
Hempton told CBD he hadn’t sent Chester anything that wasn’t appropriate to send to a regulator.
“Discussions with a regulator are allowed to be a one-way street,” he said of his getting ghosted.
In a statement to CBD, ASIC said it had asked Hempton to cease sending messages directly to Chester, including by personal communication channels such as WhatsApp.
“Mr Hempton has been advised that the appropriate method by which to lodge a report with ASIC is to use our online form.”
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