Billionaires drift back to shore

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Finally, after a dearth over the European summer, the international axis of billionaires is tilting Australia’s way again.

Almost billionaire Sandy Oatley and the family (worth $910 million) are doing their bit to help, throwing their sailing carnival this week at Hamilton Island.

And a month after his ­extravagant Mediterranean conception party, trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox (worth $2.5 billion) has finally returned home.

Even the international billionaire set seems to have got the memo.

Within easy sailing distance from the Oatleys’ festival is German billionaire Reinhold Wurth — or so we presume from the presence of his 85m super­yacht Vibrant Curiosity, which was yesterday spotted docked at Cairns Marina.

German billionaire Reinhold Würth.

Wurth (aka the “The Screw King”) has packed his helicopter, too. The 81-year-old Wurth made his $12.8bn fortune selling screws, fittings and chemicals. He now spends much of the fortune acquiring modernist art and, from time to time, being the centre of outrage — as happened in 2009 when, during the global recession, he ordered the $130m superyacht at the same time he made his employees take pay cuts and reduce their hours.

Mr Würth's superyacht, Vibrant Curiosity

It was the sort of behaviour by the super rich that GFC-era treasurer Wayne Swan is still fuming about.

Indeed, this week the now Queensland backbencher and co-chair of the Chifley Research Centre has released a manifesto called Inequality on that very subject. Former NAB chief executive Cameron Clyne, among others, helped out on the work.

All of which makes the ­Vibrant Curiosity seem perfectly timed.

Price of inequality

Iron ore billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest (last valued at $3.3bn) also did his bit to help out with Wayne Swan’s latest tilt against inequality.

Back in 2012, Twiggy was one of the stars of Swan’s essay “The 0.01 per cent”, which was published in Morry Schwartz’s magazine, The Monthly.

“For every Andrew Forrest who wails about high company taxes and then admits to not paying any,” wrote Swan, “there are a hundred Australian businesspeople who held on to their employees and worked with government to keep the doors of Australian business open during the GFC.”

Considering that bit of history, it seemed pointed that the Chifley paper was launched on Fortescue’s results day.

While Swan was doing radio interviews on inequality, Fortescue announced the size of Forrest’s dividend windfall: $155m for the year.

Not bad, even if didn’t measure up to the $280m in dividends fellow billionaire James Packer scooped up from Crown over the same period.

The latest Fortescue annual report also showed that chairman Forrest was no longer receiving a salary for his work. A concession to Swan perhaps?

Or has Twiggy rather embraced the Code of the Packers, a family who — putting aside a brief flirtation with the concept by James — have never received a salary from their companies?

World away

Fellow iron ore billionaire Gina Rinehart (last valued at $6bn) also had a cameo in Swan’s 2011 essay. The “matriarch” of the Australian Olympic team wasn’t much help to the Chifley crew’s cause yesterday.

She was too wrapped up in the end of the Rio Games. Honestly, what is she going to do with herself until Tokyo 2020?

As always, the Hancock Prospecting chair is involved in a bit of litigation back home, which Rinehart’s new recruit Sophie Mirabella has been watching over.

All of which must make it tempting for Rinehart to shirk Perth and head to her luxury residence aboard The World, the $350m private cruise ship, presently making its way around the toe cap of Italy.

Calls waiting

Their instincts on the role of the private sector in Australia’s economy might differ, but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and former treasurer-turned-backbencher Wayne Swan (him again) have at least one thing in common: they are both waiting for the phone to ring.

Both Turnbull’s daughter, Daisy Turnbull Brown — who is married to the ambitious, Quarterly Essay writing, president of the Liberal’s Paddington branch, James Brown — and Swan’s daughter Erinn Swan — credited as the brains behind the ALP’s wildly successful Mediscare campaign — are awaiting the imminent arrival of new babies.

Both Daisy and Erinn are due in early September, days after the 45th Parliament opens on August 30.

It will be the first grandchild for the 62-year-old Member for Lilley and wife Kim, and the third grandchild for the 61-year-old PM and wife Lucy.

Daisy and James’s two-year-old son Jack stole the show at Turnbull’s swearing-in as PM, while the Turnbulls’ son Alex and wife Yvonne Wang have a daughter, Isla, who were all in town from Singapore for the campaign.

School’s in

Our new senators are in Canberra for their turn at pollie school. The leader of the Justice Party, Derryn Hinch, used yesterday’s lunch hour to talk tactics with preference whisperer Glenn Druery at Parliament House cafe Aussies. After Tim Wilson last week launched a fatwa on the salads at rival eatery, the Parliamentary trough, they were never going to eat there.

Also in Canberra was elected One Nation senator for Western Australia, Rod Culleton, who will — with his fellow senators Pauline Hanson and Malcolm Roberts — meet today with the Prime Minister to discuss a royal commission into the banking industry.

Shouldn’t have to wait long for their Facebook video to outline how it went.

Galloping off

Former Billabong director Scott Perrin became the former head of Racing.com yesterday after just over a year in the job.

Generously, David Moodie — chair of the joint venture between Kerry Stokes’ Seven West Media and Racing Victoria — thanked Perrin for his “great service”. If that was the reward for doing well, wonder what would have happened if Perrin had done a bad job? His sudden departure comes only weeks after Andrew Burke’s swift exit, and almost one year to the day since the racing channel was launched.

Nine coughs up

Changing the channel to Hugh Marks’ Nine, whose tattered flagship 60 Minutes continues to find novel ways to practice chequebook journalism.

After paying hundreds of thousand of dollars to kidnap children in the Middle East — and then millions in compensation and legal fees to mop up the mess — Nine’s latest foray was a modest venture. That cut-price effort was perhaps a nod to Bermuda almost billionaire, and unhappy Nine shareholder, Bruce Gordon (last valued at $990m).

Still, after saying that Roxy Jacenko — the wife of convicted inside trader Oliver Curtis — would not be paid to co-operate for the story on her run on 60 Minutes, aired on Sunday, Nine has since disclosed that they directly paid money to cancer charity Breast Care Nurses at Roxy’s request. A good cause, sure, but strange to learn that money changed hands in conjunction with the story. Nine won’t say how much was given.