A few notables miss out on Joe Longo and Alan Cameron’s lunch for former ASIC heavyweights

Current ASIC chairman Joe Longo, left, and former chair Alan Cameron, who are hosting an exclusive luncheon for some of the regulator’s former luminaries.

Isn’t it just gutting to learn you weren’t invited to an upcoming party?

We speak of a private luncheon being hosted by ASIC boss Joe Longo and former chair Alan Cameron. They’re reuniting a selection of officials who’ve departed the regulator’s leadership in recent decades, with those getting a stiffie said to be hand-picked for the occasion.

Yes, a stiffie; it’s a type of card invitation, you degenerate. They’re often gilt-edged and extra-thick.

Margin Call hears about a dozen people will attend this gather-round in October, at a location in Sydney. It’s not a formal function being hosted by ASIC, but rather a self-funded bit of fun organised by Longo and Cameron. Funny, because we already knew that Longo likes to yell at people but didn’t know he can switch gears and do fun, too.

A few former chairs will be allowed past the velvet rope, including Jeff Lucy, who stepped down in 2007 to be replaced by Tony D’Aloisio, who we’re betting London to a brick will be there, as well, along with Greg Medcraft, now the chair of mortgage aggregator AFG, and Jeremy Cooper, a deputy chair of ASIC until 2009. He’s just been appointed a strategic adviser at MinterEllison, with his remaining fingertips staying warm in a few other pies.

Conspicuously absent, we note, are three of ASIC’s most prominent and recently departed senior leaders, namely Longo’s immediate predecessor James Shipton and former deputies Karen Chester and Daniel Crennan KC.

Former ASIC deputy chair Karen Chester. Picture: Aaron Francis

12/08/22 Former ASIC chairman James Shipton. Picture: Aaron Francis

As far as we can tell, they aren’t down to attend, but that’s hardly a shock given how badly some of them played with each other and the circumstances of their departure.

There was one report of Chester, in an unauthorised recording, allegedly telling Shipton she could have “destroyed” his career, during a telephone call that her lawyer later defended as bereft of important context.

Crennan, some may remember, left ASIC over a petty scandal involving his $70,000 location allowance from Melbourne to Sydney.

He was cleared of any wrongdoing, as was Shipton, who stepped aside over similar ASIC spending of $120,000 – paid to help him with tax advice on relocating to Australia. Both repaid the money.

Warding off rivals

A tough week for the NSW Liberal Party, knocked about as it has been by the Roman orgy of finger-pointing and failures to meet a deadline for council nominations.

Two egregious missteps made the crisis worse. First was Liberal leader Mark Speakman holding a press conference to insist that state director Richard Shields “fall on his sword” over what happened, and we’re betting Speakman will eat the bitter fruit of that lunacy for a while.

NSW deputy Liberal leader Natalie Ward believes in taking account of past form. Picture: John Appleyard

Second was Natalie Ward, Speakman’s deputy, eagerly announcing on the Ben Fordham show that Shields’ body was basically cold and his position was “no longer tenable”.

The giddiness and bloodlust now wearing off, everyone seems to be privately shaking their heads and coming to their senses, although they’re destined to betray each other all over again.

Ward already knows that, given her vatic utterances to an American TV show, a clip of which Margin Call has uncovered.

She features in an episode of The Peoples’ Court that appeared on YouTube three months ago under the title: Getting Physical with a Tenant.

Haven’t heard of The Peoples’ Court? It’s like Judge Judy and Hot Bench: a show of courtroom slap-fights with hooting crowds for an audience. This episode was nickel-and-dime in its complexity: a rented room, a rogue tenant, a pair of scissors brandished at the housemate.

How does Natalie Ward figure into this?

Well it wasn’t her with the scissors, even though she’s adept at making mincemeat out of people, namely Shields.

Instead, Margin Call spotted the former cabinet minister mixed among a gaggle of Americans outside the Los Angeles studio where the courtroom brainlessness was being filmed. This was 2019, two years after Ward entered parliament.

Asked via vox pop if the judge should take prior convictions into account for the scissor-wielding tenant, Ward didn’t miss a beat. “Absolutely,” she said. “If you’ve got a history, you’ve got form. You’ve done it before you’re going to do it again.”

That really doesn’t augur well for whoever gets in her way in the future, does it?

Chemical reaction

Shutting down chemicals maker Qenos could deliver a multi-billion dollar windfall to property owners near the company’s Altona chemicals plant.

Normally the closure of a major manufacturer like Qenos would lead to political angst due the loss of yet more manufacturing jobs and expertise. But Victoria’s Labor government has been quiet on the subject.

Perhaps because there’s upside to the Qenos closure that might, with the stroke of Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny’s pen, solve a few issues for the state – and even bring a smile to the dial of Victorian Treasurer Tim Pallas.

Qenos has been bought by property developer Logos using more than $200m, with plans afoot to close down the manufacturing plants in Sydney and Melbourne for redevelopment as industrial sites.

Cleaning up the mess made by 50 years of operating a petrochemical plant won’t come cheap, although getting that done on a 106 hectare site in Altona will probably fetch some coin; the going rate nearby is about $17m a hectare.

Or is there a bigger story unfolding here? Qenos facilities are surrounded by a buffer that restricts the density of workers – on nearby properties – to about 20 people per hectare, to reduce casualties if something goes wrong.

Once closed down, Qenos will give up its status as a major hazard facility, meaning those buffers could be rezoned should Kilkenny feel so inclined. Imagine the possibilities? Suddenly that land – about 650 hectares of it – could turn commercial, or even be used for housing.

Logos only owns two minor properties in the immediate vicinity, or so we hear.

But other major land developers, such as Ross Pelligra’s Pelligra Group and rich-lister Sam Tarascio’s Salta Properties, are both said to have an interest in the area.

It might also solve a few problems for the Victorian government, struggling as it is to make good on its housing policy. Lifting property values also lifts land taxes and stamp duty, when something’s flogged.

Missing in action

It’s true that the Australian Catholic University’s “new and improved” media digest omitted a controversial mention of itself that was published in this column on Friday, August 2.

The item in question revealed that cyber mole hunters from Clayton Utz were trying to root out staff thought to have leaked confidential information about the institution … mainly to us.

Well, it was true – for 24 hours. Turns out a technical glitch with the digest meant the Margin Call item in question was left off the Monday news roundup but included the next morning “once the issue was resolved”, a spokeswoman said. “We do not censor our media coverage and our daily digest includes all media mentions about the ­university.”

Fair cop. Margin Call is happy to hold itself accountable. If only the university would do the same, eh?