Anthony Albanese bans Kellie Sloane from Jewish meeting; Gill McLachlan racing interview set for Monday
Anthony Albanese finally attended Sydney’s Central Synagogue on Friday for a powwow with the nation’s rabbinical community, this in the wake of protests on university campuses and some truly feckless leadership by the institutions’ vice-chancellors.
Yet even on an issue so arguably resistant to political silliness, the queer scent of brinkmanship still pervaded Albo’s visit. We hear his office called ahead to the synagogue and insisted that Liberal MP Kellie Sloane, the state MP for Vaucluse, be barred from attending the event, for reasons which weren’t provided. No edict in kind, however, for federal teal MP Allegra Spender, who reps the overarching seat of Wentworth, and who took Wentworth off the Libs in 2022. So, did the snubbing of Sloane have much to do with Labor banking on Spender’s re-election next year, a factor that only helps ensure a return of the Albanese government? Spender even featured in some of the PM’s published photographs of the discussions.
Interesting, too, that the PM found time to meet with rabbis in Sydney, this while the Liberal’s education spokesman Sarah Henderson held roundtable discussions in Melbourne with Jewish students and community leaders to glean their experience of the campus ructions.
No such gestures from actual Education Minister Jason Clare, however. His seat of Blaxland is home to a high number of people who don’t think too kindly of Israel (or Jews, apparently) and Clare himself hasn’t found time to meet with Jewish leaders or students since October 7.
And they’re racing …
Not too long now before an announcement is made on Gillon McLachlan’s appointment as chair of Racing Victoria. McLachlan is scheduled for his formal interview on Monday before a selection panel consisting of Victoria Racing Club chairman Neil Wilson, Country Racing chairman Chas Armytage, government-appointed panel chair Michael Mangos, Thoroughbred Racehorse Owners Association chair Jonathan Munz and acting RV chairman Mike Hirst.
It’s amazing to see Munz and Hirst actually playing nice with each other on the panel, too, Hirst having been the outgoing chair of a board that Munz publicly trashed for many months (and which is about to be refreshed).
From what we hear, however, the panel did achieve unanimity in their whittling down of hundreds of directorial applications, reducing that to about a dozen names who were then short-listed for interview, leaving a final few that were recommended in February to Racing Minister Anthony Carbines.
Powercor CEO Tim Rourke (great mates with Gill) was one of them and has already been picked by Carbines as a director (so we hear). And, who knows, Rourke might have even made a perfectly fine chair if not for Carbines being besotted with McLachlan and begging him to throw in his hat, which McLachlan finally got around to doing only about four weeks ago, holding up for months the announcement of a new-look board – and presumably because Carbines didn’t feel like drafting two press releases: one to name the newly appointed directors (Rourke being one, along with Mark Player), and a second for the soon-to-be-named chair.
They say McLachlan is in the market for even more corporate board work, alongside RV, and in ongoing discussions with private equity groups for some real moula. That would make sense considering the RV chair role is almost voluntary, commanding a salary of about $200,000, far lower than the $3m that McLachlan reaped annually as CEO of the AFL.
Donations to lawyers
Another point to be made on The Grace Tame Foundation and its financial accounts, which we’ve had a bead on since they were lodged a week ago. A large proportion of donor funds found their way to paying legal fees for abuse survivors, a worthy cause but one not flagged anywhere on the Foundation’s website, or in its filings with the charities commission.
Of the $250,000 provided in donations about $107,000 was paid to lawyers in FY23, according to the accounts. And we’re led to believe at least some of that funding went to Marque Lawyers, whose managing partner, Michael Bradley, sits on the foundation’s board. No response from the foundation when we tried to confirm with more precision how much of the money had gone to Marque. And no response from Bradley, who we reached, but who declined to comment.
Copy + paste = judicial reaming
An awkward moment in the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday when lawyers with Amanda Banton’s class action firm Banton Group were outed for copying someone else’s homework – and were rounded on by a judge for this thievery.
Banton Group is a latecomer entry behind two class actions already filed against the Andrew Budzinski-backed IC Markets, with a judge soon to decide which of the three firms should ultimately run the case. The courts dub this line-up process a “beauty parade”. So Banton is fighting it out with Echo Law and the hypocrites at Piper Alderman to see who has the better legal team and whose economics are better for the group members – and on Friday they found themselves utterly humiliated when a Supreme Court judge called out some sloppy copy-and-pasting efforts.
Basically they’d taken a 120-page statement of claim already filed by Echo Law in the Federal Court last year and changed the name on the front page, with a small number of minor amendments. “That appears to be the only difference,” said Victorian Supreme Court Justice Jim Delany. “It seems to me at the moment … it’ll be difficult for you instructors to demonstrate they have brought independent skill and judgment to the proceeding so far,” he said, suggesting they “reflect on this” for future proceedings. Tip for Banton: try ChatGPT?
Both sides now
The NSW Liberals are predictably atwitter about how a Labor minister’s brother managed to stay on as a card-carrying member of the party – even while campaigning for the other side during the 2023 state election. That’s very much a no-no. We speak of Lands Minister Steve Kamper, whose brother Bill was accepted to the Como/Jannali branch of the Liberal Party at some point.
A photograph of Bill was featured in Thursday’s column handing out for Steve at the last election, which should all but end his Liberal membership. Margin Call hears that he’ll have a chance to defend himself in front of the state executive, but the likely outcome is a five-year expulsion.
Medical skirmish gets pulses racing
Most lawyers will tell you their work doesn’t save lives, but a case starting on Monday could prove the exception.
‘The scapegoating of business has to stop’: literal alarm at corporate Oscars
Seats were in short supply at business’s equivalent of the Oscars, but the speeches didn’t miss and at least one big name couldn’t wait to hot-foot it out of there before the dessert plates were even cleared.