Big four banks face One Nation critic

Illustration: Rod Clement.

The news from the Australian Electoral Commission was terrible for our besieged big four banks.

One Nation’s lead candidate on their Western Australian Senate ticket, Rod Culleton, is off to the Senate in Canberra. Joining Culleton in the red house will be his ferocious hatred of the banking sector, particularly ANZ.

One Nation’s Pauline Hanson and Rod Culleton. Picture: Anna Rogers.

Or, at least, it would be were it not for a criminal conviction Culleton picked up in recent years for stealing (“larceny” in ­legalese).

Constitutional law experts say Culleton’s conviction could prevent him joining party leader Pauline Hanson on the 45th federal parliament’s powerful Senate crossbench.

That legal issue is unlikely to be sorted in a hurry. But Cul­leton’s possible ineligibility shouldn’t give comfort to Shayne Elliott’s ANZ, Andrew Thorburn’s NAB, Brian Hartzer’s Westpac or Ian Narev’s CBA.

If Culleton is struck off, precedent says the spot is filled by the next candidate on the party’s ticket. That would be Culleton’s brother-in-law, Peter Georgiou.

And in the unlikely event that there was a legal problem with the second candidate on One Nation’s WA ticket (an unpaid parking ticket, a stolen tractor, whatever), the spot would go to their third candidate, Ioanna Culleton, who is Rod’s wife.

Exactly which member of the family takes up the Senate seat won’t be clear for a while.

As with all families, there may be some issues that divide this lot over Christmas lunch.

But One Nation’s spokesman assured us that a belief in the ­urgent need for a royal commission into Australia’s banks is not one of them.

Chamber of secrets

More on the “Star Chamber” that is currently vetting senior staff for the Turnbull government, Mark II.

Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce. Picture: Kym Smith.

As we noted a fortnight ago, ministers and their staff were told the new chamber will be made up of ministers appointed by Prime Minister MalcolmTurnbull and Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce and representatives from their offices.

No one will be surprised to hear that the PM’s chief of staff Drew Clarke (a well-regarded career public servant) is on the chamber (officially known as the “Government Staff Selection Committee”). Ditto Cabinet Secretary Arthur Sinodinos.

But not previously flagged by us is Luke Hartsuyker, the Assistant Minister to the Deputy PM.

Good to hear Joyce is keeping out of the weeds — for the most part. We’ve also heard that the Nationals leader’s chief of staff Diana Hallam is on there too.

Not that anyone’s terribly keen to talk about the committee which — under Peta Credlin’s reign — became such a lightning rod of criticism in the early months of the Abbott government.

Even Stevens

After his surprise 2012 sabbatical, Dominic Stevens is a CEO once again.

ASX chair Rick Holliday-Smith with new chief executive Dominic Stevens. Picture: Britta Campion/The Australian.

ASX chair Rick Holliday-Smith announced yesterday that Stevens was moving from the exchange’s board to its top executive job.

Interestingly, Holliday-Smith also revealed that Stevens had made it known that he wanted the ASX chief executive job back in 2011, not long before his surprise departure from annuities behemoth Challenger after less than four years as CEO.

Five years later, having travelled throughout the northern hemisphere, successfully coached his oldest son to maths greatness and staked out a position on the board, Stevens finally got the ASX job, replacing Elmer Funke Kupper, the man who beat him the first time around.

Having a dig

While chairman Holliday-Smith and CEO Stevens unveiled the new post-Funke Kupper era in the exchange’s headquarters on Bridge Street in the Sydney CBD, a half-dozen of the ASX’s operatives were on the other side of the country in Kalgoorlie for Diggers & Dealers.

Diggers & Dealers keynote speaker and former IMF deputy managing director John Lipsky. Picture: Travis Anderson.

Don’t be surprised if the ASX crew are shy about revealing who they work for as they meet fellow conference-goers at the festival of mining and “skimpies” at the Palace Hotel.

The ASX is on the nose with the miners and explorers for its much-ridiculed crackdown on forward-looking statements.

And on Stevens’ first day in the job, the ASX further upset the Kalgoorlie hoard by putting gold producer Northern Star into a trading halt, as it demanded more info on the pending sale of Northern Star’s Plutonic goldmine to Canada’s Billabong Gold.

No surprise to hear from our crayfish-eating Diggers operative that the goldminer’s CEO Bill Beament was not impressed. Although surely nothing last night’s cocktail events couldn’t fix.

Jacques’ jolly japes

Moving up the mining food chain, and it’s shaping up to be a big month for Jean-Sebastien Jacques.

New Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques. Picture: David Mirzoeff/i-Images.

Tomorrow in London J-S will deliver Rio Tinto’s half-year profit report — his first as CEO since taking over from Sam Walsh on July 2.

Once that’s out of the way, the English-identifying Frenchman will start thinking about packing his bags for his first trip down under as Rio’s boss.

And there’ll be plenty more excitement when J-S touches down in Perth ahead of a cocktail reception and gala dinner on August 26 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Rio’s iron ore business.

The event will honour everyone who has helped Rio dig up all that Pilbara dirt since its maiden shipment left the port of Dampier on August 22, 1966, bound for Nippon Steel.

Rio has booked the expansive ballroom at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre for the party, proving that no expense is being spared (despite the still-weak iron ore price) and signalling that the invitation list will be long and illustrious.

But we wonder whether that list includes Andrew Harding, the mild-mannered bloke recently dumped as Rio’s iron ore boss? Seems unlikely.

After all, J-S is hosting the bash with Chris Salisbury, the executive he promoted from Rio’s copper and coal division to replace Harding in Perth.

Another person we hope is on the list is Walsh, who is returning to live in Perth and who’s been linked to a possible directorship at Woodside Petroleum. Everyone’s favourite milk jug collector (even, we’re told, Andrew Forrest’s) has so far taken just one big role since stepping down at Rio — the presidency of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, a prestigious group committed to the joys of purchasing.

Let’s hope Sam can tear himself away from that one for a Friday night knees-up with his former colleagues in a few weeks’ time.

Rail chief alights

Less than a month before the tenders are due for the construction of Newcastle’s $600 million light rail, there’s been a change at the top of one of the favoured bidders.

The Gold Coast light rail. Picture: Mike Batterham.

Chief executive Benedicte Colin is on her way out of public transport builder Keolis Downer, a hybrid of French behemoth Keolis and ASX-listed Australian engineering outfit Downer. Colin has decided she wants to pursue a new role. Now, after that moment of clarity, she just needs to find one.

Filling in as the head of Keolis Downer ahead of the August 30 tender deadline is Campbell Mason.

Mason comes to the acting CEO role after being the interim CEO of the firm’s Gold Coast operations. Downer’s former chief risk officer was in that role when Keolis Downer was awarded the stage-two contract of the Gold Coast light rail.

We’re told after moving from an interim role to an acting one, Mason wouldn’t say no to becoming the joint venture’s permanent head. Winning a new $600m contract from Mike Baird’s government wouldn’t hurt his chances.

Running commentary

This week we should get a date for the hearing of former Bell Potter broker Angus Aitken’s case against ANZ, the bank’s boss Shayne Elliott and its digitally adventurous communications executive Paul Edwards.

Former Bell Potter broker Angus Aitken. Picture: John Feder/The Australian.

It won’t arrive in a hurry. The five to seven-day trial that Aitken’s lawyer Mark O’Brien requested is likely to be scheduled in the second half of next year. In the meantime, lawyers will meet again on September 16 for a second directions hearing, after the first one last Friday.

And in case you missed it, those gathered at the Supreme Court on Friday learned that Aitken’s former boss74-year-old Colin Bell is more than a golfer. As the court was told by judge Lucy McCallum (who was recently in the news for convicting Oliver Curtis), Bell was also in a running group with O’Brien and herself.

“Back when we all had knees,” said McCallum.

Not surprisingly as their shared time at the running group goes back more than a decade, none of the assembled lawyers objected to her ongoing role.

They are much more focused on phone call transcripts, emails and text exchanges, and what Aitken metaphorically did to Bell with his driver.