Brendon Grylls and Nats put iron tax in line of fire
They don’t do things by halves in Western Australia.
Last week the state was the national centre of mining bonhomie as Kalgoorlie hosted the Diggers & Dealers conference.
This week they — or at least idiosyncratic state national Brendon Grylls — have lined up Andrew Mackenzie’s BHP Billiton and Jean-Sebastien Jacques’ Rio Tinto for $3 billion through a proposed $5-a-tonne tax on iron ore.
After that surprise proposal, don’t expect to see Grylls at Rio’s grand gala dinner in Perth on August 26 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its iron ore business.
Culleton’s cull
And it’s not just the miners who are in danger of making the WA endangered species list.
If One Nation senator Rod Culleton gets his way, Perth will soon be the nation’s bank bashing capital too.
“There will be a royal commission and this will be happening in Perth, Western Australia, under my watch,” Culleton told us in a statement instructively titled “The Hunted has now become the Hunter”.
No one could accuse the elected One Nation senator for Western Australia of taking the wet lettuce approach.
Culleton said he believed some who had given dodgy financial advice “will face imprisonment, such is the seriousness of the criminal misconduct uncovered”.
Speaking of justice, Culleton also had some success yesterday in the courts.
A conviction for stealing a set of tow truck keys was annulled in an Armidale court.
“It never happened,” Culleton told us of the alleged theft.
But Pauline Hanson’s man in WA still has a few legal obstacles complicating his Senate arrival.
Culleton is involved in an ongoing case in the NSW District Court concerning the alleged theft of a tow truck.
There’s also a separate case in Perth concerning the alleged theft of a hire car that was being used by receivers who were attempting to repossess his friend’s farm.
If Culleton is deemed ineligible, precedent says the spot will be filled by the next candidate on One Nation’s WA ticket: his brother-in-law, Peter Georgiou.
Myer movements
There’s been another departure from the top ranks of the Myer Family Office following the appointment of Danielle Press as its new CEO.
We hear MFCo’s general manager for the past two years, Mathew Browning, is no longer at the group’s suave Collins Street digs. Browning is also a former MFCo head of strategy, COO and head of investment.
It’s one of the more notable developments in the world of demure Melbourne richies since the revelation that The Age’s faux hipster was the grandson of the intensely private billionaire David Hains.
Browning’s LinkedIn profile describes him as a “versatile senior operating executive, empowering leader, strategic business builder and results driven’’.
He joins former MFCo head of investment Miles Collins, who upped stumps at the Myer family for a gig at the University of Sydney as its investment boss in January.
Also departing is former MFCo CEO and Myer Family Investments (MFI) boss Peter Hodgson, who will leave the Myer fold next month following last week’s appointment of former McAleese chief financial officer John Russell as MFI’s new CEO.
Also on the way in is former News Corp Australia chief executive Kim Williams, who is joining the MFI board as a director.
Drummond’s base
Louise Herron’s Sydney Opera House has done it again. Another distinguished Australian Financial Review journalist has joined the house that Jorn Utzon built.
The latest recruit is Matthew Drummond, who was previously the editor of AFR Weekend and then the editor of GQ Australia, the role in which he convinced Greens leader Richard Di Natale to wear that turtleneck.
Drummond has begun work as the online editor for the Opera House’s ambitious new website, which has the backing of US technology giant Adobe.
He will report to fellow AFR alumni Brook Turner, Herron’s director of external relations.
As AFR Weekend editor, Drummond got the paper off life-support. Despite his good work, Greg Hywood appears to be morbidly determined to euthanise the weekend paper by early next year. Here’s hoping the Fairfax boss has a change of mind.
Doing the business
The ABC’s review into its business coverage was released yesterday, more than seven months after it was commissioned by ABC chairman Jim Spigelman and his worthy board.
It was the one with input from former ANZ chief executive Mike Smith.
After writing so much about its gestation, we felt obliged to turn away from the Olympics broadcast for a bit and have a read. And, as to be expected of something involving the straight-talking Smith, there were some useful suggestions and more plain English than in most bureaucratic documents.
There’s also this statistic: Michelle Guthrie’s Aunty — which has an annual budget of more than $1 billion — employs only 19 journalists plus Alan Kohler (a freelancer) to put together its national business coverage.
Looks like more reason for Guthrie to continue her admirable assault on back office waste to free up money for journalism. Prune well.
Laboring over lunch
Understandably, Bill Shorten’s emboldened Labor troops are enjoying some of the country’s better lunch spots before they assemble in Canberra on August 30 to kick off the 45th federal parliament.
Well, they should. Glad-wrapped sandwiches at the Parliament House cafe Aussies are now less than three weeks away.
The ALP’s ambitious shadow treasury team picked a great spot for lunch yesterday — sushi diner Azuma in Sydney banking nest Chifley Tower, a building named after a Labor legend with a considerable interest in the banking sector.
Spotted on their way in to a private dining room were corporate Australia’s favourite shadow frontbencher Chris Bowen (the shadow treasurer), Wayne Swan’s former chief of staff Jim Chalmers (now shadow finance minister), one of the world’s worst paid Harvard graduates Andrew Leigh (now shadow assistant treasurer) and the MP who snatched Parramatta from Ross Cameron back in 2004, Julie Owens (now shadow assistant minister for small business).
Penn and Telstra
For a man with a penchant for chunky wool knit sweaters, Telstra boss Andy Penn gets into a surprising amount of biffos. Or at least his giant telco does.
You might remember Telstra got into a stoush with John Coates’ Australian Olympic Committee for allegedly misleading consumers into thinking they were a sponsor of the Australian Olympic Team. Telstra won that case in the federal court, and then launched a massive promotion campaign for the phone app that was the centre of the case.
Now with the Rio Games under way, that app is causing trouble again as Telstra — which sponsors the thing — blames Kerry Stokes’ Seven (which supplies its content) for trouble with the broadcast feed. Seven has apologised for the glitches, saying the service is just too popular.
It’s another Olympic headache Penn could do without in the lead-up to his telco’s results on Thursday.
Moving away from broadcast headaches, the Telstra boss looked a picture of happiness in a recent outing with his new wife, Nebraskan-born gallery director Kallie Blauhorn, at the opening of artist Sonia Payes’ new exhibition at the McClelland Gallery on the Mornington Peninsula. The couple married a month ago in the Tuscan hills.
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