Bridget McKenzie’s staff feeling pain of fall from grace
It’s taking a while for the news to sink in at Bridget McKenzie’s Canberra office.
At lunchtime yesterday, the senator’s staff were still answering the phone with “Minister for Agriculture’s office”.
But the scramble was on deeper in the disgraced former Nats deputy leader’s sanctum, with about a dozen of McKenzie’s ministerial staffers immediately out of a job after she was forced to resign from the front bench on Sunday over her role in the Morrison government’s sports rorts scandal.
Being a member of John Howard’s family dynasty might not even be enough to save the likes of McKenzie’s policy adviser Lyall Howard, who is the nephew of the former Liberal PM, with Lyall joining the minister’s office last year to work on Australia’s post-Brexit free trade agreements.
With the UK’s exit from the European Union now done and details to be sorted, the timing for Lil’ Howard couldn’t be worse.
Howard’s been a busy fella in recent years. He helped Christine Holgate spin vitamins and other pills into gold at Blackmores as her government relations operative, with Holgate then appointing him to a $400,000-plus-a-year gig as GM of government relations at Australia Post.
But then Lil’ Howard parted ways with Post Master General Holgate last year, returning to the Coalition ranks.
Also out of a gig is McKenzie’s chief of staff, Gerard McManus, who before that was an adviser to now retired Member for Higgins Kelly O’Dwyer.
McKenzie’s crew is on the Newstart line alongside 10 or so staffers in the employ of now former resources minister Matt Canavan, who resigned his portfolio on Monday to throw his weight behind unsuccessful Nats leadership candidate Barnaby Joyce. Canavan’s minions included longstanding chief of staff James Martin and media adviser Kate Barwick.
Ousted ministerial staffers are given a short “deferral period” courtesy of the Rosemary Huxtable-led Department of Finance, during which they continue to be paid and are able to scout around for new gigs.
Such are the whims and vagaries of politics, but what a way to start the parliamentary sitting year.
Costa dispute solved
Former Geelong Football Club chairman, Costa family patriarch and Rich Lister Frank Costa did not mince words last year when he described the state of relations with his brother Robert.
“Probably not as warm as I would like it,’’ Frank declared to this newspaper as he spoke for the first time about a rift that had opened with Robert over the family’s shareholding in the nation’s biggest fruit and vegetable company, the now embattled Costa Group.
The problem for Frank was that the bulk of his shareholding in Costa Group was locked up in a family vehicle holding almost 16 million shares in the ASX-listed company.
He told us at the time that he would be “doing his best” to change that situation.
Now Margin Call hears Frank has indeed got his wish.
While the Costa family holding in Costa is now below the 5 per cent threshold requiring disclosure to the ASX, we understand the holding has now been split between Frank, Robert and other Costa family members.
Frank announced his retirement from the Costa Group board in July, which Margin Call hears was also apparently triggered by Robert’s wish to sell down the family’s holding.
At least the brothers will now be the masters of their own destinies.
The separation of the holding also comes at an intriguing time as Californian berries giant Driscoll’s stalks Costa Group after taking a small stake in the company.
Driscoll’s capitalised on the collapse in the Costa share price after a string of profit downgrades last year, which forced Costa to undertake an emergency capital raising.
Those downgrades saw the company’s chief financial officer, Linda Kow, quietly announce her exit from the role just before Christmas to take up the CFO role at services group Service Stream.
Frank Costa has always talked up his strong relationship with Driscoll’s.
Now, will the man who stared down the Calabrian mafia in the 1970s to clean up the Melbourne wholesale markets play a hand behind the scenes in helping deliver Costa into the hands of the Americans?
Byron haven for sale
Word among the entrepreneurial Byron Bay seachangers is that there’s an opportunity to buy The Farm for $20m plus.
No ordinary hinterland offering, with the 31ha organic farming and tourist venture established by Tom Lane, heir of the Oroton fashion house, and wife Emma.
It was seven years ago when they stumbled on an old dairy farm in Ewingsdale, which has become a renowned business incubator.
Tom, the grandson of Boyd Lane, who founded the now Will Vicars-owned Oroton in 1938, has sought CBRE Hotels agent Wayne Bunz to seek out buyer interest.
Bunz reckons that, given the success of the enterprise, someone could take it all or just a stake in the farm, which has free-roaming English Black pigs, Bond Brown chooks and Scottish Highland cattle.
There’s numerous micro businesses on site that generate nearly $1m in annual rental income. They attracted 500,000 visitors last year as it became a go-to hangout for tourists and locals.
Lane is possibly looking for city-slicker investors who yearn the good life but on a bigger scale than Tom Good and Barbara from the 1970s BBC television series The Good Life who quit the rat race to become self-sufficient.
The listing no doubt hopes to capitalise on the wave of sales, including The Beach Hotel at Byron that sold for $100m to Andrew Pridham’s Moelis Australia late last year.
Gerry Harvey and Katie Page secured $42m from Syrian billionaire Ghassan Aboud out at Broken Head for the luxury The Byron at Byron resort last August.
The Lanes’ inspired idea came from their then three-year-old daughter Matilda, who was fond of the veggie patch of their own home.
Turmoil at the tennis
It’s been just days since the last ball was served by Novak Djokovic to see the Serb tennis great take out his eighth Australian Open title and a $4m-plus prizemoney cheque, but already local tennis boss Craig Tiley is having to manage the fallout from a key exec resignation.
Margin Call understands Tennis Australia’s commercial boss, Richard Heaselgrave, has today handed Tiley, who runs the show but is also tournament director, his resignation from the organisation.
As TA’s chief revenue officer, Heaselgrave has been the man behind the spectacular transformation of the Australian grand slam tournament, which is now considered one of the key events on the local corporate calendar.
Heaselgrave has been at the Jayne Hrdlicka-chaired TA since January 2014 and has been key to pulling off many of the large sponsorship deals secured for the international event over recent years.
Word is that he’s off to establish his own sports marketing consultancy.
We hear that TA’s head of international business, Ben Slack, will take over Heaselgrave’s gig on an interim basis while a broader search is undertaken to fill the key role.
Logical really. Slack picking up the slack.
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