Buchholz abreast of new rules

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

One-time Coalition whip and now lower house economics standing committee member Scott Buchholz will be so pleased to hear the news.

Minister for Revenue and Financial Services Kelly O’Dwyer and her investment banker husband Jon Mant are having their second child, due in April next year.

Minister for Revenue and Financial Services Kelly O’Dwyer and her investment banker husband Jon Mant with baby Olivia.

By then Buchholz, the member for Wright in Queensland since 2010, should have the rules of the parliament down pat, after last time telling breastfeeding mum O’Dwyer (then parliamentary secretary to the Treasurer) to express more milk for infant Olivia so O’Dwyer didn’t miss a vote in the house.

“Just want to share some exciting personal news,” Member for Higgins O’Dwyer, who is three months along, told her Facebook friends yesterday.

“Next year there will be another baby in the household — a little brother or sister for Olivia!”

Last year O’Dwyer was back in the parliament about three months after Olivia was born in May, with UBS executive director hubbie Mant, who has the lofty title of head of mergers and acquisitions at the Swiss bank, taking six months parenting leave from his demanding gig.

This time around it’s not clear what arrangements the power couple will put in place to care for the new addition, but while O’Dwyer is on maternity leave her colleagues Treasurer Scott Morrison and Finance Minister Mathias Cormann will cover her portfolio.

Thankfully, in February rules were announced allowing breastfeeding pollies to bring their children into the chamber as part of new rules for a “family-friendly” parliament, of which we are sure chief Coalition whip Nola Marino, who sits not far from O’Dwyer in the house, is acutely aware.

Swansong for Taj

It’s official. Radhika and Pankaj Oswal’s Taj on Swan in salubrious Peppermint Grove is up for sale.

The demolition of Taj on Swan is still under way. Picture: Colin Murty/The Australian.

Signs went up out the front of the 6500-plus square metre site on Tuesday, with selling agent William Porteous already fielding serious interest from six interested parties.

As of last night he was dealing with one Perth-based party, who was expected to lodge a bid for the site as early as today, despite the fact demolition of the Indian business couple’s incomplete dream home is still under way at the hands of the local council.

Porteous sold the Oswals the Bay View Terrace site as eight separate blocks in 2007. His client this time around is Radhika, whose name alone is on the property’s title.

The couple, who have also listed the asset with LJ Hooker, are hoping for $30 million — a result that could be achieved if the land was subdivided, but is less likely as a single lot.

Mega construction

Ukrainian-born rich lister Leon Kamenev, worth an estimated $540 million, is poised to roll in the wrecking ball on his $80 million amalgamated harbourfront site on Vaucluse’s Coolong Road.

Ukrainian-born rich lister Leon Kamenev.

Objectors to Kamenev’s demolition, which will cost about $100,000, had until yesterday to speak up to Deborah Thomas’s Woollahra Council, with the works to be carried out by Bondi Junction-based project manager Corona Projects. There are no signs yet of the development application for Kamenev’s new palace. But the chatter in building circles in Sydney’s eastern suburbs is that a more than $30m construction is planned.

Sounds like a residence of which even an Oswal could be proud.

When it’s complete, one of his new neighbours will be musician, aviator and Westfield scion David Lowy.

Kamenev’s dream home will be funded from proceeds of the sale of Kamenev’s takeaway ordering business Menulog for $855m last year. He is already a resident of the moneyed eastern suburb, where he calls a mansion on Parsley Rd home.

Cane-and-able Twiggy

Our iron ore billionaires have been out and proud this week.

Andrew Forrest’s crutches have been replaced by an elegant cane. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas.

First, Gina Rinehart announced she had come to Treasurer Scott Morrison’s rescue and, with a bit of help from her Chinese friend, Gui Guojie, made a $365m bid for the iconic Kidman cattle empire.

Yesterday, fellow iron ore and cattle billionaire Andrew Forrest — who, with his wife Nicola, is a mighty philanthropist — was in Canberra to offer Social Services minister Christian Porter some ideological support in his campaign to reform welfare policy.

“Surely there are those who ask: Well, what the hell is Twiggy doing talking about welfare?” Forrest told the National Press Club.

And it is true that only six years ago — as the battle over iron ore super profits waged — his intervention in the debate over disadvantage in Australia would have unimaginable.

Forrest’s address was impressive on a human level. As he mentioned in the speech, when he was a boy he struggled with a terrible stutter.

“Sometimes it would take me a minute to get my name out,” he recalled.

After his speech — while he was being mobbed by adman-turned-cattle owner Harold Mitchell and Senator Jacqui Lambie — we noticed that Forrest’s leg is still on the mend, more than a year after Forrest suffered a nasty injury in a billabong in the West Australian Kimberley region.

Back then, there was talk in his close circle of amputation. Now, thanks to some excellent healthcare, the leg is much improved.

The crutches are gone, and have been long replaced by an elegant cane. If all goes to plan, we understand in a little while that might not be required either. An excellent development.

Don’t spare the Rod

“Mr President, the hunted has now become the hunter,” announced West Australian senator Rod Culleton in his maiden speech in Canberra last night.

One Nation Senator Rod Culleton makes his maiden speech. Picture: AAP Image/Mick Tsikas.

And in his sights: Shayne Elliott’s ANZ.

With fellow bank haters in the Senate audience — including a grain grower who set fire to himself after losing possession of his farm — Culleton told his raw, sometimes funny, often furious political origin story.

“Bank loans should have health warnings,” he said after another story about farmer suicides over loans.

His verdict on last week’s economics committee? “The bankers’ belly scratch.”

And a royal commission into the banks? “It is inevitable. It will happen.”

It was a horrifying performance for the bankers watching over livestream, particularly those at ANZ.

They contest much of Culleton’s story. And they point, in hope, at the ongoing court case that could invalidate his Senate seat.

But for now he is there, the big four’s bete noir, with a powerful crossbench seat.

As Culleton idiosyncratically concluded: “God Save the Queen. Because nothing will save these bankers.”

Name of the game

Former JB Were chief and Australian Foundation Investment Company chair Terry Campbell found himself before a forgiving audience at the 88-year-old investment fund’s annual meeting at Melbourne’s RACV Club yesterday.

AFIC chairman Terry Campbell.

Faced with largely elderly attendees, Campbell had his own senior moment when he introduced longstanding AFIC director Cathy Walter as “Cathy Walker”.

Oh dear.

“You know me really well Terry,’’ Walter chirped, who has been on the AFIC board since 2002.

“As you’re the longest-serving director you would think I would know your name by now,’’ a contrite Campbell replied.

Walter is well known as a former director of blue chips including Orica, ASX and NAB, where she led a boardroom revolt over governance practices in the wake of the bank’s infamous 2004 foreign exchange trading scandal.