Casting lots for a little holy sin

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Gaming billionaire and noted Australian republican James Packer’s current trip to Israel is well timed.

Any moment now the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Packer’s Israeli neighbour) will release a report on the licence conditions for a proposed casino in the southern port and resort town of Eilat. It would be the Holy Land’s first temple of sin.

Could Packer be running the numbers over the site?

It’s the sort of thing some have wondered since the jetsetting billionaire turned up in Washington DC last March to witness Bibi’s historic speech to the US congress.

More recently, his non-­attendance at sister Gretel Packer’s 50th a fortnight ago in Sydney for Israeli-based business was noted by Packerologists.

And then there’s his gaming empire’s Crown (Cyprus) Pty Ltd vehicle, which could be used to facilitate the Israeli investment.

James Packer on Israel’s Jaffa promenade last year. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

That said, Packer is hardly the only casino billionaire with ties to Israel.

Top of the list is American ­casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who owns the Las Vegas Sands and is worth $US30 billion (or to put it in Australian terms, eight James Packers). Adelson owns the free pro-Netanyahu ­Israeli daily tabloid Israel HaYom — the highest circulation paper in the country.

He’s expanding, too. This week Adelson opened his fifth gaming resort in Macau, where Packer’s Crown also competes with its joint venture with ­Lawrence Ho, son of the controversial Chinese billionaire, Stanley Ho.

All the while, just across the Mediterranean on the Greek island of Mykonos, and in the vicinity of Packer’s icebreaker Arctic P, the billionaire’s Fantasy fiancee is busy being Mariah Carey. Straining work, to go by the holiday snaps.

Leckie lap of luxury

Under-occupied media veteran David Leckie — who once almost got into a fist fight with James Packer at the Sydney Opera House — will finally take a shot at flogging his historic mansion “Lactura” on Centennial Park’s exclusive Lang Road on Saturday.

Inside the Leckies’ house, with portrait of Skye.

The former Seven and Nine boss and his wife Skye first planned to auction the home, which they bought for $2.5 million in 1998, in mid-August. A campaign plagued by consistent rainfall meant the big day was postponed.

There was also the small matter of a lack of committed interest.

Now with the benefit of a few more weeks, the Leckies have been able to drum up at least two serious buyers, who are both in possession of a building inspection report on the 1910 home. A third party is hovering at the edges.

It’ll now be up to the Leckies to decide whether they’ll be prepared to take less than the $11.5m they had been expecting for the home, which features a larger-than-life portrait of Skye presiding over the family room. (It’s not clear if the picture is included.)

Skye and David Leckie.

Buyers are believed to be manoeuvring around the $10.5m mark, which would leave the Centennial Park record with Atlassian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes (the bearded one with the long hair, not the bearded one with the short hair), who early last year bought his place up the road from the Leckies for $12m.

Keeping account

The member for Banks David Coleman is best known for two things — being the rare male head on the television behind Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull during question time and chairing the House of Reps economics committee, which in the 45th parliament is to grill the big four bank bosses over interest rate decisions.

Banks MP David Coleman.

The debut hearing has been scheduled for the first week of October, after mountains of correspondence and diary co-ordination between standing committee worker bees and the top offices of the four pillars.

Braving Canberra for questioning, which will run over two days, are NAB’s Andrew Thorburn (whose bank Coleman used to own shares in), Westpac’s Brian Hartzer (whose St George arm Coleman has a savings account with), ANZ’s Shayne Elliott (with whom Coleman has another savings account) and the CBA’s Ian Narev, the CEO of the only big four bank with whom Coleman doesn’t do business.

They will all be grilled for three hours each by Coleman’s committee members.

Narev is believed to be the first to appear, which should secure the former child actor, his institution and the ambitious Coleman (a former Nine Entertainment executive) full exposure on the evening news.

Coalition of women

Speaking of television, the Turnbull administration is making good use of the medium’s powers.

Women only comprise 17 per cent of the Coalition’s 76 seats in the House of Representatives, but you’d never know it from the Question Time shot that often makes the nightly news bulletin.

The benches behind Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in the 45th parliament are populated with Liberal women who hold marginal seats — and that show pony, the Member for Banks, David Coleman.

There’s the Member for Corangamite Sarah Henderson, the former ABC journalist, whose parliamentary career, now more than three years long, has overtaken fellow Aunty turned pollie Maxine McKew.

Question Time on Wednesday. AAP

Just in front of Henderson is the endangered member for the NSW south coast seat of Gilmore Ann Sudmalis, the teacher turned fudge maker who just made it to a second term. On the PM’s other side is member for the Melbourne marginal seat of Chisholm Julia Banks, a former company lawyer now in her inaugural parliamentary term thanks to a heroic effort in Michael Kroger’s Victorian division.

A slightly wider shot reveals other Liberal women: McPherson’s Karen Andrews, Boothby’s Nicolle Flint, Robertson’s Lucy Wicks andfurther up the front stall Health Minister Sussan Ley.

It’s a feminist utopia, at least on the television. Add a carefully targeted seating plan next to that $6.3bn budget saving on the PM’s growing list of achievements.

Lure of the club

As our federal parliamentarians were fighting over same-sex marriage, entirely unrelated madness was breaking out in one of the nation’s bastions of conservatism, the private members Melbourne Club.

Garden at The Melbourne Club. Picture: Annabel Reid

Yesterday was the day of the inaugural Club Fly Casting Competition, which was held on the club lawn after lunch.

Due to all the rain, some participants may have hoped to catch more than a clump of grass. No luck.

No sign of club member Peter Costello, who some had thought might appear after his star turn at the “Black Tie Amateur Boxing Evening” a few months ago at president John Hood’s rival Melbourne members-only institution, the Australian Club.

Still, the fly-casting event seemed to be a hit with members, who watched under the club veranda — not far from the mounted Bengal tigers that adorn the billiards room.