Curious case of minister’s catch-up with corrupt ex-mayor; Taxing patience to keep both sides happy
Some stealthily recorded video has found its way to Margin Call depicting NSW Lands Minister Steve Kamper in a deep and serious-looking discussion with corrupt former Hurstville mayor Con Hindi. And not in daylight hours either – they were spotted well after dark at St George Sailing Club on a warm evening in January.
Accompanying them was Ronnie Wardan, of construction company Wardan Group, and Wardan’s employee, Amanda Ghalloub.
The notorious Hindi, found by corruption investigators to have accepted bribe money from developers, was there with wife Miray.
None of this looks great, and Kamper’s office tried to hose it all down by saying the meeting wasn’t work-related and that Hindi wasn’t invited to dinner in the first place. Apparently he just sort of blew in from across the restaurant and joined Kamper and wouldn’t go away, with Kamper begrudgingly putting up with it all because he’s too polite to put his foot down.
“The minister was not having dinner with Con Hindi,” a spokesman said, which itself is an interesting bit of topspin, because Hindi and his wife ended up spending well over an hour with Kamper’s group, according to timestamped footage and photographs provided to Margin Call. Our source said it was more like two hours.
In the end, Hindi left the venue with Kamper and accompanied the minister and his friends down to the parking lot. Not that we’re calling BS on Kamper’s explanation, but, gee, it’s untidy.
Nevermind that it’s also queer for the Lands Minister to be spotted in a late-evening dialogue at a discreet location with two officials from a construction company – and again, Kamper’s people tried to mop that up by saying Wardan and Ghalloub are “family friends’’ and that’s why the meeting wasn’t disclosed in the ministerial diary. Convenient.
To bump into Hindi by chance and exchange a short round of pleasantries, well that’s one thing. But for the minister to indulge Hindi for more than an hour of conversation, in the company of officials from a construction company – and where Kamper’s son Paul happened to be employed until late 2022 – well, that might cross a boundary and warrant declaration, even just to avoid the perception of a conflict. It’s narrative vs counter-narrative, and the optics always win.
But obviously we can see why Kamper wouldn’t want to go down a disclosure path. What cabinet minister in their right mind would want to self declare an intimate pow wow with a corrupt councillor? Not to worry. We’ve done it for him.
Tax-deductable tripe
Buried in Tuesday’ budget papers is another lamentable example of the Albanese government’s efforts to be everything to everyone on the third rails of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
There in Budget Paper No.2 is a flagged amendment to tax law that will list the Combatting Anti-Semitism organisation as a deductible gift recipient. It’s a designation that will mean any donations received will become tax deductible (from 2025 until 2030).
Jewish leaders were pleased with that bit of news but aghast to learn DGR status had also been granted to the Australian Muslim Advocacy Network’s AMAN Foundation – aghast primarily because one of AMAN’s directors, Adel Salman, is a noted anti-Zionist and on record describing the October 7 terrorist attacks as “legitimate resistance”. Salman spoke to the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas in February and said he was “not going to condemn the Palestinians for resisting”, among other morally and factually deranged statements.
Another AMAN director is Moustafa Kheir, principal solicitor of Birchgrove Legal, which sought to take Anthony Albanese, Penny Wong and other politicians to the International Court of Justice as accessories to genocide – this for supporting Israel’s war against Hamas in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks.
And their reward for this nonsense? Generous tax breaks! Only the Albanese government, desperate to please all sides ahead of an election, would be daft enough to hand out credibility so cheaply.
Laying it on
Strong corporate interest for a pre-dinner fundraiser held by deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley’s Farrer Forum on Wednesday night, attendees forking out $1500 to spend 90 minutes with a smattering of Liberal royalty – or roughly the same amount of money they needed to pay for a ticket to the formal budget reply dinner, held at Hotel Realm in Canberra.
Plenty of Liberal Party faithful for the sit-down affair, of course, including Minerals Council CEO Tania Constable, Yancoal director David Moult, Australian Chamber of Commerce and
Industry CEO Andrew McKellar, and Stephen Ferguson, CEO of the Australian Hotels Association. About 500 people were noted in attendance, Ann Fulwood having to strongly shush the room to keep them quiet at one point. PremierNational potentate Michael Photios was there, too, backing up Tuesday night’s showing at the Labor dinner, which finished late for him – he was seen holding forth at Ostani Bar until well after midnight with Lachlan Crombie, CEO of the PremierNational enterprise.
Mea culpa on Robb
Mea culpa: in our haste to note the movers and shakers in Canberra for the federal budget on Tuesday we kertwanged the title of one retired politician now shimmying about in the corporate strategy game. Andrew Robb, formerly the trade minister, runs The Robb Group. We were right in calling him a lobbyist, as he’s listed himself as one on the federal register. But we were wrong to say he works for Counsel House. On that, we flubbed.
More wrongs than rights at the AHRC?
A case of curious priorities over at the Australian Human Rights Commission where hand-picked appointee Giridharan Sivaraman seems to prefer playing politics over action on anti-Semitism.
Freehills partner given notice over synagogue tweet
Herbert Smith Freehills leaders have voted to remove one of its longstanding partners, Damien Hazard, over a ‘deeply offensive’ tweet targeting Jeremy Leibler.