Former treasurers Paul Keating, Peter Costello advise BHP

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Not only are Paul Keating and Peter Costello united as decorated Australian federal treasurers. It seems the pair are both on retainers with the Big Australian, BHP.

Evidently it’s a sensitive subject over at chief executive Andrew Mackenzie’s Melbourne-headquartered global miner.

“We will not confirm or deny it,” was all a BHP spokesman would say when asked about the arrangement.

That seems an unnecessarily mysterious response — particularly in this, the Big Australian’s new, supposedly open era.

Thankfully, other members of the mining fraternity were more helpful.

As it was explained to Margin Call, the arrangements with former prime minister Keating and the now Future Fund chairman Costello each date back many years.

The service paid for — as outlined by multiple sources — includes giving advice to the BHP chair, board and senior executive members in a private capacity. A sort of “brain in a jar” arrangement.

It’s not clear if the paid work predates the BHP chairmanship of Jac “The Knife” Nasser, who goes way back with both Keating and Costello.

BHP’s Nasser era will end in a fortnight, and was marked this week with a farewell party at Melbourne’s ritzy Vue de Monde, which was attended by both Keating and Costello.

With billionaire Paul Singer’s activist hedge fund Elliott Partners now representing a voluble 5 per cent of BHP’s register, it’s useful to have some powerful allies on the books.

So it’s expected the arrangement will continue during incoming chairman Ken MacKenzie’s reign. Whether it will continue to be so opaque remains to be seen.

Wayne’s swan song

While also a former federal treasurer, don’t expect Wayne Swan to pop up on the BHP payroll when he leaves parliament.

The Big Australian’s status as Australia’s biggest corporate taxpayer has impressed many who have held the treasury portfolio. But not Swan.

He made this clear again in a National Press Club address yesterday.

He said Jac ­Nasser’s BHP board demonstrated “the need for a radical shake-up of board selection”.

While a gig with his old mining tax sparring partner is unlikely, Swan could still follow Peter Costello into another post-political gig.

Labor’s ascendance and Swan’s position on the backbench as the Member for Lilley raises the question: what role would he have in Bill Shorten’s government?

Replacing Costello as the chairman of the $130 billion Future Fund is one idea that’s been considered in Labor circles.

The gig comes with an annual fee of just over $200,000, which would be a handy top up for the 63-year-old’s parliamentary pension.

Under the current portfolio arrangements, a Shorten government would see Swan’s former chief-of-staff Jim Chalmers become Finance Minister, with responsibility for Australia’s sovereign wealth fund.

Surely Chalmers would at least put his old boss on the shortlist — if Swan could be tempted to vacate his north Brisbane seat.

Grilled about Fried

As foreshadowed in this column, QBE’s now departing head of emerging markets David Fried was the star of the global insurer’s half-year results.

The Hong Kong-based Fried — who joined the QBE in 2013 after a long stint at HSBC — will be on his way out of the business sometime before July 1 next year, the same timeline as outgoing CBA boss Ian Narev.

The announcement of the end of the Fried era came two months after his division fessed up to an operating blowout that wiped more than 10 per cent, or $2bn, off the company’s market capital.

The result QBE boss John Neal revealed yesterday cleared another 7 per cent, more than $1bn, as analysts and investors grumbled about the $15bn-and-shrinking QBE’s performance against its international insuring peers.

QBE chairman Marty Becker and CEO John Neal.

Compounding their frustration is the size of QBE’s executive remuneration — more than $32 million, as documented in its most recent annual report.

The departure of Fried will help to trim that. His total remuneration of $4.6m last year, included a generous almost $2m in expatriate benefits for, says the annual report, “housing allowance, education assistance, a cost of living adjustment and associated taxes”.

Jason Brown, QBE’s group chief risk offer, is going to take over the Asia-Pacific part of the insurer’s soon-to-be reorganised emerging markets business while the insurer’s head of Argentina Carola Fratini will run the Latin American operations.

Brown will relocate to Singapore for the role. While his total remuneration should be increased from its current $1.5m, in light of investor’s current mood, it’s unlikely to reach Fried levels.

And what about Neal’s future? Now five years into the job, the insurer’s share price is a frustrating 15 per cent below where it was when he took over from the insurer’s controversial emperor Frank O’Halloran in August 2012.

“The job’s not finished,” Neal told Margin Call yesterday.

Few shareholders would argue with that.

And QBE chairman Marty Becker may be wondering if it should soon be a job for someone else.

Council counselled

Seems Melbourne’s City of Yarra councillors are even more dysfunctional than previously reported.

The local council has shot to national attention after it decided to scrap its Australia Day celebrations.

A photograph of all nine councillors was emblazoned on the front page of the Herald Sun under the headline “Meet the Shockers”.

That enraged councillor Stephen Jolly.

Not because of the headline, but because he was photoshopped into the image.

“I have never been in a photograph with the other eight,” he told our Oz colleague Samantha Hutchinson. “It’s a matter of principle. I just won’t do it.”

Demonstrating the breadth of political opinions, Jolly says he thought the council was not left wing enough.

“Despite its left image and their rainbow flags, they’re economically neoliberal,” Jolly says. “They talk the green talk, but they don’t walk the walk. They’re Tories.” News to us.