Former WA premier Mark McGowan’s ’shadow’ lobbying

A weary Mark McGowan on his last day as WA premier last year. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Sharon Smith

Mark McGowan was tired – oh, so tired – when he announced that he would step down as West Australian premier in May last year. “I’m tired, extremely tired. In fact, I’m exhausted,” he told reporters in a rather dramatic fashion. All that was missing from this performance was a hand to forehead in the delivery.

No, that’s not mean. Within three months of that sudden exit the fatigued McGowan had hitched his wagon to BHP in a consulting capacity. Then he joined the cultural backwaters at Mineral Resources as a strategic adviser.

And so bone-weary was McGowan that he somehow found the strength to sign up to advisory boards – on top of those other positions – with Joe ­Hockey’s Bondi Partners and listed job-finder APM Human Services.

Four jobs – from zero – in a matter of months. You’ve got to hand it to State Daddy; that’s some refractory period.

Having recruited the former Labor premier, Hockey put out an internal note to staff flagging that much of McGowan’s work would be based in Perth with the “occasional visit to the east coast and beyond”.

Well, judging by the many sightings of McGowan in Canberra he’s clearly settling into more of a mainstay than just a FIFO worker.

And, sure, one would expect to see McGowan strutting the plush carpets of the corridors for a ministerial office, or conversing in hushed tones with his trusted West Australian buddies in parliament.

But with so much hat-switching between his roles as “consultant”, “adviser” and “strategist”, enough people are rightfully wondering if this all might be blurring the lines and dipping into straight-up lobbying. The only problem with that is McGowan hasn’t been listed on the Attorney-General’s Register of Lobbyists and plenty of people have seen him seeking the company of MPs, including Resources Minister Madeleine King, Patrick Gorman and, yes, even Anthony Albanese. A spokeswoman for Bondi Partners said none of those discussions had anything to do with the firm, although we hear BP has been picking up work in WA thanks to McGowan’s stock remaining high in the old hermit kingdom.

And sure, who are we to claim these meetings weren’t all just light bants between old pals? Be that as it may, what to make of a guy who’s meeting with the Resources Minister, and others, while notionally representing third parties like BHP and MinRes? Untidy.

And yes, you bet they’d love a quiet word, through a trusted intermediary, on an inconvenience or two.

Time to vote

Polls open Monday at elite Sydney boys school Newington College where alumni have been battling away over the question of whether to go coeducational or not. It’s like a poorer man’s version of the Cranbrook saga, except the fees at Newington are just as extortionate ($41,000 annually from Year 9 onwards).

Control of the School Council is at stake, and apparently it doesn’t even matter who wins because the plan to permit female students onto the grounds, from 2026, will continue as ratified.

The actual vote will take place on July 31, with John Venetoulis, a pharmacist by trade, leading the Save Newington College faction. Its people have been picketing the school with little signs and much indignance. Their grievances are many, but the crux is that parents were misled into believing a coeducational structure wouldn’t happen for another decade.

Venetoulis is a passionate fellow and is the subject of a formal complaint over some crude conduct displayed at a recent school meeting. The allegation is that he shouted and swore in a stage whisper that was “clearly audible to those near him”. As one parent told the school in writing: “If this behaviour was exhibited in a corporate environment he would have been fired and marched out of the building.” Perhaps, or maybe they’ve just never spent time in the boardroom of a small-cap miner.

The light spot of nostalgia here is the resurfacing of Rod Bosman. He’s the SNC’s campaign director and a relic from the 2013 federal election. Remember that old Liberal candidate Jaymes Diaz? Bosman, a hot-shot adviser to the party, was assigned to Diaz, the Greenway candidate, whose campaign deliquesced on camera while attempting to recite the Coalition’s six-point plan to “stop the boats”.

Bosman didn’t see the funny side when asked on Friday if this campaign, for SNC, might run moreso according to plan.

The response was firm. No comment to make.

Kooyong’s Taj Mahal

Billionaire Raphael Geminder’s taste for empire goes well beyond his listed Pact Group, evidently. He and wife Fiona have been accumulating house blocks alongside their heritage mansion, Thanes, notionally regarded as Kooyong’s very own Taj Mahal. Already they’ve spent $10m bulldozing the surrounding land and gussying it up into one sprawling complex. There’s a 12-car garage (with car wash), three swimming pools and a staff quarters. A separate wing was created for the four children. Still, two adjacent blocks remain untouched and subject to a development application with Stonnington Council. Standing there right now is a run-down four-bedder that looks a bit sudden next to Thanes. The council will decide whether Geminder can spend another cheeky mill or two demolishing that, and one can only guess what they’re planning. There’s already a theatre and a tennis court. What next? Wine cellar? Helipad? Panic room?