Barely anyone has heard a word out of Andrew Giles since the dumped immigration minister was tossed from his portfolio a week ago, haunted as he was by the consequences of the Direction 99 fiasco created by his own government.
Giles has been maintaining a vow of silence since he washed up clutching the skills and training portfolio like a life preserver.
Not an utterance, not even a press release. Giles has disappeared from public life faster than last year’s winner of Australian Idol.
The same can hardly be said of Clare O’Neil. Demoted from home affairs, she’s been leaning hard into the housing portfolio, appearing in Sydney two days ago for the launch of Homelessness Week at the Wesley Centre.
And what about Murray Watt? The newly anointed Workplace Relations Minister has already provided an exclusive interview to our stablemates at The Daily Telegraph on fines and prison time for naughty CFMEU officials.
Others, too, have been out and proud. Defence Industry Minister Pat Conroy, who received a bump up to cabinet, addressed industry representatives on Tuesday and was back at it again on Wednesday at the McKell Institute.
All of which puts paid to the suggestion out of the Prime Minister’s Office that Giles might be mum because he’s finding his feet in a fresh portfolio.
Or maybe the real answer – reliably informed, as always – is that Giles was being lined up for a public speaking gig but someone in PMO nixed that little spectacle, scheduled for the National Press Club next week.
The backstory is that Brendan O’Connor was a longstanding calendar entry to address the NPC on what had, until a week ago, been the specifics of his skills and training portfolio (now with Giles, for his sins).
That was cancelled without warning on Wednesday, according to an email sent to corporate partners. It advised that O’Connor had been hot-swapped “due to recent changes” for Professor Barney Glover, commissioner of Jobs and Skills Australia. Subbing in a bureaucrat instead of a replacement minister, a spare, immediately raised brows.
“If you have already reserved tickets for the Hon. Brendan O’Connor’s address and wish to attend Professor Barney Glover AO’s address instead, no further action is required,” the memo, obtained by Margin Call, said.
The question on everyone’s mind was why Giles, the freshly sworn Minister and obvious replacement, wasn’t given the opportunity to stand in?
The answer is obvious. Putting Giles up before a room full of journalists would hardly yield softball questions on VET pathways and apprenticeship incentives. It was always going to be a bloodbath of reporters battering Giles on live TV about Labor’s disastrous Direction 99 policy that’s let hardcore convicts running amok.
Call it the Albanese government’s version of the Witness Protection Program, but it would seem Giles is probably stuck in there until at least the next election.
Back in the mix
Ever since stockpicker Rob Luciano resigned last year from the hedge fund he founded, VGI Partners, market watchers have kept a bead on his mooted plans to set up a family office and potentially start dabbling in money management for the high-net-wealth set.
First came a couple of business registrations, then the more ambitious purchase of a Bloomberg terminal listed to a “suite” in Sydney’s upscale suburb of Mosman. It all sounded rather serious until someone took a look at the suite in question and discovered it was no more than just a PO Box at the local postie.
Not that this confusion was in any way Luciano’s fault. It turns out Australia Post sells premium PO Box packages that accept oversized parcels, and those who pay for the convenience are given a mailbox with the silly “suite” title, even though what they can typically access is barely large enough to hold a passport.
That mystery put to bed, further inquiries by Margin Call did end up revealing that Luciano has in fact purchased some office space in the form of a house on Napier St, North Sydney, which changed hands in June for $2.1m. It’s a terrace, of course, continuing a tradition that started at VGI years ago; Luciano established his fund in a set of colonial-era terraces on Phillip Street in the CBD, rented for upwards of $250,000 a year.
That bit of real estate included a gym, which the new address doesn’t by the looks of photos online.
Nor is there any sign of a mythologised “panic room”, which was rumoured to be at the old address, but which was actually just a soundproofed meeting room.
MinRes in game of cat and mouse
The Legal Practice Board of Western Australia is looking into MinRes and its lawyers’ conduct, which is interesting timing as its company secretary has just been made legal counsel to the board.
Both barrels for Super Retail, but just a popgun aimed at Nine
Ownership Matters boss Dean Paatsch didn’t waste time getting stuck into Super Retail for its cultural issues earlier this year, but has been a lot slower off the mark with Nine Entertainment.