Gillard to deal with an old foe; What’s really griping Plimer?

Former prime minister Julia Gillard. Picture: Matt Loxton

Julia Gillard’s appointment as chair of David Di Pilla’s $2bn Energy Transition Fund puts the former PM back in firing distance of an old foe, Kelly O’Dwyer, once a minister in the Abbott government. And yes, they certainly clashed from time to time on the floor of parliament.

A chance for a rerun of those encounters? O’Dwyer is on the board of HMC Capital, owner of the Di Pilla fund to which Gillard has just been made chair, meaning they might have to confer and play nice on occasion – or not, depending on whether everything’s copacetic between them.

Kelly O'Dwyer is on the board of HMC Capital, owner of the fund to which Ms Gillard has been appointed chair.

It was O’Dwyer in 2013 who loudly bemoaned Gillard’s propensity to place the holy trinity of sex, race and gender at the centre of almost every policy debate – from 457 visas to the calling of an election against Tony Abbott. Who could forget Gillard’s line that the contest with Abbott would pit a “strong, feisty woman” against “a policy-weak man”.

O’Dwyer didn’t much like that moxie and hit out at Gillard, saying: “Everybody is as tired in the parliament as they are in the public of the Gillard gratuitous slap on gender whenever she is confronted by an issue that she finds challenging.”

Meanwhile, let’s not forget Gillard’s other memorable attack on the “men in blue ties” from the Liberal Party. Memorable, and perhaps haunting now, given Di Pilla is known to be partial to a blue tie on occasion.

Few to be spotted, however, among the photographs of board members posted on the HMC Capital website. Is that by design? Nary a Four in Hand or Half-Windsor to be found among the splay-collared directors. Which makes sense, given only two out of seven directors at the table are women.

Fire and brimstone

Fascinating to see noted climate sceptic and geologist Ian Plimer thrust himself into a furious debate over Glencore’s Carbon Capture and Storage project ­slated for construction in the Great Artesian Basin.

Much discussion within the Albanese government over whether or not it should block the CCS initiative, which you can bet has provoked the fury of the surrounding farming community over concerns for the land.

Enter Plimer. He turned up on Sky News over the weekend and on 2GB’s breakfast program giving fire-and-brimstone predictions on the Glencore project should it go ahead.

“Carbon dioxide is heavier than air. It would fill the valleys,” Plimer said. “It would displace the air. There would be nothing to breathe and people would die. Now, Glencore should have known this. It was well known about (Cameroon’s) Lake Nyos exploding in 1986. That was carbon dioxide did it there. It would do it again in the Great Artesian Basin.”

So, yes, death and destruction awaits. But no mention during either interview of Plimer’s role outside of geology as a director of Roy Hill, owned by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting.

Geologist Professor Ian Plimer. Picture: Stewart McLean

This wouldn’t ordinarily pose a problem, except Hancock’s subsidiary, Hancock Agriculture, is openly against Glencore’s plan and has just lodged a submission to a Senate inquiry calling for the “unacceptable” project to be scrapped entirely. This, perhaps, because Hancock Agriculture currently owns 12 properties across the Great Artesian Basin, including five in the vicinity of Glencore’s intended CO2 waste-pumping.

We don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to imagine that Rinehart is no great fan of Glencore’s plan either. And so, are we then to believe that Plimer is raging about this issue off his own bat?

It’s possible. But given his association with Rinehart and effusive praise for her in the past, even once calling her “the greatest Australian woman” the country has produced, we can only wonder if he’s acting with her gentle imprimatur.

Hello sailor

Meanwhile, promotion ahoy for Rinehart’s favourite Norwegian sailor Johan Dyrnes, who’s enjoying refreshed duties on boards controlled by the billionaire. This after Rinehart purchased a majority stake in the Bunbury Farmers Market in Western Australia last year.

She’s appointed Dyrnes to oversee her interests there alongside Suzanne Daubney, managing director of Rinehart’s Bannister Downs Dairy, and Dan Wade, head of business development at Hancock Prospecting.

And how’s this for a meet-cute – Dyrnes and Rinehart actually met once on a cruise! Dyrnes was a ship captain on The World, where Rinehart owns an apartment (and so, too, does Nutrimetics founder Imelda Roche and Rothschild Australia chair Trevor Rowe). Based in the northwest of Norway, Dyrnes has previously been named a director of Rinehart’s pastoral investment vehicles, including S. Kidman and Co, and Atlas Iron.

Douglass return?

And is this the return of Hamish Douglass we’ve been waiting to witness? Only rogue sightings of the investment banker since he sold down his stake in Magellan Financial two years ago and later skedaddled from the company altogether, leaving behind a puff of smoke and questions as to what he might do next. The last radio check on Douglass saw him spotted aboard James Packer’s yacht.

Ah, but word of some developments. In April he registered Warf Group Pty Ltd, of which he’s sole director and shareholder. The company’s registered office is listed at KPMG’s headquarters in Sydney and the place of business is Douglass’s home in Neutral Bay. So is this it? The comeback story? Douglass didn’t respond to calls.