Headphones kaput for Angela Merkel, but no Russian plot

THE translation headphones glued to the heads of the audience made it look like a seated silent disco, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel was blaming Vladimir Putin, not the boogie, when she spoke at the Lowy Institute in Sydney yesterday.

Following the speech, Merkel was grilled on stage by the institute’s executive director Michael Fullilove — or at least that was the plan, until sound issues forced replacement microphones to be found. A cunning plot by Putin’s Russia, against which Merkel vowed to continue sanctions “for as long as they are needed”, perhaps?

Not so. Fullilove pointed out that the offending microphones were German Bosch technology.

Packed in to the Westin ballroom to see the pub-crawling chancellor were worthies that included former PMs John Howard and Paul Keating, NSW Governor David Hurley, Frank and Steven Lowy, institute board members Angus Houston, David Gonski and Ian Macfarlane, Human Rights Commission boss Gillian Triggs and CBA’s Ian Narev.

Spotted afterwards was Macquarie head Nicholas Moore. The venue is in the basement of the millionaire’s old factory headquarters.

Koala shines again

THE star of Brisbane’s G20 almost didn’t make it to the show. No, not frequently topless Russian hardman Putin, or even Mr President Barack Obama, butJimbelung the koala.

Jimbelung was delayed on the Sunday after arriving at the Brisbane Convention Centre at the same time as Putin.

It was an encore for the celebrity marsupial, who was returning to the G20 to meet Singaporean PM Lee Hsien Loong — the only leader at the get-together to miss out on the opportunity the previous day.

“We were pretty much arriving at the same time and they got precedence,” said Jimbelung’s handler, Dreamworld general manager Al Mucci. “She was asleep anyway so it didn’t bother her.”

Putin may have stormed out early, but Mucci said he was “very amicable and friendly” during the Koala cuddle confab.

“We support tiger conservation in Russia … he was very interested in the work that Dreamworld is doing.”

The Italians were apparently also “keen for koalas”.

No gig for Flannery

CLIMATE change activist Tim Flannery missed out on being the chairman of the failed RM Williams carbon farm because he wanted too much money, a court has heard.

RM Williams Agricultural Holdings tried to turn Henbury Station in the NT into a carbon farm but the venture went completely pear-shaped and collapsed last year.

Now the $100 million flop, which burned investors including the publisher of this organ, News Corp, is being picked over in the NSW Supreme Court. Last week, managing director David Pearse told the court Flannery had been in talks to join the board.

“At the time Tim Flannery wanted a substantial amount of money to be a board member,” he said. “He wanted terms that were a bit too ambitious.”

League star’s long wait

THE failed prosecution of former financial adviser and rugby league star Wally Fullerton-Smith shows ASIC boss Greg Medcraft should never have walked away from his statement last month that Australia was a “paradise” for white-collar crooks.

ASIC had alleged in 2007 that Fullerton-Smith misled an elderly NSW couple by implying their $700,000 MLC investment wouldn’t be at risk if they pledged it against a margin loan.

Fullerton-Smith’s prosecution was so delayed that it will never come to court because a key witness has died.

ASIC received a complaint in 2011. A fraud charge was laid in November last year but wasn’t due to be heard until yesterday, making seven years in total.

On the courtroom steps, the Commonwealth DPP dropped the charges. Fullerton-Smith must be presumed innocent, and now a court will never consider any other possibility.

In the meantime, ASIC did manage to ban him from the industry for life in 2012 … over his involvement in the Storm collapse, some four years earlier.