Hockey feels right at home in the US

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

Australia’s former ambassador-cum-corporate adviser Joe Hockey and his wife, investment banker Melissa Babbage, have found their new home in Washington DC.

Located just outside the prestigious Observatory Circle neighbourhood, it is a five-bedroom, seven-bathroom home, ideal for the family of five, and not too far from where Hockey has hung out the shingle on his Pennsylvania Ave advisory firm Bondi Partners.

Their new home away from Hunters Hill is a recently renovated Mediterranean-style home marketed as an entertainer’s delight — both inside and out.

It was available for monthly rent at $US12,500 ($19,700), seemingly having gone unsold when listed for sale last year at $US4.9m, having last sold at $US2.7m in 2016.

It is very much in the Embassy Row neighbourhood. Indeed, the Hockey’s close neighbours include the Nepal, Cabo Verde and Iraq embassies.

The 1920s home’s interior offers 720sq m of living space over three levels.

The lower level has a gym, laundry room, plus an au-pair suite — possibly perfect for Hockey who previously billed babysitting back to the Australian taxpayer when he was busy carrying out official ambassadorial duties.

His replacement Arthur Sinodinos has taken up occupancy at the official residence, White Oaks.

It was the wartime Menzies government appointee, RG Casey, who was the first ambassador to move into the American-style colonial house in the early 1940s.

The 1920s home had been bought by the Australian government for about $US190,000.

Hockey took on the $360,000 role in late 2015 following Malcolm Turnbull’s ousting of prime minister Tony Abbott, when Hockey was booted as treasurer in favour of Scott Morrison.

The only thing missing from his new DC abode is a tennis court. White Oaks has the only private grass tennis court in the national capital, restored after Hockey mentioned its state of disrepair to Westfield scion Peter Lowy. But his new backyard features an imposing heated pavilion with two wood-burning fireplaces.

Parking fine

They certainly don’t hold back in the good old West, on Perth’s St Georges Terrace.

The high noon turmoil within the Perth boardroom of Parkd has emerged from behind closed doors.

Bryant Mclarty has been driven from the board after his fellow directors called an extraordinary general meeting for next month to see him removed.

Rather than head into the showdown, Mclarty, the executive chairman of boutique investment and corporate advisory firm, Mac Equity Partners, has resigned from the listed construction technology company that installs lightweight concrete modular carparking systems.

His departure had been sought by the company’s founding directors David Thomas, McGregor Thomas and Peter McUtchen, as well as the chairman Bronte Howson, from Automotive Holdings Group. They had sought shareholder support to boot Mclarty due to “destabilising actions”.

Mclarty’s rebuttal was a good read. For starters Mclarty called out Thomas’s worth as the company’s business development manager.

“No new carpark construction contracts have been secured by current management, including the business development manager, in the last three years outside the initial City Subaru contract,” Mclarty advised.

He also cited an internal email that said the Claremont-headquartered company would struggle past July “on our current burn rate”.

Parkd has confirmed Mclarty’s vacant post will not be filled as a cost saving. But it’s done no good for the share price, currently at a record low 5.5c.

Mclarty joined the board in 2016, a year before the company floated at 25c.

He held 3.3 million shares and 2.8 million unlisted options on his departure. Mac Equity holds shares too.

McEwan in Toorak

The newly installed NAB boss, Ross McEwan, has bought a new $3.8m duplex apartment in Toorak.

It’s the penthouse in the boutique block coming with some 360sq m space, including a rooftop terrace accessed by an internal lift.

The modern apartment with marble, timber and limestone finishes has three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a home office, handy in these lockdown days.

The developer, who engaged Jeremy Fox at RT Edgar to find a buyer, has kept the ground floor apartment.

It’s closer to the 72 Malvern Road tram than the 58 Toorak Road for the trip into the NAB’s Bourke Street HQ … or perhaps a 10km ride for the keen cyclist.

Since arriving last year from the Royal Bank of Scotland, McEwan and wife Stephanie had been renting a $2100-a-week two-bedroom Spring St apartment, which is now up for lease.

Zarah’s revenge

Google seem set to be ordered to hand over details of a mystery online reviewer’s identity to the gangland lawyer Zarah Garde-Wilson.

Federal Court judge Bernard Murphy said on Thursday he was “inclined” to make the discovery orders sought regarding the negative review of her Melbourne-based law firm that was posted in February.

Google facilitated someone calling himself Mohamed Ahmed, purporting to be a former client of Garde-Wilson’s firm.

“Hiring Zara was the most expensive and worst decision I have ever made,” said the review, since removed.

Garde-Wilson, whose former de facto husband, underworld figure Lewis Caine, was murdered, is likely to pursue defamation claims against the reviewer.

She reckons it might turn out to be a rival law firm, Margin Call gleans.

Garde-Wilson is represented by Mark Stanarevic, of Matrix Legal, who is also acting for brothel The Boardroom, of Melbourne, in their discovery lawsuit against Google for negative online reviews.

Pay rise due

By the time Australia’s coronavirus crisis has passed Brendan Murphy will have more than earned the pay rise he’ll be due for when he finally takes over as our nation’s top health mandarin.

Just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Australia’s top doctor was set to take over from health secretary Glen ys Beauchamp, who was set to retire at the end of February.

The all-hands-on-deck requirements of the global outbreak meant that Health Minister Greg Hunt was pleased to accept Beauchamp’s offer to stay on in the departmental top job, which she’d held since mid-2017, until the world was a safer place.

Beauchamp in the most recent financial year was paid a total package of just under $860,000, which Murphy will get when he finally takes over.

Last year Murphy, who is the effective face of Australia’s efforts to respond to the coronavirus outbreak, was paid a much lesser $567,000, an almost $300,000 gap, which we’d expect he’ll make up when he finally takes over the top departmental job.

And given the pace at which the good doctor is working, we reckon he’ll be worth every cent.

Super blockbuster

Andrew Bragg is the next politician releasing a book, although it’s unlikely to be a bestseller.

The NSW senator’s short book on superannuation will see some eyebrows raised, as he’s had it funded by mates.

The 112-page book, Bad Egg, How to Fix Super, will hit book stores next month.

The words were handed over to the publisher in February after eight months of writing, just before the Paddington-based Bragg was among the first public figures struck down with COVID-19.

“Australians are clearly interested in what the $3 trillion super pool is doing to help Australia as we face the coronavirus pandemic,” Bragg’s office told Margin Call.

“There is no other industry in which Australians and taxpayers are so heavily invested. Accordingly, superannuation policy issues are important to the senator.”

The Brisbane-headquartered Connor Court Publishing is the publisher, with financial support coming from Greg Shand’s Barana Group.

The Bellevue Hill-based Hannah Chalmers, wife of CBG Asset Management chief investment officer Ronni Chalmers, also helped finance the book

Ditto Jono Herrman, the chairman of the North Sydney Innovation Network.

The fourth donor is simply described as Mr J S Dunkel. Margin Call reckons that is Pengana Capital’s non-executive director Jeremy Dunkel.

The book, available for pre-order for $25, stems from Bragg’s belief that super is Australia’s biggest closed shop.

“The point of this monograph is to encourage the nation to change direction on super. Not to junk it, but to make it work,” the book’s spiel says.

Bragg was in a Sky News spat earlier this week with Labor politician Stephen Jones, rejecting claims Jones’s claim he’d being distributing “near illegal” financial advice.

Bragg insisted he was within his rights to explain the government’s early access $10,000 super proposal to the electorate.