IAG boss Nick Hawkins has luxury NZ hideout if the bodyguard isn’t enough

IAG chief executive Nick Hawkins. Picture: NewsWire / Nikki Short

Let’s round out the list of why Nick Hawkins, CEO of Insurance Australia Group, might need a bodyguard to shadow him in public and carry around his dry cleaning, as we mentioned over the weekend.

Disgruntled claimants are many in the world of insurance, and hyper-fixated, too. But IAG is also facing a pile of civil actions and seething parties over a mounting array of questionable conduct.

Firstly, it’s being sued by ASIC for allegedly misleading thousands of policyholders into overpaying for their home insurance policies. A separate class action, filed by Quinn Emanuel lawyers, centres on IAG’s failure to honour discount promises, resulting, again, in customers overpaying for their premiums.

And then there are those suing IAG over its role in the collapse of Lex Greensill’s Greensill Capital. It had been supplying trade credit insurance to clients through an IAG subsidiary, Bond & Credit Company.

And even though IAG sold out of BCC in 2019, claimants are arguing that it’s responsible for the policies that were still in place when Greensill blew up two years later.

So, with all of that on his shoulders, we can see why Hawkins might need someone to carry his washing – and maybe a concealed weapon.

... or a getaway

Then again, if Hawkins really wants to go off grid, he can always lie low in his luxury villa on New Zealand’s South Island which he owns and rents out for a whopping five-figure sum per night, according to the price quoted on Google. We think it’s in NZD.

Located a five-minute helicopter ride from Queenstown airport, the hideaway comes with a private chef and PT for those willing to stump up an additional fee. We hear that not only did he build the pad, but he’s so fond of it that some of his people refer to the house as Group HQ, on account of all the time he spends there – including, on occasion, when he’s on duty.

A taste of Sharaz

A few double-takes around the halls of federal parliament on Monday following a rogue sighting of someone bearing a striking resemblance to David Sharaz.

But was it really Sharaz? Was it the elusive “prophet Elijah”, as he was once likened by Justice Michael Lee?

David Sharaz, pictured with wife Brittany Higgins, was spied in the halls of federal parliament on Monday. Picture: Jacquelin Magnay

Sharaz practically vanished from parliament following certain events that unfolded in 2021 with his now-wife Brittany Higgins. Yes, you know the story. We all know the story.

More recently, he’s reinvented himself as a director at Hannah Moreno’s spin-shop Third Hemisphere, which employs Higgins as its PR boss.

So, yes, was it him? Our spy in the capital decided to tail this spectre for a few minutes, watching as it hovered next to an elevator, then as it dropped in on the office of Sharaz’s old employer, Sky News. Somehow, amateurishly, they lost it around one of parliament’s chicane turns; but they did happen to catch him in a meeting with some people from the ABC.

Yes, it was him, we confirmed it. Presumably, with former senator Linda Reynolds having retired from parliament at the end of June (she sued both Sharaz and Higgins for defamation) it’s only now become safe for him to show his punim around the traps again.

Seamless union

Speaking of double-takes, WiseTech’s announcement that Zubin Appoo had been chosen as its next CEO led to the immediate and obvious suggestion that Richard White would remain very much in charge.

“In appointing Zubin, the board sought a leader who could seamlessly partner with our co-founder and executive chair, while also operating independently and decisively as CEO,” went the company announcement.

Oh, we have no doubt they’ll work seamlessly together. Recall that it was White, in May, who called on Appoo to stand up in the middle of the Macquarie Australia Conference and wave to everyone attending. You just know the guy will have an invisible gun pointing at his back when he speaks publicly for the first time next month, when the annual results are handed down. Don’t tell us the guy isn’t captured.

Nothing to say here

Or Appoo could just plead the fifth and say nothing, a bit like crypto bro William Roberts, who’s scheduled to give another round of evidence to the Federal Court next month – and hopefully this time he’ll be a little more effusive with his answers. Unlike in June, when quizzed by the receivers of two failed companies that used to be owned by his bitcoin mining outfit, Iren, listed on the Nasdaq.

Will and his brother Dan, a co-owner, fought hard to avoid any examination at all, but examined they were, and Will’s evidence on the stand went down for its amnesiac quality.

Particularly when he “could not recall” or “was unsure” on 273 separate occasions, or when he asked questions to be repeated, like, 38 times, and when he was asked about the extent of his personal wealth – i.e. houses, cash, super, and any art or jewellery he owned valued at more than $50,000; in other words, wealth that most of us would find very easy to track. Roberts wasn’t much help on that score.

“How do you explain your poor recollection of the specifics … of your worldly wealth?” asked Stewart Maiden KC, to which he replied: “It’s not something that I actively trade every day.”

A bit odd for a guy whose company just raised $US550m. Or has he forgotten about that, too?