Ian Malouf’s legal win against Valuer General; Wesfarmers chair’s slice of the action

“They just make up a number and throw it at you, and everyone’s suffering,” said Ian Malouf after his win. Picture: Ryan Osland

Surely one of the worst sins imaginable among the nation’s billionaire class is to gain a reputation as a sucker, particularly on matters pertaining to taxation.

The late Kerry Packer knew this best, of course, propounding the memorable case in 1991 for why self-respecting Australians should avoid donating money to the government.

“If anybody in this country doesn’t minimise their tax,” he told a parliamentary inquiry, “they want their heads read because as a government I can tell you you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra”.

Which brings us to garbage king Ian Malouf, who’s just finished navigating a spot of taxation bother with his daughter, Lara, in the NSW Land and Environment Court.

The Palm Beach property was one year valued at $14m …

and the following year at $15.9m.

They were challenging the valuation of a five-bedroom holiday house, owned by the family in Sydney’s Palm Beach, to avoid paying more land tax. And fair enough!

This is a topic Malouf feels rather strongly about. “It’s crazy what they do with land tax,” he told Margin Call.

The Valuer General took one look at the joint, called Gidget, in July 2022 and named a figure of $14m. One year later the number increased to $15.9m, which the Maloufs took to court and negotiated down through a conciliation process.

Two weeks of jousting ended last month with everyone agreeing to walk away with a fresh valuation of $14.8m.

Is that what Malouf was hoping for? Absolutely. “You’ve got to stand up for your principles,” he said, invoking a bit of Kerry on “the whole land tax thing”.

“It’s a furphy. They just make up a number and throw it at you, and everyone’s suffering for it, everywhere. So you’ve got to stand up – more people should take them on.”

At the end of the day, this legal toothache didn’t exactly achieve any monumental savings for which Malouf might have hoped. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests a total reduction of about $22,000 – an amount certain to whittle down further given both sides were ordered to walk away bearing their own costs.

Chump change, in any case, for the rich-lister who’s made no secret of his desire to sell the pile, plus the one next door, dubbed Moondoggie.

“Too many toys in the one street,” Malouf said last year upon announcing their sale. Our only question is who came up with the names: Grimes? Frank Zappa?

Moondoggie was picked up a few months ago for a reported $25m, but Gidget, last purchased for $18.6m in 2022, remains a wallflower on the housing market. YB

Wesfarmers’ grab-bag of shareholder fun

Wesfarmers’ annual shareholders meeting in Perth is surely the last of the old-school AGMs, where retail shareholders turn up for the fun of it – not just the lost and the lonely.

This year the WA conglomerate hosted some 1600 punters to help celebrate the 40th anniversary of its ASX float, many of whom had held shares since the listing – whereby, as the company is fond of saying, if you’d invested $1000 and kept rolling the dividends into more shares you’d now be holding on to a package worth $1.1m.

Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney.

And the retail holders didn’t just get served up the obligatory tea and bickies. No, Wesfarmers was handing out show bags chock full of company merch such as Tarkiner indoor plant food from Bunnings, glass straws from Officeworks, samples from Wesfarmers’ health business, caps, water bottles and the 40-year anniversary coin.

Not so happy with life was Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney, however, who turned up sporting a large bandage across one hand.

Not a sporting injury, nor an industrial accident that befell the keen woodworker, though. No, Chaney told the crowd he’d somehow sliced a tendon “rethreading a clothesline”.

Not a product he’d bought from Bunnings, you’d hope.NE

Fels not feeling charitable

Professor Allan Fels, that paragon of public integrity, spent a second day ignoring questions about whether he’d lobbied NSW Premier Chris Minns to give a $20m grant to the Haven Foundation – or whether the organisation had even bothered to submit a funding application to the government.

Haven is Fels’ charity – he led it for years and is now a director with his daughter, Teresa. In 2019, Haven became a subsidiary of Mind Australia, which appointed Fels as its chair two years ago.

You might be wondering what’s the big deal. So what if Fels lobbied Minns for a massive funding grant?

Well, unlike Fels, not every charity has the ear of the Premier. Most are pining for more dough in this ultra-competitive funding field. It’s why due process exists and the Mates Act doesn’t.

After a career in the limelight there’s been not a word publicly from Allan Fels.

As we’ve reported, the $20m was announced for Haven one month after Fels was named by Minns to lead a review of toll road charges across NSW. Minns’ diary disclosures reveal he met with Fels to discuss the matter of tolls on November 14, 2022.

Was Haven discussed there as well, or did Minns and Fels meet again a second time? Who knows. Minns’ office ignored the same questions we put to Fels who, we remind you, is a director of the Centre for Public Integrity. You literally can’t make this up!

Curious, too, is that Minns stopped publishing his diary meetings three months prior to the March 2023 election.

And you really have to wonder why he’d suddenly stop doing that, especially when he did so, every single quarter, going all the way back to 2019.YB