It’s fight or flight for flying kangaroo; Apology of sorts for radio duo’s megabucks deal leak

Singapore’s Changi Airport departure hall.

After the reign of Alan Joyce in the top office of Qantas, and with Richard Goyder’s tenure as chair set to continue into next year, Australia’s national carrier is finding few friends.

Everyone’s got an opinion on what’s gone wrong with the Flying Kangaroo.

Now winging its way to Margin Call’s desk are details of a recent incident a fortnight ago on Qantas’s regular QF2 flight from Singapore to Sydney, where at least one prominent Australian businessman and passenger was left very cranky.

So angry, in fact, that former investment banker turned non-executive director Charles Kiefel ended up being escorted off the flight by the Australian Federal Police after a debate he was having with the pilot got out of hand.

Charles Kiefel was reportedly escorted from an aircraft.

Kiefel, the chair of Principals Funds Management and a one-time executive at Ord Minnett and ANZ Investment Bank, declined to comment when contacted about the unfortunate incident on the almost eight-hour international flight.

The argument, we understand, concerned repeated delays Kiefel had experienced courtesy of the airline, which we hear also misplaced his luggage. The bags were located and returned several days later.

However, we hear that once Kiefel, who in June 2019 was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to Australia-US relations and to philanthropy, had been walked off the plane by authorities he had calmed down considerably, with no further action taken and no charges laid.

Qantas also declined to comment on the matter. The AFP was also contacted.

Kiefel, 68, has had a long and illustrious career in finance. He has been a director of the Clean Energy Regulator, was a decades-long member of the Menzies Foundation Council and a member of advisory boards at private equity outfits PEP and CHAMP.

ARN leak

If Hamish McLennan believes in the notion that negative events happen in threes then he best pull the shutters, bunker in and wait for the weather to pass.

A bit over a week ago the former Network Ten boss was ousted by his boardroom colleagues as chair of Rugby Australia following the national team’s abysmal showing at the Rugby World Cup in France and amid controversy over how the code was being run.

Now another organisation he still chairs, listed radio and broadcaster group ARN Media, has managed to raise the ire of the stock exchange for flouting the market’s long standing and pretty clear listing rules.

KIIS FM’s Kyle Sandilands and Jackie “O” Henderson.

Last week ARN re-signed its ratings winning megastars Kyle Sandilands and Jackie Henderson, better known together as Kyle and Jackie O, to a fresh, decade-long $200m deal to keep pumping out their breakfast radio show.

News of the agreement, which includes a percentage and revenue and millions of ARN shares, was first revealed by media reporter Sam Buckingham-Jones from Nine Entertainment’s AFR, well before the company got around to also telling its shareholders via an announcement to the stock exchange as per the listing rules.

It was a blatant breach and the ASX queried ARN’s actions, with the company on Tuesday admitting it, via its external PR rep Helen McCombie from Citadel-MAGNUS (a former business reporter at Nine), had provided a draft of the market-sensitive material to the reporter early.

“A1N (referring to the company’s ASX code) regrets the error,” its legal boss Jeremy Child told the exchange, adding he was confident this “one off” would “not be repeated”.

As close to an apology, we guess, as the company could get.

Lay down the law

High profile defamation lawyer Sue Chrysanthou might have relished the lectern in court 22A of the Federal Court on Tuesday in Sydney, but it was judge Michael Lee who was calling the shots as former Liberal staffer Bruce Lehrmann continued on the stand in his defamation action against Network Ten.

Chrysanthou, who is appearing for defendant Ten journalist Lisa Wilkinson, has been limited by Lee in the extent to which she can cross-examine Lehrmann, but yesterday was seeking to pre-empt any interruption, or “objection”, from Lee to her flow.

“I don’t object Ms Chrysanthou,” declared the judge from his perch, “I rule.” Just in case there was any question who was boss.

Keen to maintain the spotlight on her, Chrysanthou later in her opening remarks, chronicling the long and successful print and broadcast career of Wilkinson, seemed to enjoy noting that by the time the former Dolly magazine editor had started her career as a journo in 1978, Chrysanthou had not yet been born.

Lisa Wilkinson and defamation lawyer Sue Chrysanthou, SC, outside the Federal Court. Picture: Dylan Coker

“Not that you’d know by looking at us both,” the senior counsel, born in 79, quipped in a nod to Wilkinson’s plastic surgeon, or perhaps to the toll of Chrysanthou’s workload. Or maybe both.

Unfolding proceedings also revealed the generosity of billionaire media proprietor Kerry Stokes, whose Seven Group Holdings controls Seven West Media.

Earlier this year Stokes’ Seven Network aired a series of interviews with accused rapist Lehrmann after his trial was aborted due to juror misconduct. Lehrmann revealed in court that Seven was paying his accommodation costs for a year until June next year as part of their agreement for the Spotlight interview. Too kind.

And we learned just what Lehrmann thinks of his old ultimate boss Scott Morrison, declaring his speech in parliament concerning the bravery of Brittany Higgins and her “courage to stand” as “stupid”.

“You heard the Prime Minister refer to Miss Higgins as having the courage to stand. Do you remember that?” Chrysanthou asked Lehrmann in court.

“In his stupid parliament speech? Yes,” was Lehrmann’s reply.

Ms Chrysanthou: “I will ask the next question rather than responding to what you just said.”