James Packer gets pack back together

Illustration: Rod Clement

It’s like a warm-up bucks party aboard billionaire gaming mogul James Packer’s mega vessel the Arctic P, which continues its summer romp on the French Riviera.

Packer’s movie-making business partner Brett Ratner, who introduced the businessman to his fiancee Mariah Carey, is back on deck distributing man love to all in his midst.

James Packer and Brett Ratner.

Packer’s former Cranbrook school chum Ben Tilley, who turned 50 earlier this year and was close to Packer’s late billionaire father Kerry Packer, is on the high seas, too.

Tilley and his wife Tiffany live next door on Wunulla Road in Point Piper to our Prime Minister MalcolmTurnbull and first lady Lucy Turnbull overlooking the exclusive Felix Bay.

The Tilleys bought the home from the Turnbulls’ Wilcrow Pty Ltd in 2012 for $13.6 million after the Turnbulls subdivided the adjacent waterfront property, kept the harbourside back yard and flogged the home.

Karl Stefanovic and Brett Ratner.

Also dropping in for some fun was Nine anchorman Karl Stefanovic, who jetted to the Riviera as the network’s heavy hitter on the ground following the Nice terror attack for Weekend Today and The Today Show, as well as pulling together a story for 60 Minutes featuring two Aussie backpackers from the Gong caught up in the chaos.

Karl’s boss Hugh Marks will be hoping to have Stefanovic back on air from Sydney shortly.

There was no sign of Packer’s previous best man, fellow Cranbrook old boy and former Nine boss David Gyngell on the icebreaker. It would appear to be unlikely that Gyngell picks up an official duty at his old mate’s third wedding.

Lessons learned

Liberal thief Damien Mantach, who swindled $1.56m from the party in the southern state, has taken to teaching his fellow inmates at Marngoneet prison in Lara near Geelong about ­politics.

Damien Mantach. Picture: Nicole Garmston.

His missus, Jodie Mantach, who is in the process of divorcing the former Victorian Liberals state president, is on the other side of Geelong back teaching full-time at Grovedale Primary School.

She was forced to return to her old profession after her estranged husband’s crimes turned life upside down.

Mantach, 42, was yesterday sentenced to five years in the clink, eligible for parole after two years and eight months after pleading guilty to 15 charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception.

Jodie, now caring for the couple’s 6 and 10-year-old daughters, has been allowed to keep the family house in Ocean Grove, but the cafe she ran in Queenscliff has been sold by the Victorian branch. The proceeds have been used to repay monies Mantach stole.

The party administrator spent $500,000 of his ill-gotten gains buying shares, $82,000 on a car, $45,000 on home loan repayments and $535,000 on the Gusto cafe.

Apparently Mantach has written letters of apology to his Liberal Party colleagues, who’ve only been able to recoup about $700,000 from their former colleague. All Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger can hope for now from Mantach is his vote — once he gets it back, on release.

Return to school

The sitting calendar for the 45th federal parliament was released yesterday. School’s back on Tuesday, August 30.

Manager of the house Christopher Pyne. Picture: Gary Ramage.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his troops in the House of Representatives — marshalled by the ebullient manager of the house Christopher Pyne — will sit for seven weeks. The new Senate — on track to include the biggest crossbench since federation — will sit for six weeks.

George Brandis will have the challenging job as leader of the government in the Senate of marshalling the crossbench, which will include Pauline Hanson and Co, Team Nick Xenophon, Jacqui Lambie and possibly rockabilly guitarist and self-­described “free market anarchist’’ Gabe Buckley.

Attorney-General Brandis — who, for all his talents, won’t be everyone’s cup of tea — will be assisted by two of the Coalition’s more popular senators: deputy leader in the Senate Mathias Cormann and manager of government business Mitch Fifield.

Bold move

Also helping out with crossbench duties will be David Bold, who is moving away from media duties.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Picture: AAP Image/Paul Miller.

The well-regarded Bold — one of the few staff the PM thanked in his infamous speech at the Sofitel — was previously Malcolm Turnbull’s head of communications. We gather his PMO duties will now include liaising with the expansive crossbench — clearly no small role in our 45th parliament.

It’s a welcome sign that Turnbull is well aware of the challenges of the new Senate — one, it’s worth noting, that would never have been as idiosyncratic were it not for the halved hurdle that came with the double dissolution election.

Expected to take over as the PM’s head of communications is John Garnaut, once a distinguished Fairfax journalist and son of Bob Hawke’s former economic adviser Ross Garnaut. Although nothing is official yet.

Late ball

The resumption of the federal parliament will be promptly followed by Canberra’s social night of the year, the Midwinter Ball. It was originally scheduled for June 22 but, like Ricky Muir, fell victim to Malcolm Turnbull’s cunning election.

Bill and Chloe Shorten at an earlier Midwinter Ball.

The Canberra Press Gallery’s night of nights will now be held on Wednesday, August 31. That makes it more of a late-winter/early-spring affair — almost reason enough to order a linen tuxedo. It will be the second Ball principally sponsored by Brian Hartzer’s Westpac, which took over from NAB, which took over from Woolworths.

The main table is one of the trimmings that comes with sponsoring the National Press Club — perhaps a necessary perk to offset having the Westpac logo in the ABC camera shot as Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen have, each at Press Club events, called for a banking royal commission.

Introducing J-S

Perhaps after one too many journalists put the accent over the wrong “e”, Rio Tinto’s new boss Jean-Sébastien Jacques has been officially rechristened as “J-S Jacques”.

Rio Tinto’s new boss has been rechristened J-S Jacques. Picture: David Mirzoeff/i-Images.

Internally, J-S has long been what he goes by in the London headquartered mining giant. And as of yesterday’s second-quarter production results, it has now been deemed worthy of releases to the market.

While the Rio boss attended the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, he is apparently something of an Anglophile.

J-S chose British citizenship over French. And we’re told, in his rare non-internationalist moments, he identifies as English. Not that he’s quite convinced certain blue bloods in the market.

“At this rate they’ll be calling the company La Rivière Rouge,” observed one London-based mining watcher at Barclays after the elevation up the Rio executive ranks of Frenchman Arnaud Soirat, which came shortly after the announcement that Jacques would replace Sam Walsh in the top job. C’est la vie.