Corporate Australia digs deep for our politicians; James Packer to holiday in Sydney

UK-based hedge fund trader Sir Michael Hintze. Picture: Hollie Adams

Nothing like a massive dump of political disclosures to measure corporate Australia’s appetite for flicking cash at the major parties.

Clearly the slush is still flowing rather steadily into the collection plates of the Liberal and Labor head offices. For now it seems they’ll always have the sharemarket titans, the polluters, the scheming insurers and Pratt Holdings to ensure their liquidity in the future.

But it’s the individual donors making contributions in their own name who so often go unmentioned. Their indiscretion begs for magnification.

Prominent businessman David Baffsky, who died in ­December, gave $20,000 to the Liberal Party and $5000 to Labor, suggesting a hint of optimism for the Coalition ahead of the May election. Or perhaps he was having a bet either way? No harm with that, of course.

Billionaire Sir Michael Hintze, or Lord Hintze as he’s now known, chucked in $50,000 for the Liberal camp, while Ros Packer dutifully coughed up $75,000, less than half of what she gave to the Liberal Party in 2019. Should we put that down to a loss of faith in Scott Morrison? She wasn’t alone there.

Seek co-founder Paul Bassat. Picture: Aaron Francis

Former McKinsey boss Angus Dawson signed over $25,000 to the Libs, as did Andrew Murray, director of wealth management at Ord Minnett. Retired Hawthorn president Ian Dicker slid $20,000 to the Liberals, too.

Ben Gray of BGH Capital ­donated to both sides, giving about $35,000 to Liberal state ­divisions, slightly less than what he gave a year earlier, and about $39,000 to Labor. His partners Simon Harle and Robin Bishop, the H and B on the BGH nameplate, each delivered $10,000 to the ALP, although Bishop gave $22,000 to the Victorian Liberals a year earlier.

Also spotted in the Labor camp was Seek co-founder Paul Bassat, currently of Square Peg Capital, who gave $10,000 to the party, as did a Kim Harding of Balmain, in Sydney, who donated $17,208. Would that be the founder and chairman of Zenith Payments, whose offices are headquartered in the same suburb? We asked, got bubkas.

Some curious names out of the legal establishment, too, with top silk Allan Myers KC tipping in $50,000 for the Liberal Party and Victorian barrister and squillionaire Philip Crutchfield KC chucking in a tenner for Labor. Just a tenner? He’ll never make it to the High Court with that attitude.

Meanwhile, John Stratton SC (barrister to A-league criminals like Roger Rogerson, Farhad Qaumi, and Eddie Obeid) confirmed that he gave $1012 to Labor a few days out from the election.

A person by the name of “Bret Walker” donated $5000 to the ALP, and we imagine this is the same eminent senior counsel who’s currently defending former Liberal premier Gladys Berejiklian in her matter involving the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Why else would this Walker list their address on the disclosure form as 169 Phillip St, Sydney, the building where the good barrister’s chambers are located?

We asked Walker SC to clarify but received no response. In any case, $5000 is a fraction of the $25,000 he’s said to charge for a day on his feet.

Finally, it would be remiss of us not to mention others in Labor’s tent, including Michael Gutman, founder of Assembly Funds Management, who donated $10,000 with wife Karen. Museums Victoria president Leon Kempler provided just under $20,000 for the war effort. Phil Green, founding partner at Alceon Group, gave $5000 with wife Vivien, and so did former Hoyts CEO Peter Ivany.

Doctor title wiped

Andrew Forrest’s man in the Middle East appears to have spent a frantic few hours touching up his LinkedIn account on Thursday. Talk about panic personified.

For a period of time Moataz Kandil’s lofty title of “Dr” vanished from his public profile along with a photograph of his Professional Doctorate, awarded by the European International University.

It all transpired after this column drew attention to some untidy aspects of the EIU and its passing resemblance to a bog-standard diploma mill. Marketed as Parisian, headquartered out of Thailand, the EIU and its doctorate program is promoted to those who “perceive academic doctorate studies as something out of reach and beyond their intellectual capacity”.

The qualification can be purchased for €9999 ($15,380) and is farcically advertised as a “revolutionary research-based program” offered “for the first time ever in the history of mankind”. History of mankind? Even ChatGPT wouldn’t write something so stupid.

Kandil is no lowly foot-soldier within the hierarchy of Forrest’s green hydrogen mission, Fortescue Future Industries. He is president of FFI’s Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia operations and appears to have helped secure a renewable energy framework between FFI and the Egyptian government.

Margin Call asked twice what level of coursework was required of Kandil to obtain his doctorate in finance, and what thesis – if any – he was required to submit for assessment. FFI would not respond to these questions, nor to why Kandil’s LinkedIn page had been tinkered with on Thursday.

Strangely, his title was revised some hours later to make him a “Dr” again. That’s after this column raised the discrepancy with an FFI spokesman. And yet still missing from the LinkedIn page is that photograph of Kandil holding his EIU doctorate. Something to hide? No longer proud of it?

An FFI spokesman provided a brief but instructive response that said: “Moataz is a valued member of our team.”

A shallow endorsement if we’ve ever heard it, and they could have at least called him Dr Kandil.

Packer to inspect Barangaroo for first time

Billionaire James Packer would neither confirm nor deny on Thursday whether he was scoping out an investment in Argentina, the home of his Ellerstina polo ranch a few clicks outside Buenos Aires.

James Packer with his children Jackson, Indigo and Emmanuelle in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Picture: Ana Badillo

According to Bloomberg, Packer has kept an eye on funding a project within Argentina’s energy and mining sector. He’s sitting on roughly $3.3bn from the sale of his stake in Crown Resorts last year and needs to find something to do with it. We already know that he’s looking at funding, of all things, a set of townhouses near Geelong, so why not throw a few doubloons at the Argentine economy in the meantime? If the government will allow it, of course – strict controls on foreign investment and all that.

Packer did confirm to our colleague Jared Lynch that he intends to visit Sydney for a 10-day holiday in March, accompanied by his three children and former wife Erica.

It’s expected that he’ll visit Crown Resorts’ $2.2bn Barangaroo casino, the concept for which he sold to NSW premier Barry O’Farrell nearly a decade ago, and which finally opened its doors in August.