Jayne Hrdlicka’s Virgin hops on board for the AFL season

Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka at Melbourne airport on Monday. Picture: Getty Images

It has been a big past week for the nation’s airlines.

Only last Thursday, PM Scott Morrison, his deputy Michael McCormack and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg were unveiling a you-beaut $1.2bn package to supercharge the aviation industry with half-priced fares and cheap loans for businesses

But while pollies were nitpicking over just which regions were involved in the deal in parliament on Monday (Marise Payne noting the government was open to adding to the current list of 13 destinations), the new-look Virgin Australia was focused on other matters.

What better way to restore its corporate image post-Bain clean-out than to throw its support behind the AFL, what it described as “the most popular sporting code in the country”.

That phrase alone was enough to ruffle feathers in the northern states.

Cutting a tiny figure next to AFL boss Gill McLachlan, Virgin chief and managing director Jayne Hrdlicka spruiked the five-year deal, drawing parallels with the 124-year-old sporting league.

“The AFL and Virgin Australia have both had a challenging 12 months, but we’ve come out the other side, stronger, fitter, better, re-energised and ready for the season ahead,” she told the press at Melbourne airport, after a photo op with players from the AFL’s Sam Docherty and Trent Cotchin and AFLW’s Izzy Huntington and Kaitlyn Ashmore.

Illustration: Rod Clement

The airline’s fitness was no doubt a reference to its slimmed-down workforce — with a third of all staff cut from the group since Bain took the reins and launched its mid-market strategy.

While the details of the deal were off-limits, Hrdlicka noted that “flying the league means that we’ll have approximately 16,000 seats booked by the clubs each season”, which even at their new bargain prices comes out at quite the sum.

In addition to support of the broader league, Virgin has also signed new partnerships with Mark LoGiudice’s Carlton and Tony Cochrane’s Gold Coast Suns for the next three and four years respectively.

GWS Giants was the only AFL club not to have its partnership with the airline renewed, even after it publicly supported Virgin during its administration process in April last year.

Maybe a matter for GWS chairman Tony Shepherd, who’ll no doubt be familiar with the goings-on at Virgin after being a director on the board of its international arm for several years.

But the club, which this year celebrates its 10th anniversary in the league, is not the only one to have its sponsorship expire post-administration — Supercars too were abandoned last year, with the Sean Seamer-led competition now under naming-rights sponsor Repco.

All sponsorships were put under review in the Deloitte administration process, with the AFL emerging as seemingly the now-private company’s sole sponsorship pursuit.

Any trace of community partners such as the Salvos or Starlight Foundation and arts partners such as the Australian Chamber Orchestra or Queensland Ballet have now been expunged from its website.

Ahead of the Carlton v Richmond season opener on Thursday, here’s hoping the US-born Hrdlicka has got the rules down pat and can handle the crowds at the MCG.

Porter takes aim

The on-leave Attorney-General Christian Porter’s move to launch a defamation action against the national broadcaster is not an action taken lightly, not least due the top law officer’s involvement in the very reform said to have tightened scrutiny on claims just eight months ago.

It was Porter and his council of state and territory counterparts, as led by NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman, that overhauled the nation’s defamation laws in July last year, with a key focus to “protect public interest journalism”.

At the time, the A-Gs noted that the reform was the first major change since the arrival of Facebook and Twitter, with one prescient addition related to public interest as a defence of defamatory material.

“The ultimate aim is to strike a better balance between, on the one hand, providing fair remedies for a person whose reputation is harmed by a publication and, on the other hand, ensuring defamation law does not place unreasonable limits on freedom of expression, particularly about matters of public interest,” Speakman noted at the first reading of the bill in the NSW lower house.

On Monday, Porter’s camp was more concerned about the “trial by media”, releasing a statement that he would commence court action against the ABC, and journalist Louise Milligan, for defamation.

“This court process will allow them [the ABC and Milligan] to present any relevant evidence and make any submissions they believe justifies their conduct in damaging Mr Porter’s reputation,” the statement lawyer Rebekah Giles, of Company Giles, read.

All that while the crowds were gathering at locations across the country to March 4 Justice and ahead of the speech from Giles’ other spotlight-grabbing client, Brittany Higgins,on the lawn of Parliament House.

On the subject of legal representation, and after the fallout of his tapping of Minter Ellison and its Perth partner Peter Bartlett for advice, it would be remiss not to mention the rest of Porter’s powerhouse team.

Actor Geoffrey Rush with his wife Jane Menelaus, right, and barrister Sue Chrysanthou in Sydney. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Along with Giles, who spun off her own boutique reputational risk and defamation firm 12 months ago, Porter has also tapped two of the key names who helped secure a win in Geoffrey Rush’sdefamation case — Sydney-based silks Sue Chrysanthou and Bret Walker.

With Justice Jayne Jagot, a contender in the High Court judge race of last October, assigned to preside over the case, a building outcry for an independent inquiry and continued pressure from the opposition, he’ll need all the help he can get.

Hellman’s selldown

US private equiteer Mick Hellman, the largest shareholder of outdoor advertising group oOh!media, is selling down more than half his stake just a year after taking a substantial stake in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hellman, son of Hellman & Friedman founder Warren Hellman and the man behind HMI Capital, joined the board after sub-underwriting the group’s $167m emergency equity raising at the onset of the pandemic in March last year.

Whether he’s simply satisfied with the group’s more than 250 per cent recovery in the past year, from the placement price of 53c a share, or just frustrated at his inability to get on the ground in Australia from his home in San Francisco, remains to be seen.

The now Cathy O’Connor-led group simply said on Monday that Credit Suisse and its local head of equities Adam Lennen had entered into a block trade agreement with HMI to lead manage and underwrite the sale of just over 49 million shares — worth about $92m at current prices.

That’s all ahead of the group’s upcoming annual general meeting in May, with Hellman still likely to wield influence with a remaining stake of almost 10 per cent.

Jayne Hrdlicka

Christian Porter

Mick Hellman