Joe Gutnick’s last hurrah is over; Rio Tinto changes tune on environmental rules

Mining magnate Joe Gutnick’s diamond play is closing out with a whimper. Picture: AAP

Joe Gutnick’s last hurrah is finally coming to an end, as liquidators wind up the last company in the play that was supposed to put “diamond” back into his moniker.

The plan, launched more than a decade ago, was to revive the Northern Territory’s Merlin diamond mine (hailed as the second-biggest diamond field in the country) and make it the centrepiece of a new mining empire.

It didn’t work out as ­promised.

The courts put Merlin Diamonds into administration in 2020 amid allegations of insider dealings that sucked more than $13.7m out of the company in the form of loans to other entities associated with Gutnick and his family.

Along the way there was a bizarre takeover backflip, Gutnick’s 2016 bankruptcy, and a failed shareholder rebellion the same year. Merlin was finally suspended from trading in 2018 after the ASX took an interest in loans extended by the company to Axis Consultants, another company associated with Gutnick, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing in regard to the affairs of Merlin.

To be fair, the diamond saga is closing out with more of a whimper than a bang.

This week Gary Bertuch, the sole director of Merlin Operations, a subsidiary of the former listed diamond miner, called in PCI Partners Stephen Michell as liquidator.

It shouldn’t be a tough gig. In an earlier filing to ASIC, Bertuch said the company had just $8535 in the bank, enough to cover the costs of winding it up.

Merlin Diamonds itself is still in administration.

But that, too, may be about to end, bringing to a close the entire sorry saga.

Deloitte administrator Sal Algeri told creditors in May the company had just under $1m in the bank, and he expected to wind up the administration by the end of 2024 after paying back creditors a total of about 10c in the dollar owed.

As for Gutnick, he is serving out a four-year ASIC ban on acting as a director after being ­associated with three companies that went bust within three years, amid findings by ASIC he acted improperly as a director over the company loans and allowed Merlin to trade while insolvent.

When the ban was announced in March, Gutnick said he intended to challenge the decision in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. No such challenge materialised within the 28-day period, however, and the ban still stands.

Rio reversal

Backflip, back down, betrayal, or business as usual for Rio Tinto?

Climate warriors claimed victory this week when Rio released a statement giving broad support to changes to federal environmental protection legislation.

This is the same Rio Tinto that was busted in July for supporting Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting in privately lobbying Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to ditch the inclusion of climate change targets in any new project approval rules. At the time that caused a storm.

Climate lobby group the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) threatened to “disengage” from Rio, Greenpeace said it was proof Rio spoke with a “forked tongue” on environmental issues, and the rest of the internet piled on accordingly.

Enter Rio’s latest statement, which supports “reforms which are workable and sustainable for the long term” – disclosure of climate emissions, strengthening regulator’s enforcement powers, reduced complexity and duplication in approvals processes … that sort of thing.

The release was reported by this newspaper as a warning to the Albanese government against going too green at the expense of the mining industry, but hailed by the ABC and green groups as breaking ranks with its peers to support the government’s environmental reforms – still locked up in a Senate deadlock.

The ACCR said the statement was a victory for “months of pressure” from investors, and it would now take Rio off its naughty list. The Ken Henry-chaired Australian Climate and Biodiversity Foundation (ACBF) said it was a sign of “deep support” for environmental reform in corporate Australia.

Truth be told, there’s absolutely nothing in Rio’s statement that contradicts the mining industry’s lobbying letter to Albanese. For its part, Rio says that nothing has changed, and the release was merely aimed at spelling out its position in response to shareholder queries sparked by the earlier brouhaha.

Margin Call’s verdict: turns out you can be all things to all people, if you keep your public statements so vague nobody can actually work out what you’re saying.

Adams’ artworks

Former ABC broadcaster and Late Night Live host Phillip Adams turned 85 in July and is looking to clear house – or so he says. Hence the plunder of a trove of paintings from his lifetime of dutiful collection. Picassos and Goyas, a Francis Bacon, a stray etching by Renoir and another from Norman Lindsay.

They’re available for viewing in South Yarra this weekend ahead of an auction being held on Wednesday. The most expensive item on offer is an Arthur Streeton painting of a glass bowl (with flowers) with an asking price of up to $12,000.

Adams told Artvisory, the gallery holding the auction, that his random, impulsive purchases were based on three critical factors: whether they were beautiful, unusual, and he wanted them nearby. “The trouble is, I’ve run out of both time and wall space. Need room to hang more recent arrivals and those too long in storage. So welcome to my world.”