Josh Frydenberg sets up inspiring book club
Forget any boys club or “big swinging dicks”, it appears there’s a book club of sorts rising out of Parliament House and seeded by none other than Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.
Margin Call can reveal the member for Kooyong last month sent his parliamentary colleagues a copy of his new favourite book — The Happiest Man on Earth, by Auschwitz survivor Eddie Jaku.
So touched was the Treasurer by the soon-to-be-101-year-old’s story of survival (which has sold more than 110,000 copies to date) that he personally sent copies to each and every member, regardless of political persuasion, courtesy of the Sydney Jewish Museum.
It was there that Frydenberg recently caught up with the so-called “happiest man” earlier this year, with the Treasurer telling this column on Wednesday that Jaku’s tale was “inspirational” and essential reading to learn from past mistakes.
A shift indeed from the Treasurer’s summer reading material — in the lead-up to the Christmas break he told Margin Call’s colleague Troy Bramston one of his best books of last year had been Bear Grylls’s Mud, Sweat and Tears.
Seems that the consensus is overwhelmingly positive from the wider reading circle, though — with several of Frydenberg’s parliamentary colleagues said to have shared their own rave reviews and even selfies with Jaku’s book, too.
Of all of the federal MPs however, just one took pen to paper when it came to the member’s interest register — ALP frontbencher Jason Clare last week declaring the $19 gift on his latest disclosure.
The NSW pollie has made a name for himself for being a stickler when it comes to the register, despite rules that only purchases worth more than $300 need disclosing.
In the same update he noted a $30 gift box from brewer Lion Australia, a $10 bag of Kit Kats from Nestle and a $60 parcel from Croplife.
All that within a week of his 49th birthday — here’s hoping the milestone 50 is a little more fruitful.
Holgate’s new watch
It seems the 154-page submission on the ups and downs of public life wasn’t enough to keep former Post boss Christine Holgate busy, for there’s another leadership drama that’s also got her attention.
After submitting her response to the Senate inquiry terms on March 19, it was then off to Melbourne and her other posting as director at the Collingwood Magpies to sort out a replacement for president Eddie McGuire.
Holgate has led the internal and external recruitment process and the interviews for the new leader after McGuire was forced to resign over claims of systemic racism at the AFL club in February.
She has had a few months without a full-time job, after all.
Aside from sharing stories of their shared experience of unwanted departures, the process is no doubt a sentimental one for Holgate given it was McGuire who introduced her to the very sport in 2003.
At the time of his exit, she noted that eight weeks was a suitable timeline to find a replacement, that deadline, and the term of interim co-presidents Peter Murphy and Mark Korda, approaching at the end of this week.
Scuttlebutt in football circles has both of the stand-ins likely to take the presidential seat, as well as fellow board member Jodie Sizer, whose social credentials came to the fore in the wake of the release of the leaked report.
Few external names are in the ring, but far be it for Holgate to toe the club line.
Post showdown
The stage is set for an Australia Post showdown in Committee Room 2S1 at Parliament House next Tuesday as former top postie Christine Holgate faces a grilling over her exit from the organisation and, of course, her fiery submission accusing chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo of illegal conduct.
The chair’s retort late on Wednesday, and foreboding suggestion that there could be further submissions to come, sent the whole affair into a rather undignified “he said, she said” to be settled by Liberal MP David Fawcett’s committee.
Evidence of the organisation’s head of people and culture Sue Davies is now set to be a key deciding factor.
But like any good battle, Holgate is building her army.
Her vocal band of licenced post office owners, led by executive director Angela Cramp, have galvanised to build a campaign inviting the public to “wear white to unite” — in a similar vein to the female uprising against former US president Donald Trump at his State of the Union address last year.
And while sartorial choices are usually beyond the remit of this column, word is each of the females set to appear, even those still on the payroll such as customer services general manager Taeressa Fawthrop and the aforementioned Davies, will be joining the movement.
The key question will be whether Di Bartolomeo will be waving the white flag too, given his doubling down of his statement on the matter late on Wednesday.
Elsewhere in Holgate’s camp, several of those called out as allies in her acknowledgments are said to be flying out to Canberra, too — including rich listers Marcus Blackmore and Shaun Bonett.
Even AustralianSuper head Ian Silk is said to have cleared his schedule for the public hearing — which could make for a few awkward encounters across the battlelines given the Post chairman is also a director of the $200bn industry super fund.
Silk has been at the helm of AusSuper for the entirety of Di Bartolomeo’s 13-year board tenure — giving them ample time to get to know each other and build any loyalty.
Holgate’s husband Michael Harding also shared a board with his wife’s now nemesis at Downer, the organisation he still chairs.
Plenty of catching up to do by the sounds of it.
Boost to finances
For mere mortals, paying off a home mortgage would be a landmark life event.
But for the likes of millionaire Boost Juice founder Janine Allis it’s likely more of just another day at the office.
Allis, along with her business partner husband Jeff Allis, is liquidating the family’s residential property portfolio in Victoria in favour of a move to the northern beaches of Sydney.
A couple of weeks ago Allis, recently appointed to the board of Ruslan Kogan’s listed electronics outfit, accepted an offer on her Whernside Avenue, Toorak mansion, which had been listed for sale for between $20m and $22m.
While the transfer of ownership to what is said to be a local family is yet to be finalised, Allis earlier this week saw her way clear to pay off the mortgage that was outstanding on the luxury home (Allis lives on the same street as retail billionaire Solly Lew).
It might have helped that the mortgage on the property had been provided by private entity SROA Pty Ltd, which turns out to be a vehicle controlled by the entrepreneurial couple, who bought the home in 2017 for $11m.
The paperwork, we expect, would have been a breeze.
Meanwhile, the business couple are still seeking a buyer for their Fairhaven holiday home, which is on the market for between $10.8m and $11.8m.
The home, which is one of just two that sit in the dunes on the beach side of the Great Ocean Road in the town, is in Jeff’s name, with a more conventional mortgage over the property held by NAB.
How very normal.
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