A ratcheting up of the competitive spirit over at lobby shop TG Public Affairs, where the feted Labor fundraiser Kate Dykes started working last month. Dykes was given the plum title of principal alongside Michael Choueifate and Paul Chamberlin and expectations sure are that she’ll lasso some clients with her formidable contact book.
Not that it’s verboten, but poaching from rival firms is a delicate matter and Dykes isn’t being all that discreet with the blasts from her harpoon cannon.
Her pitch to company executives, which has found its way to Margin Call, boasts of TG’s unparalleled access to members of the Albanese cabinet, their staff, and influential figures in the bureaucracy.
All of which might be true, but howlingly unwise to say out loud – or to put in writing, ffs!
Weird, too, of her boast that TGPA is the nation’s largest government relations firm, which the folk at GRA Cosway might have something to say about – not least because they outpace TGPA in the client stakes; GRA has 80 clients on the books to the 60-odd with TGPA, and that’s only what’s listed on the federal lobbyists’ register. The gap widens even further in a comparison of state-based registers in NSW and Victoria.
Two clients that TGPA has been coaching? Optus and Woolworths, their recent Senate committee performances more than memorable.
Who could forget Woolworths chief Brad Banducci being threatened with the clink by the clownish Greens senator Nick McKim over that ROE malarkey?
Perhaps only Qantas’s performance was comparably worse. Time for Dykes to give them a call, yeah?
Lehrmann’s referees
While we’re on the subject, Paul Chamberlin’s name was one of several listed by confirmed rapist Bruce Lehrmann on his CV after being sacked by former defence minister Linda Reynolds. That was over security breaches recorded on that fateful night in 2019 when he brought Brittany Higgins to Parliament House.
Out of a job, Lehrmann dispatched his resume to contacts and listed a handful of names as referees, not all of whom were fully aware he was doing so, Chamberlin being one of them. At that point no one had heard of the rape allegations, and they wouldn’t surface for another two years.
“He asked me to be a referee and I gave a noncommittal response,” Chamberlin told Margin Call. “When I was told my name was on his CV, I was very surprised, let me tell you. To this day I have not been asked to provide a reference, nor have I provided one.”
Names listed on Lehrmann’s CV alongside Chamberlin, a former adviser to three deputy prime ministers, included Murray Cranston (an adviser in Peter Dutton’s office) James Matthews of ConocoPhillips and one Paul O’Sullivan, presumably the former director-general of ASIO, described by Lehrmann in a police interview as a “close confidant of mine”.
Abbott tilt goes cold
What’s this we hear about Tony Abbott considering a tilt for federal parliament at the 2025 election? The story goes that the former prime minister is even willing to move away from Warringah to secure himself a seat (And why not? It worked for Andrew Charlton in Parramatta). Alas, the tale continues: Dutton’s aware of the plan and put the kybosh on the whole thing – for now, at least. Just what we heard, and perhaps it’s all best taken in a high-sodium way.
We put this red hot morsel to Abbott himself, but he very quickly poured a bucket of cold water all over it. “You’ve been misinformed,” he told Margin Call. “My sole and total focus is trying to ensure that Dutton becomes PM at the next election.”
Kohler downsizes
Wealthy finance journalist Alan Kohler, one of the nation’s foremost commentators on the housing crisis and housing affordability, is selling his five-bedroom castle in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn, deep in teal country. He and novelist wife Deborah Forster have set an asking price of somewhere between $8m and $9m, quite a bump on the 2002 purchase price of $1.7m, the supply grip certainly doing its bit to push up the land value.
Kohler, who let out an audible groan when we called, said they were downsizing but hadn’t bought anything new yet – a wise move. We call that doing a reverse Mark McInnes.
“It’s a 22-year-old family home that we totally renovated,” he said. “It’s been a wonderful place to raise a family.”
Tame responses
Nearly a week after we reported on the latest financial accounts released by The Grace Tame Foundation, a response to some of our questions has finally arrived, tardiness being a notable theme with GTF (as we wrote, the charity’s filings have been submitted four months late for two years running.)
For those who missed the item, our confusion was with the substantial and unexpected amounts of donor money spent last year on survivor legal expenses and psychological support payments, expenditure that isn’t flagged anywhere on the foundation’s website, nor in its filings with the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. The foundation’s general manager, Chantelle Tibbotts, told us in reply that this spending had been in place since 2022 (although back then it was called “campaign expenses”, for some reason.)
“We do not advertise or promote this support, because GTF is not a frontline service, but we do what we can for the survivors who approach us for help,” Tibbotts said.
Suffice it to say donors provided nearly $250,000 in FY23, of which 70 per cent paid for legal support ($107,033) and psychological support ($66,016) for abuse survivors, so clearly a shift in the foundation’s purpose as a campaign and reform outfit to one of direct funding for individuals.
Donors might not mind that in the slightest – but maybe someone ought to let them know?
Rytenskild eyes his old Tabcorp job
First Adam Rytenskild was dumped as Tabcorp CEO, now he’s won a Fair Work Commission case against it, so could he be plotting a return to the position since filled by Gillon McLachlan?
MinRes in game of cat and mouse
The Legal Practice Board of Western Australia is looking into MinRes and its lawyers’ conduct, which is interesting timing as its company secretary has just been made legal counsel to the board.