Malcolm Turnbull skirts slings and arrows at BCA bash

BCA president Grant King, BCA chief Jennifer Westacott and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at the Business Council of Australia’s annual dinner last night. Picture: Hollie Adams.

Malcolm Turnbull’s preternatural good mood continued at the Business Council of Australia’s ­annual dinner last night.

Whatever fortune’s slings and arrows, the zen PM continues.

What a refreshing change.

The BCA’s president Grant King and chief executive Jennifer ­Westacott were also in good ­spirits, with a few heavyweight international surprises to impress their dinner guests.

Former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper arrived with Liberal federal director Brian Loughnane, who came from the launch of the John Howard-chaired Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation.

And representing the south was former New Zealand prime minister Bill English and wife Mary, who ­arrived with Treasurer Scott ­Morrison.

The prime ministerial ensemble skipped the long security queue.

Not so the rest of the BCA’s high-powered guest list, who ­shuffled — and in some cases grumbled — through the Sydney Sheraton on the Park’s airport-style security line. Even outgoing BCA director Richard Goyder was ID’ed.

Richard Goyder, second from right, is asked for his ID last night. Picture: Hollie Adams.

“They didn’t mention that on the invitation,” another corporate heavy (worth almost $100 million) complained to us.

But most — like airport queue veterans BCA director Alan Joyce and his Qantas chairman Leigh Clifford — used it to mingle.

Catherine Livingstone goes through security at the BCA event last night. Picture: Hollie Adams.

On the other side of the line: drinks and hundreds of CEOs, chairmen and directors: NAB’s new director Anne Sherry with Brambles’ Carolyn Kay, Seek co-founder Andrew Bassat and outgoing BCA director Ian Narev (who caught up beforehand for a pre-dinner drink next door at Bambini Trust), CBA chairman Catherine Livingstone (King’s predecessor as BCA president), ANZ chairman David ­Gonski and his friend, Education Minister Simon Birmingham, BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie (who got some solo time with the Prime Minister), BCA director ­Alison ­Watkins with Korn Ferry’s Katie Lahey, ABC boss Michelle ­Guthrie, RBA governor Philip Lowe, competition boss Rod Sims, fashion supremo Carla Zampatti, ABA boss Anna Bligh and the PM’s similarly zen chief mandarin Martin Parkinson, to name just a few.

Paul McClintock and Carla Zampatti. Pic: Hollie Adams

Even Myer’s outgoing chairman Paul McClintock was in a good mood. Asked if his activist billionaire shareholder Solomon Lew was coming along to Myer’s high-stakes AGM on Friday, McClintock shrugged. “But he’s more than welcome,” McClintock told us, so sunnily we’re inclined to believe him.

Kroger v Cormack

Meanwhile in Melbourne, the fight between Michael Kroger and the Liberal Party’s biggest donor is set to spill into court.

Today’s the deadline Victorian Liberal president Kroger (who last year was in a brawl with Jennifer Westacott’s BCA) has set the Charles Goode-chaired Cormack to respond to Kroger’s proposal to go into arbitration to resolve the ownership of the $70m fund. Goode and his fellow directors of Cormack — which until the stoush had been the party’s most generous donor — have said they think that timetable is unworkable.

In an attempt to focus their minds, Kroger has threatened to take the fight into the federal court if they miss the deadline.

It’s understood the Liberals are prepared to issue proceedings as early as tomorrow. Tick-tock.

Tuckwells cut ties

Worldly rich-listers cum philanthropists Graham and Louise Tuckwell are severing a long-held tie to Melbourne.

The Tuckwells, who now live off the coast of France on the tax-effective island of Jersey in the Channel Islands, are preparing to sell what was once their family home in a leafy patch of Hawthorn in Melbourne. The expansive federation property — once home to their four now grown-up, children — was purchased in Louise’s name more than two decades ago for $1.275m.

It is set on more than 2600sq m and includes a tennis court and pool. It is understood the home is on the market with a price tag in the order of $11m, with a private auction to be held on November 29.

For now the Tuckwells are watching the process from afar in London, where they maintain a luxury apartment.

Graham Tuckwell, who hails from Canberra, made a fortune worth about $559m as an exchange-traded fund pioneer. His asset management group ETF Securities now has a $21 billion asset base.

The couple — who say they were introduced in the 1980s courtesy of investment banker cum sports administrator John Wylie — have made headlines in recent years thanks to about $200m in donations via their private foundation to the Australian National University, where the ETF entrepreneur studied economics and law.

Ardent ghosts

The ghosts of CEOs and chairmen past haunted Ardent Leisure’s annual general meeting yesterday.

Stars of last year’s Ardent AGM horror show — former magazine editor boss Deborah Thomas, former chairman Neil Balnaves, his short-lasting successor George Venardos and the group’s former advisers Newgate — were absent from yesterday’s meeting, held in Gilbert & Tobin’s 35th floor offices in Barangaroo on Sydney Harbour. Thomas’s brief replacement as CEO Simon Kelly, who resigned at the group’s Melbourne Cup board meeting was also absent.

In their place were three amigos from corporate raider Ariadne who rolled the old guard. Most prominent was Ariadne’s executive director Gary Weiss, who after a ferocious campaign is now Ardent’s hands-on chairman.

Off-stage but deserving mention were Sydney man about town David Baffsky, Ariadne’s chairman. Baffsky, the honorary chairman of Accor Asia Pacific and (real) chair of office tower outfit Investa Property Group was all smiles.

Resplendent in the front row was Brisbane property tycoon Kevin Seymour (Ariadne’s deputy chairman), who for a while was on Weiss’s ticket to join the Ardent board. While Balnaves kept away, he was well represented by a duo from his foundation, Helen Wood and Brad McIntosh, who inquired about Dreamworld’s insurance at the time of its 2016 fatal accident and the board’s plan for remunerating itself.

Weiss was tight-lipped on the insurance question (and presumably Balnaves as chairman at the time knows the answer, unless his memory’s playing up). And Weiss said he wouldn’t take a fee from Ardent this year, but nor would he speak for his boardroom colleagues, three of whom — Roger Davis, David Haslingden and Don Morris — were appointed back when Balnaves was chairman. Surely he hasn’t forgotten that as well.