Malcolm Turnbull uses Westpac bash to bash banks

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It was the big day out for the Big Red W.

And everyone — even Lee Lin Chin — was there at Sydney’s Walsh Bay where the red carpet was laid out for Westpac’s 199th birthday bash. (Well almost everyone — where was Gail Kelly?).

One person who Westpac probably had second thoughts about inviting around the time the mains were served to the several hundred attending was former investment banker-turned Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

Well aware of the currency that each bank sledge is worth one valuable Newspoll point, Turnbull did his best Bernie Sanders impression and took aim at Westpac and its fellow big bank travellers.

“Our bankers have not always treated their customers as they should”, PM T said, pointing to “too many troubling instances” of poor behaviour in recent times and proving populist politics is a long way from Goldman Sachs.

Party pooper

It may have been a sunny day, but ASIC boss Greg Medcraft — who wasn’t even there — nonetheless managed to rain all over Westpac boss Brian Hartzer’s parade.

Like a cut-price Odin, Medcraft cast a pall over proceedings as Hartzer rolled out the red carpet.

All anyone wanted to talk about was ASIC’s lawsuit against Westpac for allegedly rigging the benchmark BBSW rate.

At least no one compared Medcraft and ASIC to Adolf Hitler, as David Murray, the former CBA boss and the man who reviewed the finance sector for PM T’s predeccesor, Tony Abbott, did on Tuesday.

A host of Westpac royalty included Lindsay Maxsted, David Morgan (with wife Ros Kelly), former Westpac chief executive and one-time St George Bank chairman Frank Conroy, yet another former CEO Bob White, former Westpac chairman Leon Davis and former exec Anne Sherry (now head of cruise liner Carnival).

Taking time out from looking for a replacement for ASX boss Elmer Funke Kupper was the ’change’s executive chairman, Rick Holliday-Smith

Other luminaries included UBS bigwig Matthew Grounds, Kerry Stokes and son Ryan, pub baron Justin Hemmes, Microsoft’s Oz boss Pip Marlow, ANU vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt.

Also spotted were Gladys Berejiklian, representing the NSW Treasury, Carla Zampatti who is designing Westpac’s new uniforms, the ubiquitous Sam Mostyn, investor and sometime James Packer lieutenant Ashok Jacob, ASX director Peter Marriott and former Insurance Australia boss Mike Wilkins.

AICD president Elizabeth Proust, former Queensland Premier Anna Bligh and Bank of Melbourne’s Scott Tanner represented the football states.

Exciting times

Hartzer should have followed the advice of the old saying — never follow a prime minister firing thought bubbles. As dessert was being served, Hartzer was left explaining that the day was not about banks behaving badly, but Westpac entering its 200th year and the ambition of the Westpac scholarship.

To coin a phrase: “There’s never been a better time to bank at Westpac.”

Banking on the wales

Still it was not all doom and gloom with Sanders, sorry, Turnbull. In his speech the PM talked about how his forefather John Turnbull was one of the first people to get a loan from the old Bank of NSW back in 1817.

Murray says sorry

Meanwhile, Murray has apologised for his Nazi brain fade, telling the Oz the reference was “excessive, hurtful to many people who suffered from that regime and unnecessary to make the point”. If only he’d realised that at the time.

He made the apology after talking to B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission chairman Dvir Abramovich and getting a smack around the ears from the only Jewish Liberal MP, Josh Frydenberg. Margin Call is still waiting to hear back from Kelly O’Dwyer’s people on what the Assistant Treasurer thinks about Murray’s remarks.

Hipster hooray

Finally, Australia’s most connected business leader David Gonksi was spotted yesterday rubbing shoulders with the hipster kids in Sydney’s fringe CBD suburb, Surry Hills.

Expect the beard, wooden crates and the single source beans soon at ANZ.

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