Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp good at passing cap around

Illustration: Rod Clement.

While new Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp enjoys the delights of Italy — after five weeks in the job, who wouldn’t need a holiday? — let’s dine out on the deep detail of who of the Victorian capital’s business elite have dug deep to fund her passage to the city’s top office.

Loyal Margin Call readers already know that Capp, a former head of the Victorian division of the Property Council of Australia, and husband Andrew ­Sutherland are business partners in a series of enterprises with billionaire Fox family (worth $3.56 billion) scion David Fox. Capp’s business partner has given to her, as has his mum Paula Fox, wife of patriarch Lindsay Fox.

The Foxes are developing what will be a $200 million residential property project on St Kilda Road, which is within the City of Melbourne’s jurisdiction.

Fellow billionaire family the Pratts (worth $12.9bn) have also tipped in, as has the former son-in-law of Richard Pratt, billionaire in his own right Alex Waislitz.

Maxwell & Williams homewares millionaire Max Grundmann also assisted, along with the former principal of the Midas car-care group Philip Bonney and Mimco founder Amanda Briskin-Rettig.

Former Packer lieutenant, Macquarie banker and now Myer Family Company deputy chairman Peter Yates was a Capp backer too, along with businesswoman Valentina Tripp, Flagstaff Partners investment banker Chris Leptos, venture capitalist Matthew Clunies-Ross and former Ten boss turned PricewaterhouseCoopers consultant Russell Howcroft.

Is there anyone this new Lord Mayor doesn’t know and hasn’t asked for cash?

Incoming Lendlease chairman and Woolworths director Michael Ullmer helped, too, as did millionaire one-time Just Jeans owner Craig Kimberley and Minters partner Jeremy Blackshaw. His top-tier law firm also gave Capp money.

Mark Korda’s receiver group KordaMentha contributed, with Capp serving with Korda as a director of Eddie McGuire’s Collingwood Football Club, while Westpac chief Brian Hartzer dug deep towards getting Capp into the city’s top office as well.

From the conservative side of politics — Capp was a member of the Liberal Party but ran for mayor as an independent — businessman and Cormack Foundation director Hugh Morgan is on the new mayor’s donor list, fresh from his battle with party president Michael Kroger.

Kroger’s former wife and now Crown spokeswoman Ann Peacock, herself early on a mooted candidate for the mayoral election, also helped Capp along, as did fellow Melbourne socialite and surgeon Chantel Thornton and the Big Group’s Chyka Keebaugh, a former Housewife of Melbourne.

John Elliott’s daughter Caroline Elliott was a supporter too, as was Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s ex-wife Debbie Beale, the daughter of former federal Liberal pollie Julian Beale.

Capp appears to have tapped into her network at the Property Council, too. Real estate agents Nelson Alexander, which operates an agency out of the Docklands, gave generously to her campaign, as did Marco Rossi’s large-scale buildings company Built, which generates annual revenue of $1.3bn.

Construction consultant Peter Slattery gave via his Bellarine Peninsula wine estate Terindah, while property developer Joshua Mantello contributed via his Mansh Group.

High-profile commercial real estate agent Mark Wizel from CBRE is also on Capp’s list. Wizel has sold some of the city’s most prestige sites for clients.

Melbourne architects Anna Lau and Chris Smiles also assisted in the election campaign. All Capp has to do now is return from holidays and get on with the job.

Logies wash-up

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk’s inaugural Logies on the Gold Coast have come and gone.

But recoveries yesterday continued.

While it was just another frosty, dark Sunday night at James Packer’s eschewed Crown in Melbourne, at the John O’Neill-chaired The Star on the Goldie it was all glitter, glam and predictable hotel fare as the stars of the box strutted their stuff for tele’s 60th annual night of nights.

Nine boss Hugh Marks, these days running what is his $2bn-plus free-to-air broadcasting enterprise, was on deck watching over his talent.

Nearby, Kerry Stokes’s legal mind Bruce McWilliam was monitoring for missteps from Seven’s starlets, not to mention execs.

Lisa Wilkinson on the Gold Coast.

Notable was news and current affairs master Mark Llewellyn for his seat at a Seven table even though he now works for Nine. His 60 Minutes Beirut correspondent Tara Brown was back in the spotlight on stage and appeared to have her mojo back after a low-profile year past.

Ten boss Paul Anderson, now answerable to his masters at CBS, didn’t feel restrained, partying well into the night at Ten’s after-party also at The Star, but with the network staying across the road at the Sofitel.

Never mind the irony that his Gold Logie-winning network star Grant Denyer’s Family Feud has just been axed. Any wonder the mini-star was emotional.

Meanwhile, Seven partied the night away at the Sheraton Mirage, while Michelle Guthrie’s ABC and Michael Edeid’s SBS were at QT. No expense spared by the public broadcasters.

Foxtel boss Patrick Delany’s head of television Brian Walsh was notably absent, but still front of mind gaining many mentions over the evening, the broadcast of which was watched by the lowest number of viewers since the start of the OzTam ratings system in 2001.

By dawn, all that was left to deal with were the hangovers.

We had to chuckle at the classic page heard over the loudspeaker at Coolangatta airport yesterday morning, “would Hamish McLachlan (Seven sports commentator and brother of AFL boss Gill McLachlan), Lisa Wilkinson (Ten’s top-shelf talent), Mark Llewellyn and (actor) Shane Jacobson all proceed to your gate as your (8.55am) flight is departing”.

Only the dashing McLachlan was seen bolting for the gate.

Apology late mail

So now we hear Australia Post boss Christine Holgate is mending bridges in the wake of her predecessor in the top office, Ahmed Fahour.

Member for the marginal federal seat of Corangamite in Victoria, Sarah Henderson, says Holgate has formally apologised to the politician over comments Henderson is adamant Fahour made several years ago describing her as a “horse’s arse”.

Henderson has revealed that in a recent meeting with Holgate, the executive apologised on her government-owned organisation’s behalf for Fahour’s profanity, despite that the controversial exec and his then organisation denied he ever made the remark to the former journalist-turned pollie.

“Ahmed Fahour told a lie, when he denied he ever said this,” Henderson told Sky News’s Laura Jayes as they also discussed controversial senator David Leyonhjelm’s vulgar comments to his Greens colleague, Sarah Hanson Young.

“I met with her (Holgate) and she apologised and accepted Ahmed Fahour said those words,” Henderson said.