Exclusive male-only club’s members fire up; Not a good look for Pesutto’s holidaying COS

The entrance to Melbourne’s venerable The Australian Club in William St.

The Australian Club in Melbourne held its annual general meeting this week. Usually an unremarkable affair, this time president Peter Hay, a former Newcrest chairman, found himself subjected to a withering round of questions from members, along with club treasurer Graeme Lavelle, over a $1.2m loss that transpired under acting general manager Robert ­Hunwick.

Hunwick is one of Hay’s best mates, which explains why the president wrote a passionate defence of his performance, ach­ieved, as Hay described, “at a time of acute need” and carried out “with distinction”.

What’s clearly distinct is a spending blowout at the club – new carpets, fresh paint, legal payments, professional services, and a bunch of humidors. Hunwick is the fifth general manager at The Australian Club since 2018. In that time, its membership has declined, attendance has dropped off (from 33,876 in 2019 to 26,930 in 2022), and a civil conflict over the admission of women continues to flare nostrils at the male-only institution.

Remarkably, it’s older men like Hay and Hunwick who are championing the cause to let in the dames. Their opponents are the club’s conservative warriors: short, soft men in their 40s who like to sit in deep chairs and blow cigar smoke at each other. They’re dubbed “the young ­fogeys”.

Australian Club president Peter Hay found himself under hostile questioning.

Members have walked out over this dispute, while others are no longer turning up. Both factors are contributing to the club’s decline. But such were the sensitivities that members repeatedly queried a decision to spend $27,500 on consultants to undo a renovation of the club’s Long Room.

“Having attended the AGM for more than a decade, this was by far the most disappointing night I’ve ever had in the club. It was member on member,” an insider told Margin Call.

About $1m was spent on the initial refurbishment of the Long Room, only for the finished product to be met with disapproval. The solution was to hire consultants to return it to its “former status”. For their money, all they did was move a few tables and put back some old couches that were placed in storage.

It was Lavelle, as treasurer, who bore the flak for Hunwick, including a grilling over that boondoggle and other expenditure concerns. Barely audible to those sitting at the back of the room, his sentiments were plain enough in his own report.

“The club’s financial performance in 2022 has been disappointing,” he wrote.

Hunwick certainly attempted to spin the numbers, smearing out the enormous loss by touting an aggregate profit recorded since 2020. He failed to mention the substantial government grants and JobKeeper support that were provided during those years. Now gone, it seems that without those handouts the club is at risk of continuing its losses.

Equally pointed questions were raised with Hay about the release of a white paper commissioned into the club’s corporate governance structure. No sign of him releasing that document any time soon, it seems. Hay claimed that some of its contents were defamatory of Hunwick.

Crisis uncontained

No question the Victorian Liberal party is in crisis. Its MPs are currently riven over the suspension of MP Moira Deeming and her threat to sue Opposition Leader John Pesutto for defamation. This came after Deeming attended a Let Women Speak rally that was crashed by neo-Nazis.

Pesutto’s leadership is precarious, having defeated Brad Battin for the role by just one vote in December. One would think, at a time like this, that he would be cloistered within an unflappable team of advisers guiding him through the panic engulfing the party.

Apparently not. Pesutto’s chief of staff is Harvard-educated lawyer Rodrigo Pintos-Lopez, the partner of federal Liberal MP Zoe McKenzie. He was recruited to Pesutto’s office in March but is currently on holiday with McKenzie in France. Do they teach optics at Harvard?

McKenzie’s travel is not in question, but judging by the photos we’ve seen of Pintos-Lopez dunking a croissant into a coffee, or staring out into the dusky light of the southern countryside, the man is clearly a universe away from chaos his boss is trying to contain.

Victorian Liberal Party leader John Pesutto, whose chief of staff is far from the current turmoil. Picture: Luis Ascui

Pesutto’s office said the holiday was justified and the opposition agreed to it some time ago. “The travel was organised in November, well before Rodrigo accepted and started his position in March, and he accepted the position on the agreement that he would go on the trip in late April, early May,” a spokesman said.

Whether it’s related to his absence or not (the couple are due to return this weekend), Margin Call understands Pesutto has also hired consultant Kristy McSweeney, a former adviser to Tony Abbott and other senior Liberals. McSweeney ran as a federal candidate for the Perth seat of Swan last year, losing to Labor’s Zaneta Mascarenhas.

It was put to Margin Call that McSweeney was brought in for crisis management, but that’s apparently not so, according to an official, who said McSweeney was recruited for consulting work. Hard to tell the difference, of course.

Fundraising record

The Sydney Children’s Hospital Foundation shattered its fundraising records on Thursday night and may have even set a world record, with its Gold Dinner pledges nudging past $19m – helped along by a multimillion-dollar donation from mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.

In our haste to chronicle the guest list on Friday, Margin Call listed Rinehart as having personally turned up at Sydney’s Town Hall for the occasion. That was a snafu – turns out it was Rinehart’s daughter, Ginia, who pledged $5m on behalf of her family. Rinehart didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Gold Dinner, held annually, set out on this occasion to raise money for The Children’s Hospital at Westmead and its Complex Care Centre, to be known as the Kookaburra Centre. Hence why the venue’s ceiling was festooned with golden origami kookaburras.

Gina Rinehart and her daughter, Ginia.

In 2022 the Foundation reached a record target of just over $9m. That’s small beer compared with Thursday night’s efforts – Friday’s counting saw that amount comprehensively smashed courtesy of Rinehart’s donation, along with an anonymous pledge of $3m, and four additional donations of $1m (all given anonymously, too).

“It’s a world record for the amount of money raised in one night,” said Gold Dinner organising committee co-chair Josh Penn. The Met Gala raised its own record of $US17.4m – or $25.8m – but Penn was talking dollar for dollar.

As reported, there was no shortage of influential, notable and high-net-worth individuals on hand to bid on the items in the silent auction. Limited to 500 guests, and with tickets selling for $3000 each, those walking the bright yellow carpet outside included members of the Packer and Stokes families.