Murray and Costello catch-up; Leptos’ Ukraine convoy quest

Former Liberal MP Katie Allen is a potential candidate for Higgins. Picture: Aaron Francis

There’s movement at the station in the race to become the next Liberal candidate for the formerly blue-ribbon federal seat of Higgins. A favourite candidate pulls out, causing shock among local members and a desperate search for someone, anyone, who can win back the seat.

But first we begin our tale in Collins St, where any true Liberal story must surely start.

It’s remarkable how not taking phone calls in the middle of the night from your boss can ­make for a much easier life.

That’s certainly how former Premier Investments chief executive Richard Murray looked on Friday as he glided through 101 Collins St in the heart of Melbourne’s financial district, like a man without a care in the world.

Future Fund chair Peter Costello. Picture: Daniel Pockett

Former Premier Investments chief Richard Murray.

Since leaving the services of Premier there’s no more late night/early morning inquiries from chairman and major shareholder Solomon Lew asking curly questions about hourly pyjamas sales at Peter Alexander.

But he isn’t without stress. Murray has recently moved house, and as everyone knows, that outranks public speaking, phone calls from demanding billionaires and death as the most feared things to happen.

And who was Murray meeting at 101 Collins? Just a morning coffee with former federal treasurer, Future Fund and Nine Network chair Peter Costello.

Funny enough, Costello is the former member for Higgins and Murray is the current chair of the Higgins 200 Club, a key fundraiser for Liberal members for the seat and the wider Liberal movement.

There is much to talk about when it comes to the seat of ­Higgins.

The coffee catch-up came only a few days after Will Stoltz, an ­associate at the ANU’s National Security College, decided to pull out of the Liberal preselection race. Stoltz was the frontrunner and pulled out for personal reasons.

William Stoltz withdrew his candidacy.

This leaves two main candidates in the race: former member Katie Allen who lost the seat to Labor, and Marcus Pearl, the first ever Liberal mayor of Port Phillip Council. Trust us, being elected as a Liberal mayor to a council riddled with lefties, annoying ‘‘progressives’’ (oh, did I tell you we just had solar panels installed on our beach house?) and ABC viewers is a huge feat.

There’s a large section of the 680 Liberal Party members in Higgins who couldn’t accept Allen running again, as this column reported in July, given her decision to cross the floor last year on amendments to the religious discrimination bill. Their message to Allen is ‘‘jog on’’.

The talk within Liberal ranks is that Stoltz had more than 300 votes already in his back pocket. Where those votes now go is anyone’s guess. Someone needs to clean up the Higgins mess – a job for Murray and Costello?

Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

Ukrainian expedition

Everyone loves a tough cop on the beat. Well, at least everyone who isn’t the subject of that cop’s inquisitive gaze.

And so it was great news for food and grocery suppliers when Chris Leptos was reappointed as the independent reviewer of the Food and Grocery Code for a three-year period by federal Assistant Treasurer Andrew Leigh.

The reappointment of Leptos, who is also a senior adviser at Flagstaff Partners, sends a pretty strong message to the major supermarkets Woolworths, Coles, Aldi and Metcash that the government is keeping a close eye on the way supermarkets treat suppliers.

It’s this kind of “can-do” attitude and gumption that Leptos will soon take to the war zone in Ukraine as he drives an ambulance into Lviv, but more of that later.

Leptos hasn’t pulled any punches when it comes to overseeing supermarkets. He’s happily posted online letters sent to him from Woolworths boss Brad Banducci, Coles boss Leah Weckert and executives from Aldi and Metcash.

Then there was Leptos’s small run-in last year with former Victorian premier and Coles independent supplier arbiter Jeff Kennett. Leptos asked Kennett for documents and files relating to supplier complaints made to him. Kennett refused, arguing they were confidential. Coles couldn’t hand them over as they didn’t belong to them in the first place.

The federal government is currently reviewing the code and it shouldn’t be a surprise that one possible reform is to force the independent arbiters to hand over all files covering supplier complaints.

Now, fresh from Leptos winning his reappointment there is work to be done elsewhere. He’s flying to Britain next week to join a convoy of ambulances that will drive from Wimbledon to Lviv, western Ukraine.

Leptos helped with a fundraiser for Ukraine, raising enough money to buy 12 ambulances, of which four will be driven in the first convey to Lviv. Leptos will be driving one of them. Margin Call wishes him a safe return.

Cyber sharing

Medibank is certainly playing the role of a good corporate citizen. Following the horrendous cyber attack on its member database last year, with highly confidential medical information stolen, it has reached out to other Australian companies to brief them on lessons learned.

Medibank chairman Mike Wilkins and its CEO David Koczkar have given dozens of presentations to company boards and directors to give some insight on what to do, and not to do, if they come under cyber attack.

This included a recent presentation to the Myer board led by outgoing chairman JoAnne Stephenson. The retailer operating one of the largest loyalty programs in the country which holds plenty of personal information. Medibank should give Optus boss Kelly Bayer Rosmarin a call, but maybe use a mobile on the Telstra network.

In the hot seat

After heading Australia’s oil and gas industry lobby group Appea during a volatile period through to 2019 – including scraps with Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten – Malcolm Roberts has been ensconced with the Productivity Commission, but on Monday, he’ll return to the fossil fuel fold.

He takes on a new role as boss of the Australian Institute of Petroleum, the lobby group representing the nation’s dwindling oil refining industry and petroleum sector.

Malcolm Roberts will be in charge of the Australian Institute of Petroleum. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Long-serving AIP chief executive Paul Barrett will retire after eight years as CEO.

Roberts will be juggling the competing demands of its main members: Ampol, Viva Energy, BP and ExxonMobil.

Roberts has stood down from his five-year term as a commissioner with the Productivity Commission some six months early, with Danielle Wood taking over as chair.

Energy Minister Chris Bowen has set aggressive national emissions targets, and Roberts can expect plenty of questions over the petroleum industry’s promised path to a green economy.