Naomi Milgrom steps away from Tripple, the Climate 200 backer run by her children

Sussan Group owner Naomi Milgrom.

Naomi Milgrom’s name is still stamped on all the paperwork, but we have it on good authority that the Sussan Group owner is no longer associated with Tripple, a little investment company led by her bleeding-heart children – Rebecca, Jake and Adam – and mentioned in annual filings released by the Australian Electoral Commission on Monday.

Tripple’s name jumps out every year because the kids in charge keep giving armfuls of money to Simon Holmes a Court’s Climate 200 movement. In FY22, Tripple donated $500,000 to C200 (on that occasion with Milgrom’s public blessing). The following year it donated $111,000, and on Monday we learned of another $110,000 gifted on November 19, 2023, roughly six weeks after the terrorist attacks that unfolded in southern Israel on October 7.

Israel is close to Milgrom’s heart. We reported a year ago that she’d withdrawn her support for C200 and its pet MPs over their inordinate hostility ­towards the Jewish state. Notice, too, that we didn’t call them ‘‘teals’’, as is popular; Simon gets immensely frustrated when people call them ‘teals’ and not “community independents”, as he’d like, even though he spent years calling them ‘‘teals’’ himself on the public record and wrote a book called ‘‘The Big Teal’’, whose title sounds a lot like a play on “The Big Steal”, that movie from the 1990s, although we’d never accuse him of trying to steal anything, or of trying to manipulate anyone, especially voters.

Adam Milgrom.

Climate 200 group founder Simon Holmes a Court.

Milgrom’s buyers’ remorse (with Simon) seemed to kick in around one week after the October 7 massacre, when community independents Kylea Tink and Sophie Scamps voted with a Greens motion to accuse Israel, still counting its dead, of committing war crimes in Gaza. No mention of the hostages anywhere in that motion.

Presumably Milgrom, daughter of Holocaust survivor and late Sussan co-founder Marc Besen, was even more puzzled when Kooyong MP Monique Ryan tweeted the bleeding obvious just days later, on November 1, that the human suffering in Gaza was “intolerable”, which anyone of sound mind would have agreed with, except Ryan omitted any mention of the sadistic scenes of October 7 in her tweet. No mention of the hostages, either.

Yet in spite of all that, not only have Milgrom’s progeny dumped more funds into the arms of C200 and SHAC, per the AEC disclosures, but Tripple continues to house the C200 headquarters at a Milgrom-owned building in the suburb of Richmond. Talk about keeping everyone in the tent. Is C200 paying any rent for the privilege or is that an in-kind donation of a sort that Tripple should declare with the AEC?

Is this how the children of the uber-rich stick it to their folks, by flicking declarable donations at fashionable, taboo causes they’ve shunned? An old saying comes to mind: the first generation makes it, the second generation spends it … the third generation blows it.

Meanwhile, Ryan has refused to rule out cutting any deal with the Greens, virulently anti-Israel as they are, should a hung parliament materialise post-election, just as Goldstein community independent Zoe Daniel has refused to be drawn on what she’ll do in an identical scenario – which is more or less what Ryan said anyway.

Irish intrigue

It’s been four months since Labor grandee Gary Gray left his post as Australia’s Ambassador to Ireland and still no sign of a new appointment to the plum diplomatic posting, or another similarly coveted role. Margin Call hears there’s been plenty of jousting over the position.

Under diplomatic conventions Gray remains the incumbent until formally recalled and replaced. That hasn’t happened yet, even though the former Labor MP has well and truly departed Ireland. After a farewell party with staff in September, Gray returned to Australia and picked up a boardroom gig with ASX-listed engineering firm Civmec, along with consulting work.

But those in diplomatic and political circles are scratching their heads as to why a replacement hasn’t yet been announced.

Brendan O’Connor. Picture: Caitlan Charles

When Gray ended his tenure at Abbey Lea, the residence of Australia’s ambassador to Ireland since it was bought by Robert Menzies’ government for £30,000 in 1965, outgoing Labor veteran Brendan O’Connor was the firm favourite for the role.

Some delay on an appointment was expected, given the government didn’t want to face a by-election in O’Connor’s Victorian seat of Gorton. But with an election looming, O’Connor, like Bill Shorten, could easily step down without triggering an early poll in the seat. Or Foreign Minister Penny Wong could have pushed back his appointment date until after the last possible date for a Federal election.

But O’Connor may no longer be the only contender, with former Victorian Senator Jacinta Collins said to be angling for a diplomatic posting while Labor remains in power. A behind-the-scenes tussle would seem just like old times for the two former Victorian factional powerbrokers.

Also linked with the role is South Australian Senator Don Farrell. Farrell, however, to be fair, has told everyone that’s asked he’s got no interest in a retirement gig overseas, and that when he finally leaves parliament it will be to take up a quiet life on his farm and vineyard in the Clare Valley.

But that hasn’t stopped speculation that Farrell may still announce a last-minute retirement from the Senate to take up a diplomatic posting instead.

Gary Gray. Picture: AAP

Similarly vacant is another plum diplomatic posting to the Holy See, or the Vatican, for the non-Catholics among us. That has been vacant since Chiara Porro left the role in November, with career diplomat Marcus Wu sitting as the embassy’s Charge d’Affaires since her departure. The two roles have only been split since 2008, of course, when the Rudd government sent former Nationals leader Tim Fischer to the Vatican and followed up by posting diplomat Bruce Davis to Ireland.

But whatever the outcome, Wong has an obvious opportunity coming to end the speculation.

Gray’s wife, Pippa, spent her time at Abbey Lea writing a history of the building. So significant is Abbey Lea in Ireland that the book garnered blurbs from Australian literary legend Tom Keneally, former Irish Taoiseach (prime ministers) Bertie Ahern and Micheal Martin, and U2 lead guitarist The Edge. It also hit the Irish bestseller lists.

The Australian launch of the book is at Canberra’s Parliament House on February 11, surely an opportune moment for Wong to announce Gray’s replacement?

(And no, for the cynics among us, no taxpayer funds to write the book. While declining to weigh into any talk about his successor, Gray told Margin Call that he even pre-emptively banned embassy staff from using a DFAT credit card to buy a copy for the office).