Piano-playing NAB banker Andrew Hagger faces royal commission

Illustration: Rod Clement

It’s the question dominating Kenneth Hayne’s royal commission: will NAB’s wealth boss Andrew Hagger turn up to the federal court in his blue Maserati GranTurismo?

There’s understable anticipation in the industry about the imminent summoning of Hagger for a bit of Rowena “Shock and” Orr’s worst. And not just about his entrance.

Hagger, 51, is a direct report to NAB chief executive Andrew “$6.3 million” Thorburn and will be the most senior banker to appear in the Hayne Show to date. As well as running NAB’s wealth management arm MLC, Hagger chairs the NAB-owned private wealth and stockbroking group JBWere, whose future with NAB is under question.

There was a time when the increasingly shopworn Hagger — who was recruited to the bank by Ahmed Fahour before his big four dreams were shattered by Cameron Clyne — was near the top of well-informed lists of ­likely Thorburn successors.

But the politics of banking has not been kind to wealth management bosses. As outlined by ASIC’s deputy chairman Peter Kell yesterday in the federal court, Hagger’s not telling a great story.

NAB has been forced by the corporate cop to compensate more than 220,000 customers a total of $41.3 million for services that were never provided.

Matt Comyn’s CBA and Shayne Elliott’s ANZ have come in for similar ASIC punishment.

Those nasty numbers and some bruising appearances in Canberra have seen Hagger fall down the internal charts below Thorburn’s star hire Mike Baird, the former NSW premier, and Thorburn’s dinner date favourite Antony “Not Anthony” Cahill, the former Cessna pilot.

And this being NAB, it’s best not to write off the head of the bank’s New Zealand operations, Angela Mentis. As Thorburn and his predecessor Clyne attest, big things in Docklands are possible after that gig.

Perhaps Hagger will be able to get some sympathy from Orr for the pay cut he took last year. His total remuneration was only $3.5m — down from $4.1m the year before.

If that fails Hagger could play up his extra-curricular talents.

To his great credit, there is a lot more to Hagger than just wearing pinstripe suits and accumulating Scrooge McDuck-style piles of cash.

The Lower Plenty resident and self-declared lover of fine wine is an occasional food writer for the The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s Good Food Guides. Bespoke hats off to him. That’s pretty cool.

But even better is his other hobby: he’s a classically trained pianist and with some compositional flair.

His solo albums Vivid and Moon Under Water both charted in ARIA’s classical Top 10.

It’s well known at in the darklands of Docklands that performing helps Hagger relax before big professional moments.

NAB’s Andrew Haggar will have to face the music

Which helps explain his other big project this week. Margin Call has learned Hagger is performing at Brunswick’s Jazzlab as the big four half of Catsplay, his new jazz collaboration with Robyn Payne. The ensemble play tonight.

Clearly “Shock and Orr” hasn’t troubled this talented member of the pinstripe brigade.

Lottoland adventures

The curse of the Gibraltarians has come to Brookvale Oval, aka Lottoland.

Over the weekend Daly Cherry-Evans’ Manly Sea Eagles were humiliated at their home ground by Benji Marshall’s West Tigers, 38-12.

It seemed a fitting metaphor for the club’s man sponsor.

Luke Brill’s Gibraltar-headquartered, NT-licensed online betting outfit Lottoland remains on the top of the Australian endangered species list.

Lottoland CEO Luke Brill has a fight on his hands. Picture: Toby Zerna

Readers might remember Communications Minister Mitch Fifield is leading the eradication effort to ban betting on lotteries and keno games (known as “synthetic” lotteries). Fifield is confident the law will pass the Senate soon after the May budget.

That’s despite the best efforts of Lottoland’s desperate last minute lobbying, led by Barton Deakin director Andrew Humpherson, a Manly fan who was signed up weeks ago and was not at Brookvale on Sunday for the bloodbath.

For now the Humpherson-advised effort has focused on trying to win over the hearts — or at least wallets — of the nation’s newsagents with a still-to-be-finalised profit-sharing agreement.

It’s quite an about-face by Brill’s Gibraltarians. Not much more than a year ago Lottoland typecast those same newsagents as dinosaurs — on their way to their inevitable extinction following devastation, not by a comet, but the internet.

No wonder the newsagent’s peak association isn’t convinced.

As for Canberra — from Labor, to One Nation, to the Greens, to the remnants of the Nick Xenophon Team, to the Coalition — it’s hard to find a single Lottoland supporter.

Just horsing around

One person who has come to the defence of Lottoland from the Turnbull government is Sydney broadcaster Alan Jones.

Alan Jones supports Lottoland. Picture: Glenn Hampson

As he tells his audience, that’s because the Gibraltarians have paid him. Handsomely.

As Barton Deakin could tell, there’s money to be made tilting at windmills. Just make sure you are the one advising the doomed jockey, not riding the horse.

Speaking of horses and Jones, both were along at Peter V’landys’ Randwick Racecourse for The Championships, one of the highlights of the Sydney racing year.

Also along to watch Winx win her 25th successive race was a mighty contingent of the NSW Coalition, who ended up trackside with David Attenborough’s Tabcorp, which since merging with lotteries giants Tatts is the sworn enemy of Lottoland.

Joining Attenborough were former NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell (now the CEO of Racing Australia), NSW Sports Minister Stuart Ayres (whose similarly horse-mad partner, Defence Minister Marise Payne, was away on Syrian matters), NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, his effervescent Berejiklian ministerial colleague Matt Kean, Bronwyn Bishop-slayer Jason Falinski (the member for Mackellar) and Mitch Fifield’s senior adviser Luke Tobin.

No sign of Brill though. Maybe he only got a synthetic invite.