PM’s family turns out for his big day

2015-09-16 New PM Turnbull soars 9mgfin.jpg Peter Nicholson illo

A former investment banker in charge of our nation — what could possibly go wrong?

Lawyer, banker, entrepreneur Malcolm Turnbull was sworn in as our new PM yesterday, but his two-year-old grandson Jack, who’d travelled from Sydney for the big day, stole the show.

Jack, gripping his yellow toy train, was there for Grandpa’s big moment, while grandma and our nation’s latest first lady Lucy beamed at her husband and their assembled family, which included Lucy’s dad, former Sydney QC and attorney-general Tom Hughes.

The PM’s wife has pared back her commercial and not-for-profit directorships, leaving a handful of key roles including an appointment earlier this year to the board of the Gretel Packer-led Packer Family Foundation, which is one of Australia’s biggest philanthropic vehicles. She’s on the board with Free TV Australia chair Harold Mitchell and James Packer’s mum Ros.

Turnbull’s wife is also on the board of the Grattan Institute, along with BHP’s Andrew McKenzie, Allan Myers QC and Macquarie director Patricia Cross.

Then there is the listed, but loss-making Prima Biomed, which Lucy chairs in return for $150,000 a year and shares the board with Albert Wong, the former business partner of the late Neville Wran. She is also a non-exec director of Kangaroo Island ferry operator service Sealink, where she tucks $69,000 a year into her paisley jacket pocket. The couple’s daughter Daisy is a history teacher, while their Harvard-educated and Mandarin-speaking son Alex runs his own hedge fund, Keshik Capital, in Singapore.

Giving it all away

Every squillionaire worth their salt have a philanthropic foundation and the Wunulla Road Turnbulls of Sydney’s east are no exception.

Unlike this nation’s accounts, the Turnbull Foundation is in the black and has $6.2 million cash in the bank, plus $4.2 million invested in bonds and international stocks.

One of its assets is $1.4m in bonds in a company called Praeco, which is the builder of the new Department of Defence Headquarters Joint Operations Command outside Canberra, which it picked up cheap from one of the Turnbull family companies.

In recent times the foundation has given $25,000 to the Biennale of Sydney, which Lucy has been a director of, $20,000 to the Australian Chamber Orchestra, $200,000 to Rhodes scholarships in Australia — a donation that would make Tony Abbott smile.

Sydney’s Scots College got $10,000 and Canberra’s ANU $70,000. The family’s Felix Bay Ltd — named for the Point Piper bay that fronts their mansion — is trustee of the foundation. The power couple, Daisy and the pair’s good friend and Kerry Stokes’s legal mind Bruce McWilliam are all directors.

Slumming it

Former PM Tony Abbott and his wife Margie weren’t living in the Lodge in Canberra, which has been under renovation.

Instead, Abbott stayed in a $120-a-night flat with AFP recruits. In contrast, Turnbull enjoys views of Lake Burleigh Griffin from his own Canberra waterfront apartment.

Abbott and his family made Kirribilli House on Sydney’s harbour their primary residence, but how could the Turnbull’s bear the downgrade from own multi-million-dollar Point Piper harbourfront pile, which leads on to the secret Lady Martins Beach. They’d have to say goodbye to Bruce McWilliam, who lives 800m up the road, along with the likes of furniture retailers Donna and Nick Scali and socialite Tiffany Tilley who is the wife of Kerry Packer’s former poker partner Ben. MacBank founding director Robin Crawford is also nearby.

Cheers for Speers

Our new PM might think Australia owes Tony Abbott an “enormous debt of gratitude”, but what about Sky News anchor David Speers, who we suspect slept under his desk overnight on Monday.

The political editor broadcast for almost 10 hours straight, still pumping out content at midnight, all the while dealing with an at-times hysterical Paul Murray, who appeared unable to cope with the evening’s shocks, alongside Peter Van Onselen, who also put in a marathon performance.

After a few hours’ kip the team was then back on air — with fellow anchor Kieran Gilbert (in a spectacular fluoro pink spotted tie) from 5am and Speers from 7am. At 6pm Speers was still talking. Sky boss Angelo Frangopoulos, a mooted candidate for the top ABC job to replace Mark Scott, would only be proud.