Rich-listers set sail for Europe

Illustration: Rod Clement

Is there a rich lister left in Australia to vote in person at the polls today?

A flotilla of luxury yachts is amassing in European waters, all while Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his opposition rival Bill Shorten are locked in political battle for our nation’s top office.

Late yesterday the super yacht Volpini, owned by trucking billionaire Lindsay Fox, was on its way to Capri, just off the coast of Italy near Sorrento, as revellers gather for the billionaire’s “conception party”. The Festival of Fox kicks off next week — nine months before his 80th birthday in April next year.

His fellow billionaire buddy Solomon Lew is taking his own yacht Maridome along to the festivities (ex-wife Rosie will be among the hundreds of guests cruising on board the Foxes’ hired “Love Boat”, while Solly’s new love Rosa will be with the retailer).

Yesterday the 54m Maridome was on its way to St Tropez in southeastern France, while Lew’s other, smaller vessel Texas (more of a dinghy at 45m) appears to be in dry dock in Sydney.

Fellow Fox billionaire party­goer Gina Rinehart, who married off youngest daughter Ginia last weekend, doesn’t have a mega-boat of her own. Best not bring that up when you next bump into the chair of Hancock Prospecting — apparently it’s a sore point.

Instead, Rinehart gets by with a luxury residence aboard The World, a $350 million private residential community-at-sea that is en route to the Mediterranean. For now, The World is enjoying scenic Norway.

Fellow Aussies Rothschild chair Trevor Rowe and Rinehart’s mates Imelda and Bill Roche also have residences on The World.

By coincidence, Frank Lowy’s whopping 74m Ilona was yesterday on its way to frigid Alesund in Norway as well.

Meanwhile billionaire James Packer’s 88m icebreaker Arctic P (he might be slipping down the rich list, but he’s still got the biggest boat) is just off the southern Italian city of Naples, gearing up for the European bikini season.

The budgie smuggler-loving casino billionaire and his Fantasy fiancee Mariah Carey are expected on board in the vicinity of St Tropez later this month. We can’t wait till the pop diva’s Russian publicist Stella Bulochnikov sends through the pics.

Penn ties the knot

It’s estimated that one in four votes in today’s federal election have been cast ahead of the poll.

Joining our cast of floating billionaires in the European summer are Telstra boss Andy Penn and Nebraskan-born Latin ballroom dancing gallery director Kallie Blauhorn, who are getting married in the Tuscan hills of San Gimignano over the election weekend.

So you won’t bump into Penn at either Malcolm Turnbull’s election night party (or bloodbath) in Sydney’s CBD, or Bill Shorten’s knees-up (or wake) out in Moonee Ponds.

It also means it’s not Penn who is now dealing day to day with Telstra’s rolling series of service outages.

Embarrassingly, Telstra’s latest “Vodafail” tribute came on Thursday, the day after it committed $250 million to upgrading its service. Penn communicated that via a blog, presumably banged out while sipping an Aperol Spritz in Piazza della Cisterna.

Penn’s fiancee is on leave until July 19, so it looks like the honeymooning Penn will be leaving the problem-solving to his minions for a few weeks yet.

His Toyota Corolla-driving predecessor at Telstra, David Thodey, was famous for his thrift despite his handsome remuneration, which hit $14.5m in his final year.

In light of the performance of Telstra’s telephony service in the year since Thodey departed, you have to wonder if he took the stinginess a little far.

Thodey is now the chair of the CSIRO, Australia’s premier source of scientific research, which — true to form — is slashing 275 jobs. For the nation’s sake, let’s hope his latest exercise in toe-cutting works out better.

Fight clubs

Well how about that. It turns out there’s a Malcolm Turnbull connection to black-tie boxing in the nation’s male-only private members clubs.

We wrote this week about the upcoming “Black Tie Amateur Boxing Evening” at aged-care authority John Hood’s Australian Club in Melbourne.

The rumble will take place on July 21 in a full-sized competition ring under the spectacular dome of the Main Dining Room, which dates from Queen Victoria’s reign.

As it happens, Turnbull’s former investment banking business partner, Nick Whitlam, son of former PM Gough Whitlam, introduced a similar event during his mid-1990s reign as the chairman of Sydney’s Tattersall’s club, which was established in 1858. By all accounts it was a raging success. In a nod to the modern world, Hood’s upcoming event allows male members to bring female guests along.

It’s the date night of IPA boss John Roskam’s dreams.

According to attendees at the Tattersall’s event, held in the less-enlightened mid 90s, there were women there, too — scantily clad ladies who held the round numbers up, and on one memorable occasion seemed to form a special bond to the delight of many of the assembled male members.

Would never happen in 2016 — outside of Kalgoorlie’s Diggers & Dealers, which is now only 30 sleeps away.

Missing in action

Party elders John Howard, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating have all been out on the hustings during the marathon campaign, but we’ve seen little of Future Fund and Nine chair Peter Costello over the past eight weeks.

He did make at least one targeted intervention, penning a personal note to each and every voter in his now Greens-threatened former seat of Higgins, urging them to back his former staffer and now Assistant Treasurer Kelly O’Dwyer.

Now that Costello’s 60 Minutes crew, including star reporter Tara Brown, are off the hook on child kidnapping charges in the Sally Faulkner affair, perhaps we’ll see more of him. Interestingly, Beirut prosecuting judge Rami Abdullah found that the 60 Minutes crew “were asked to be part of this by their bosses”. A tidy pre-election gift for the report’s boned producer Stephen Rice and his workplace lawyer John Laxon.

The pair had paused Rice’s mooted legal action against the network over his dismissal, pending the Beirut decision.

On-holiday Nine boss Hugh Marks and Costello can expect delivery of that particular “shit sandwich” not long after election weekend.

New drawing

Today this column warmly welcomes a new cartoonist to these pages — the award-winning Rod Clement. Welcome Rod.