Pro-Palestine posturing reaches operatic levels; Spotlight on a swift superyacht

Sydney Opera House chief Louise Herron has withdrawn from a Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce business briefing.

Political activism in the arts is about as common as house dust now, and so is it any great surprise to learn that Fiona Winning, director of programming at the Sydney Opera House, has been posting nigh on repeatedly online in support of Palestine and ceasefires and fundraisers for Palestinians since the October 7 massacres?

Winning sits on the Opera House executive team and reports directly to CEO Louise Herron but verily runs the show and pretty much decides who gets a platform and who doesn’t. Which goes some way to explain how virulently anti-Israel speakers keep being invited to appear at the venue, and which venue hasn’t exactly been held in high esteem by the nation’s Jewish community for repeatedly platforming said speakers, execrable and spittle-flecked and perceivably anti-Semitic as they are sometimes.

Clementine Ford in full voice at a pro-Palestine rally. Picture: Valeriu Campan

In that spirit, petitioning continues to have Clementine Ford pulled from the upcoming bill of this year’s All About Women festival, held in the week of International Women’s Day, after she singled out Jewish women for a bit of a cleanse in December.

“This one goes out to all the Zionist women who are furious that their bloodlust isn’t being supported,” she wrote. “You’re pathetic, you disgust me and I pity uou (sic) for being so f…king basic and gross.” And on and on it went.

Herron had an opportunity to repair relations with the Jewish community, having agreed to appear at a business briefing put on by the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce a week ago. The emails went out confirming her appearance but that was followed with an updated line-up in which she’d been switched out for a director of the Paul Ramsey Foundation, Julia Davison.

We wondered at the time what led to Herron’s abrupt disappearance from the event, with neither Herron nor the AICC responding to questions. We could only suspect internal pressure at the Opera House might have caused the CEO to reconsider the engagement. That’s our “winning” theory.

And speaking of whom, no reply from the programming director or the Opera House on the posts, either.

The other theory, of course, is that maybe Herron just didn’t want to be asked why she’s letting two people who’ve been glorying in the doxxing of Jews – namely Ford and another speaker Randa Abdel-Fattah – have a platform at the iconic venue next month?

Tax conflicts

Leaders of the Tax Practitioners Board will be back in Canberra on Thursday when they front another public hearing into the audit, assurance and consulting industries, otherwise known as the PwC industrial vortex.

Not that any of this is fresh territory for TPB chair Peter McCure and his CEO Michael O’Neill, who’ve quested back and forth to the nation’s capital repeatedly over the past year. And yet even with all that travel there remain unresolved questions, especially with the conduct of the TPB’s investigation into PwC, which is live and mid-probe into several Australian partners.

We raise this now because Margin Call has seen a legal letter to the TPB’s O’Neill dated January 19, 2023, outlining a range of concerns with the TPB investigation, particularly the involvement of O’Neill himself. This alone was previously raised with the board but was never “actioned”, the letter says.

The crux of the issue, as the lawyers at Ashurst try to put it, is that O’Neill worked for the ATO and was a member of the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Tax Advisory Group, of which Peter Collins, the alleged supervillain in the PwC exercise, was also a part, and who would go on to form the absolute centre of the TPB investigation into PwC’s breaches of confidentiality.

This, the lawyers say, was a matter of “considerable concern”, because O’Neill was on the BEPS committee with Collins and involved “in the very process that was the subject of the investigation”.

“In such circumstances, his involvement inevitably raised questions as to independence and conflicts,” the letter said. “It is unclear to us why his involvement was allowed to continue, but whatever the reason the apparent independence of the board was undermined by this.”

A matter, perhaps, for ALP senator Deborah O’Neill, chair of the joint committee, which will be hearing from De Cure and O’Neill on Thursday?

Swift’s on board

So whose luxury yacht was entertainment phenomenon Taylor Swift partying aboard on Tuesday night after she wrapped up the Sydney leg of her Eras tour – just ahead of her father’s tussle with snapper Ben McDonald?

Scott Swift, her millionaire Dad and money-guru for clients via Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, is alleged to have punched the pap in the face after the Swift party disembarked at Neutral Bay in the wee hours.

A three-level gin palace that comes in at 36m, their superyacht, Quantum, belongs to Sydney property baron Stephen Burcher, who’s made millions developing commercial real estate but also buying and selling mansions in Vaucluse, Rose Bay and Woollahra. There’s also a bothy of some description over in Palm Beach that’s in his name.

The 36m-long Quantum entertained pop star Taylor Swift.

Burcher runs his eponymous operation – Burcher Property Group – from its headquarters in Double Bay and owns the yacht via an entity associated with BPG. He told Margin Call that Swift, her family and wider party were reported by the crew to be a delight to have aboard.

“They are very nice people, very straight up and down and didn’t ask for any freebies or favours,” he said.

Turns out the Swifts chartered Quantum a few times over their days in Sydney, including in one instance to travel from Homebush to Sydney after Tay Tay’s concerts at Accor Stadium.

Burcher also named Elton John, Chris Hemsworth, Will Smith and Angelina Jolie as occasional clients. “We value that particular side of the business. It’s the only way they can get some privacy sometimes,” he said.

The cost? Quantum can be hired for about $3000 an hour or $22,000 for a day.

And as for the beef between Swift senior and McDonald, the matter’s now in the hands of the local police, with a Swift spokesman offering this take.

“Two individuals were aggressively pushing their way towards Taylor, grabbing at her security personnel, and threatening to throw a female staff member into the water.”