The Australian Financial Review was supposed to hold its Government Services Summit at the Canberra Hyatt on Tuesday, with the line-up of speakers for this marquee event ranging from leading public servants like Alison Frame, secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and David Hazlehurst, CEO of Services Australia, to Katy Gallagher, Bill Shorten, and the hot-new-kid of cabinet, Murray Watt. The AFR’s managing editor Cosima Marriner was down to make the opening remarks, with Nine’s publishing boss Tory Maguire scheduled to deliver a keynote and political editor Phillip Coorey slated to interview Shorten on stage.
Well, that was all put on ice late Monday, the newspaper publishing a cryptic statement online for why its events team had “been forced” to postpone the gathering with such little notice – and at no small expense either.
“Despite our determination to bring this event to you, it is now clear that your experience of the Summit would be disrupted to an unacceptable degree if we were to proceed,” the statement said. “We sincerely apologise for the late notice and for any inconvenience this may have caused you.”
The cause of this disruption? A busload of picketing Nine journalists who planned to drive down from Sydney and crash the event. Management couldn’t bear the embarrassment of its own reporters demonstrating outside the hotel.
This, of course, just as Nine CEO Mike Sneesby is scheduled to arrive back in Sydney from the Paris Olympics – and to newsrooms still smarting over the optics of his torch-bearing in the lead-up to the opening ceremony.
Falling standards
The hallowed grounds of The Australian Club in Melbourne’s CBD were once prized for their exclusivity and the unusually high bar for membership.
Nominees required more than just three layers of approval from club insiders; they also needed the binding word of four referees before anyone would even take a look at their application.
Late last year, in a move that alarmed its distinguished clientele, those standards were quietly watered down, a decision that some say will mean almost any old berk could walk in and seek membership, the venue now barely stricter than its lessers at the Melbourne Cricket Club.
Newly sworn president (and former Tupperware boss) Charles Henry rubbished any suggestion of the sort, but clearly there’s a case to be answered given that Ryan Batros, founder of BR Capital, has just been given a nod to join by club committee member Nicholas Smedley.
Smedley is the son of former Colonial boss Peter “Pac-Man” Smedley, and may be familiar to some for bringing himself into disrepute some years ago.
In 2007 he pleaded guilty to two counts of assaulting his fiance at the family’s Toorak mansion. More recently he’s been tied up in court with the liquidators of his former development company, Steller, both sides heading for a tentative trial date in February.
Batros, meanwhile, has his own chequered past. He received a five-year ban from ASIC in 2016 while working as a client adviser at Morgans.
He appealed that decision to the Administrative Appeals Tribunals, and it affirmed ASIC’s finding one year later.
Old timers at the club really do lament what they’re seeing.
They talk about Melbourne identity John “Big Jack” Elliott, an eighties fast-laner who declared bankruptcy in 2005, and who died in 2021 with $6951 in his bank account. Having fallen in social status, he tried out for membership at the club once his bankruptcy was discharged. He didn’t stand a chance.
As one member told Margin Call, someone with a five year ASIC ban like Batros would never have come close either in years gone by.
“It’s pure ineptitude if no one checked this man’s history,” they said. “I remember when Elliott tried to come back after his bankruptcy, a group of committee members quickly kiboshed that. Something like this would never have happened.”
This, after all, is the club of Robert Menzies, although Batros does appear to be in fine company.
He’s seeking membership in the same applicant pool as Victorian County Court Judge Philip Ginnane.
Shaping up
Regional Express dived into a trading halt on Monday after our weekend report revealed a turnaround team from Deloitte had been fiddling about in the cockpit trying to save the airline from ruin.
But loyal readers instead homed in on another, very minor detail: our casual besmirching of aviation’s “Golden Triangle” – the route between Sydney-Melbourne-Brisbane – as nothing more than a misnomer.
“The route connecting them forms no obvious triangle,” we said, prompting howls of indignation.
“Plot it on Google maps … and you will clearly see a triangle,” said Proud Hetero White Man.
“Basic geometry,” sneered Martin. “The cities clearly make a triangle,” said Linda.
“An obtuse scalene triangle,” added Brian.
Chart the route on a map we did and, frankly, it’s a poor excuse for a triangle, least of all a “Golden Triangle”, a term that speaks of its own perfection, a platonic ideal, but instead delivers something squat, warped and lopsided, barely Euclidean. But, yes, a triangle. Can we agree to disagree?
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