Twitter identity Stock Swami (Alan Davison) v mining investor Tolga Kumova; Mixed messages: Dominic Perrottet, Peter Dutton

Mining investor Tolga Kumova with his limited edition Ferrari in St Kilda, Melbourne. Picture: David Geraghty / The Australian.

A moniker familiar to at least a few stockpickers is that of Twitter identity Stock Swami – better known as Alan Davison – a gadfly of the internet who has undergone an unmasking through the legal action of mining investor Tolga Kumova.

Davison’s two-week defamation trial is scheduled to begin on June 20 and already he’s suffered a range of setbacks, including the loss of his barrister, Michael McHugh SC, at what appears to be at the eleventh hour.

This became apparent during a late afternoon application filed before Federal Court Justice Michael Lee on Thursday, when his lawyers sought to excuse him from travelling to Australia to provide his evidence in person.

It was a bold gambit that appeared doomed to fail from the outset, given Lee’s absolute and documented commitment to seeing justice served through the writhing and stammering of witnesses under the rude glare of cross-examination.

Kumova alleges that he was defamed on numerous occasions by Davison’s tweets, which allegedly included assertions of his involvement in insider trading, share price manipulation, and pump-and-dump schemes.

Davison has denied some imputations and says others are justifiable.

In court his lawyers argued the 67-year-old should be permitted to give evidence via audiovisual link from New Zealand’s North Island, where he resides, owing to his age and genuine concerns that he might contract Covid-19 if he were to travel beyond the bubble of ­Tauranga.

“He’s not in the highest risk group, but he is in a higher risk group,” said Davison’s freshly-appointed barrister, Dauid ­Sibtain.

“He’s slightly older than me,” remarked Lee, apparently unpersuaded.

The situation barely improved when the court was reminded that Davison had signalled an intention during an earlier court hearing to venture beyond New Zealand for Vanuatu, and that he planned to do this in late July.

But perhaps this was always going to be an uphill argument given Lee’s on-the-record disdain for watching evidence being adduced over AVL, especially the sight of witnesses relaxing into the proceedings from their living room, ­something he’s already dubbed the “leisurewear effect”.

“There is something about coming into a court, the solemnity that involves, it being an unfamiliar place, which is important to the judicial process,” Lee reiterated on Thursday.

“Someone has to come up there, stand up, make an oath in front of the coat of arms with barristers around. It is something about that which is fundamentally important in the administration of justice.”

In a postscript of losses, Davison was also ordered to pay costs over the application.

Mixed messages

Desperate times and strategies emerging from the Macquarie Street bunker of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet, where fortifications are being erected for an election contest in March against an energised Labor opposition.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

An apparent frustration for the Premier has been trying to demarcate his leadership from that of his predecessor, Gladys Berejiklian, whose government was characterised by infrastructure spending – that is, cranes and hard hats and photo opportunities to supplement the boring milestones of tunnel excavating machines. Yes, you read that correctly.

But with unemployment reaching exceedingly low levels and debt no longer as fashionable, Perrottet, once a great panjandrum of infrastructure spending, has been eager to stop talking about shovels in the dirt and to start billing himself as the premier for “families and women”. No word yet on what this flipping of the script means for anyone outside that cohort.

Instructions to staff and ministers have been formalised by Perrottet consigliore Peter Phelps – executive director of the Premier’s office – that they should also begin selling the equally contrived government message of “building a brighter future”.

Given the impending disasters of runaway inflation, higher mortgage rates, a housing squeeze and an east coast gas crisis, a brighter future shouldn’t be too difficult to envisage, although for voters in the must-win battleground of western Sydney we imagine that anything is better than a nightly curfew and soldiers patrolling the streets; we won’t soon forget that disgraceful episode in our city’s recent history and the loose truth those measures were predicated upon.

All of this got us wondering if strategy became a topic of conversation during Perrottet’s meeting with Peter Dutton on Tuesday. The Opposition Leader was witnessed sharking through the halls of parliament, with the premier’s office grudgingly confirming that a tete-a-tete took place.

“Yes, they did have a meeting,” one of Perrottet’s minders told Margin Call. “We can confirm that.”

Metaverse mania

As one of the world’s largest developers, perhaps it’s obvious that the next frontier for Lendlease would be to acquire land in the metaverse.

Staff in the housing leviathan’s marketing team were treated to a presentation on Friday spruiking the benefits of virtual real estate. This after the developer set up its own personal metaverse in Milan earlier this year.

Expect more of this from Lendlease, which is already offering virtual housing tours of its development sites in outer suburban Sydney, saving buyers the need to schlep past Campbelltown.

We’re eager to know whether any of this is likely to impress John Wylie’s Tanarra Capital, which sent Lendlease chief executive Tony Lombardo a seven-point plan earlier this year with unsolicited advice on how to transform the company and boost its share price. No mention of the metaverse, from what we recollect.

INSIDE MARGIN CALL

Lendlease stakes its claim in the metaverse