Victorian Labor MP Luba Grigorovitch enjoys a superyacht holiday; Crunch time for Stephen Jones
Once a blue-collar hero, Victorian Labor MP Luba Grigorovitch currently resides with husband Ben Gray, of BGH Capital, between a South Yarra penthouse and a $30m pile purchased two years ago in the Mornington Peninsula, setting a property record at the time.
Luxury real estate might be a new-found extravagance for the former Rail, Tram and Bus Union president, who loves boasting of her working class credentials, and who still speaks of being “proudly a woman from the west”, but these are merely the fringe benefits of hypergamy, of which travel is another.
Margin Call has confirmed that the couple hired a superyacht named Silver Dream for a holiday in Europe last month, taking pals on a getaway that few would consider cheap. The price of this floating gin palace – with on-board masseuse – set Gray and Grigorovitch back about $250,000.
Dropping anchor in the Mediterranean is about as far as one can get from Grigorovitch’s electorate of Kororoit, in Melbourne’s western suburbs, yet those following her social accounts would have been fooled into thinking she was actually back home, on the tools, the entire time.
“Exploring history and nature in my own backyard!” Grigorovitch wrote on July 6, while allegedly taking a stroll along Kororoit Creek. She was actually on Silver Dream that day, not far from southern Croatia, where the ship has been in port for about two weeks.
A few days later came a post celebrating national NAIDOC week, and a railway station opening in Deer Park. “Take a look at this sign!” she wrote, beneath a photograph of her at the site. She wasn’t even decent enough to drop a #latergram.
Not that Grigorovitch could be blamed for trying to keep her seaborne adventure on the DL. Bit awkward to be swanning around the Amalfi Coast on a private yacht when your entire image is built around that of an outer western battler.
The inevitable drama with seaside jollies is that the phone reception is just so unreliable, which is why Grigorovitch was hopelessly out of reach when damaging headlines of kickbacks and thuggery within the CFMEU, led until that point by John Setka, landed with the force of an asteroid smashing into Victoria on July 12.
Grigorovitch and Setka go way back. She owes her seat in parliament to the support of his CFMEU. She supported him during a domestic violence scandal involving his estranged wife, and he attended her wedding to Gray. Grigorovitch even gave him a shout out during her inaugural speech to parliament two years ago. “Thank you to Johnny Setka – I think it is your first time in the gallery, is it not?”
No one begrudges a politician taking a holiday, but misrepresenting oneself as being in the electorate the entire time can go to character.
“I proudly promote my electorate 365 days of the year on many platforms, scheduling posts each month including while I’m travelling whether that be for work or personal!” Grigorovitch told Margin Call.
At least she didn’t lie and claim some schmuck in the office was behind it.
Banks muscle up
Crunch time for Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones, who’ll update a sold-out room of anxious corporate leaders at CEDA on Friday on the trajectory of the Consumer Data Right.
Haven’t heard of the CDR? It’s a contentious bit of policy that, in theory, paves the way for smoother information sharing; ultimately that should make life easier for everyone to, say, switch out of a bad home loan for a better one, among other conveniences.
Not surprisingly, the banks hate the CDR, its threat of increased competition, and have leaned hard on the assistant treasurer for more than a year to kill off its expansion. This campaign continues. On Monday their lobbying arm, the Australian Banking Association, used an Accenture report to rubbish the CDR and its potential for abuse by scammers. They used the same report a month ago to suggest the CDR was nothing more than a white elephant.
Stakeholders, fruitlessly knocking on Jones’s office door for months in the hope of gleaning some policy direction on the CDR, have repeatedly been told to wait for his CEDA speech. It’s why they’ve agreed to pay $1500 per table to get a whiff of the way the wind’s blowing, although they’d be far better off just speaking to the ABA’s Anna Bligh, who already seems to know exactly what Jones is going to say.
Banking officials have been boasting for weeks that Jones will spout off a set of dated talking points on Friday and kick the CDR’s expansion into the long grass. Timelines set for this year will be pushed out past the next election.
There’s really no point doubting this assessment, either. Treasury officials admitted to parliament just days ago that there hasn’t been a briefing with Jones on CDR legislation since January.
So, you do have to feel for the rubes lining up for the CEDA gathering. Imagine paying for the privilege of receiving public policy direction from a minister who hasn’t taken a briefing on the issue all year. Except, maybe, from the ABA.
Dom’s swan song
BHP’s new man in Washington, Dom Perrottet, will deliver a valedictory address to the NSW parliament on Tuesday, marking an unofficial end to his 13-year stint as a politician, including an 18-month bit of fun as the state’s premier during the Covid-19 pandemic. The official part will happen whenever Perrottet formally retires and a by-election is called for his seat of Epping.
If Perrottet is remembered for anything it would have to be his commitment to reopening Sydney during the darkest days of the lockdown period.
One masterstroke was his gathering of a handful of corporate leaders, such as Barrenjoey’s Matthew Grounds, former ANZ chair David Gonski and Merivale’s Justin Hemmes, among others, to steer him on the economic impacts of the shutdown.
These heavyweights were all given a direct line to the premier, if only to kvetch about their suffering sectors, and one assumes Perrottet didn’t mind and put up with it if only for the outstanding networking opportunities they all presented. (As treasurer he got a special kick out of being mentioned in the same sentence as Grounds.)
It therefore shouldn’t surprise anyone that the post-valedictory beveraginos will be held among the sunken lounge and spa facilities of the Ivy Penthouse, owned by Hemmes, with the billionaire more than likely to make an appearance. The smart money would be on a much longer night of celebrations. Perrottet’s invitation suggests he’s got the place for two hours. Presumably Hemmes has comped him for the occasion, too. It’s not a cheap venue for hire.
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