X marks top spot for Nick Xenophon backer Ian Melrose

Illustration: Rod Clement.

Federal kingmaker Nick Xenophon’s primary benefactor, Melbourne millionaire Ian Melrose, couldn’t be happier with his man’s showing in the still unfolding federal election.

“I am in a state of excitement,” Melrose told us yesterday as counting continued in the South Australian seat of Grey, where Nick Xenophon Team candidate Andrea Broadfoot was still in the hunt for a second lower house seat for the independent party.

If Broadfoot snatches victory from the Libs’ Rowan Ramsey it could mean Malcolm Turnbull’s only way of keeping the prime ministership is by leading a minority government.

Grey would join NXT’s triumphant candidate in the South Australian seat of Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, who felled her former boss, Jamie Briggs (of Hong Kong-bar Stormies fame). The team will also have two or three crucial upper house seats when Australia’s 45th Parliament convenes — we hope some time before Christmas.

One thing not in doubt is that the Senate crossbench will be a whopper.

“What it tells you is that ­people aren’t happy with Labor or Liberal,” said Melrose, who donated $115,000 to Xenophon in the lead-up to the election.

Lining up pokies

So who does Ian Melrose think the South Australian kingmaker Nick Xenophon — a rare politician who wears suits from Guy Russo’s Target and shoes from Lowes — should side with in a hung parliament?

Political kingmaker Nick Xenophon. Picture: Tricia Watkinson.

“Part of the role of government is to look after the incapacitated, the vulnerable, the have- nots. And gambling reform is needed,” he said. “But with the Labor Party and its poker machines (in Canberra), they are not going to like that”.

ACT chief minister Andrew Barr’s local branch of the ALP relies heavily on poker machine revenue. Labor clubs in the capital city made $25 million last year from poker machines, by far the branch’s most significant source of funding.

If Shorten is going to become PM with Xenophon’s backing, that will probably have to change.

Melrose reckons our nation is in good hands with his man — perhaps not surprising after his sizeable investment.

“(Nick) is a nice person. He has got an amazingly good wit. He is practical. And he is not a Clive Palmer — he’s at the other end of that scale,” the optical supplies businessman and East Timor activist said.

“And at least he can see his toes.”

So was Melrose’s donation to Team Xenophon money well spent?

“Australia may be better off because of it,” he said. “At least we haven’t got a radical ... there is some balance there.”

Not that the millionaire takes any credit for the shoestring campaign’s success.

“The King’s done it. Nick’s the King,” Melrose said. “If he can pull this off he is likely to be able to pull Australia into a better position.”

Swan’s grand times

Returned veteran Labor MP for Lilley Wayne Swan has some exciting weeks ahead.

His musically talented and digitally minded daughter Erinn Swan, 32, is about to deliver the former treasurer and wife Kim their first grandchild. She’s seven months pregnant.

The Swan family.

It’s now history — thanks to our peerless colleague Pamela Williams— that Erinn, as the head of the ALP’s digital campaign, masterminded the ad featuring Labor god Bob Hawke that kicked off the so-called “Mediscare” campaign.

“I am very proud of her, but I don’t want to buy into all the rest of it,” the one-time deputy prime minister Swan told us yesterday.

His other blue-eyed daughter Libbi is a talented performer, while his son Matt is 22 and has Kevin Rudd — who like Swan and Gina Rinehart’s new son-in-law Simon Robinson went to Nambour High — as a godfather.

Swan has held Lilley since 1998, and before that from 1993 for three years before the baseball bats were let lose on Paul Keating and the gang in 1996.

All in the family

Speaking of family connections in the Labor Party’s 2016 campaign, how cosy that both Sam Dastyari and his father-in-law Peter Barron played such a role in Shorten’s success — as underlined in the second part of Pamela Williams first draft of history in The Australian this week.

Back in the day, Barron was prime minister Bob Hawke’s senior political adviser before he left to work for Kerry Packer — blazing an ALP trail to Park Street later followed by Graham Richardson, and then again by Mark Arbib and Karl Bitar, who now work for Kerry’s son James Packer.

Barron remains an immensely respected figure in the right wing of the Labor Party, and clearly one with influence.

And what of his former boss, Hawkie?

Amazingly, despite being the face of the “Mediscare” campaign — after a brainwave by Erinn Swan that was promptly realised by Labor national secretary George Wright — the 86-year-old “Silver Bodgie” remains a widespread figure of adoration.

Indeed many of the same businesspeople and commentators who are bemoaning the “Mediscare” campaign the loudest are the same cast that bang on — tediously — about the grand old days of Hawke-Keating reform.

Will they continue to give Hawke an immunity pass? Over to them.

Taj wrecking balls

Peppermint Grove council boss John Merrick is leaving nothing to chance when it comes to PankajOswal and “wifey” Radhika’s derelict Perth mansion, “Taj on Swan”.

Merrick’s request for tender documents to push over the concrete mess will be out today. That means if the Oswals don’t demolish their $70m unfinished dream home by the end of September, the very next day the council boss will call in the wreckers.

Peppermint Grove’s Taj on Swan.

“We want to be ready on October 1 to knock the bloody thing over,” he told us yesterday.

More than $7m of concrete and more than a few meat pies were estimated to have been poured into the site by building company BGC. Merrick reckons it will cost up to $200,000 to raze. That’s on top of the $110,000 the couple owe the shire for unpaid rates. Because the money has been due for more than three years, Merrick says that after the demo the council has the right to put the site up for sale.

Agents predict the Bay View Terrace land is worth $25m-$30m — once the Oswals’ concrete mess is cleaned up.

After Merrick has taken out the demolition costs and what the council is owed, he says the balance will go into a trust for other creditors, who have lodged caveats over the property’s title.

A mortgage on the property to Mercury Services out of Dubai has been declared void by the Victorian Supreme Court. Another caveat has been lodged by Perth plumbing company EnviroPlumb. Chris Jordan’s ATO — which has claimed the Oswals owed it almost $190m — will have a claim, too.

Meanwhile, the Oswals’ $2.5 billion case against ANZ resumes next week.

All in the timing

Moving to another ANZ legal stoush, the legal team for the bank’s vegetarian boss Shayne Elliottfiled their defence yesterday to the exciting legal case launched by former Bell Potter broker Angus Aitken.

ANZ boss Shayne Elliott. Picture: Mike Burton.

Team Elliott — which includes Herbert Smith Freehills partner Ken Adams and B.A. Santamaria’s son Bob Santamaria, the head of legal affairs at ANZ — lodged their defence in the Supreme Court of NSW at 2.08pm.

That’s Australian Eastern Standard Time (AEST) rather than defamation lawyer Mark O’Brien Time (MOBT).

Enthusiasts of the high-profile case — which turns on a “sexism” tweet sent by vacationing ANZ digital prophet Paul Edwards— will remember that O’Brien had a 15-hour difference in the timing of the tweet. And it now seems Aitken’s lawyer made a second temporal stumble.

According to ANZ’s filing, the email exchange between Aitken and his then boss Colin Bell — the one where the 74-year-old Colin told Aitken his “ANZ comment was like you teed up my nuts and had a full swing with your driver” — took place before Bell spoke on the phone to Elliott.

Before not after Bell spoke to Elliott, whose bank lent the broker $100m and from whom he is trying to buy online trading business ANZ Share Investing.

O’Brien last night declined to comment.

While it’s hardly the end of the case, it looks like an unhelpful cock-up.