Former no more: What Peter Costello did next

It’s been nearly four months since Peter Costello quit as chairman of Nine (owner of this masthead), shortly after a very literal run-in with The Australian’s Liam Mendes after which the former treasurer denied having pushed the pap-turned-reporter to the floor.

But Costello is a former no more, having joined the board of the Cormack Foundation, the secretive private company which funds the Liberal Party and other free enterprise causes including various think tanks.

Former no more: ex-Nine chairman Peter Costello has a new job.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

He was invited to join as a nominee of the Victorian Liberal Party, along with Caroline Elliott, daughter to the late Liberal icon, businessman John Elliott.

The pair replace former prime minister John Howard and former Victorian senator Richard Alston, a former Howard government communications minister currently overseeing the mess at the Liberal Party’s NSW division shortly after publishing a tome on medieval Italian poet Dante Alighieri.

Also off the board is David Williamson (not the playwright), making room for Allan Myers, KC, the barrister, academic, philanthropist, landowner, businessman and former University of Melbourne chancellor.

The formidable Myers acted for Cormack in its high-profile legal fight after Liberal Party elder Michael Kroger argued that Cormack’s funds of $70 million really belong to the Liberal Party. Kroger lost the case.

Costello oversaw the sovereign wealth Future Fund, now worth $272 billion, and also established the Higgins 200 Club, famous for its traditional post-budget Liberal Party fundraising breakfast at Crown casino. Somewhat controversially, the Club’s funds were solely for the benefit of the Higgins candidate – Costello himself and later Kelly O’Dwyer and Katie Allen – and not the wider party.

Costello and his newbie directors join the rest of the Cormack Foundation board directors: former ANZ chairman Charles Goode, Melbourne Airport chair Peter Hay, investment banker Fred Grimwade, funds manager Richard Balderstone and commercial lawyer Stephen Spargo.

TRIP ADVISOR

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus was meant to be in Israel on the weekend to mark the one-year anniversary of Hamas’ devastating attacks.

Dreyfus was due to be a keynote speaker at The Shabtai Shavit World Summit on Counter-Terrorism: From 9/11 to 10/7 – Navigating New Threats, organised by the International Institute for Counter Terrorism at Reichmann University in Tel Aviv.

And he wasn’t the only Australian set to attend. Organisers included Moroccan-born Melbourne-based property developer (and occasional jazz guitarist) Albert Dadon, founder of the Leadership Dialogue Institute, a group devoted to fostering ties between Australia, Israel and the United Kingdom.

He helped to create quite the diverse guest list. The Fedpol contingent at one point included former prime minister Scott Morrison (set to deliver a keynote with former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert), Tasmanian Liberal senator Claire Chandler, shadow defence minister Andrew Hastie and Liberal Party grandee Michael Kroger.

Even former Victorian Liberal MP Tim Smith, who quit politics after crashing his Jaguar into a fence while drunk, was due to fly in from London where he now works for upstart British conservative TV outlet GB News, run by former Sky News Australia boss Angelos Frangopoulos.

Avengers Assemble, indeed.

There were a fair few journos on the list, including but not limited to The Australian’s Paul Kelly, Henry Ergas and Alan Howe.

The speakers list included important Israeli political figures Benny Gantz, Gal Hirsch and Avigdor Liberman.

CBD has seen the itinerary, which included both sober discussions of the October 7 attacks followed by a quick hotel refresh before a casual dinner by the beach.

But it was the invitation extended to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson which ruffled feathers, to some minds giving the whole delegation a bit of a Sky News After Dark vibe.

It was all academic by Wednesday morning, after Iran had launched missile attacks on Israel in retaliation against the country’s invasion of Lebanon, when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed that Dreyfus would stay home. By mid-morning, CBD heard the entire summit was cancelled.

BALMAIN BULLDOZERS

After more than a decade, the bulldozers finally arrived at the eyesore once known as Balmain Leagues Club.

Since 2010, the derelict site has adorned the polluted gridlock of Victoria Road in Rozelle despite numerous failed development plans, a visual metaphor for the Wests Tigers years of shame and decay.

Demolition begins at Balmain Leagues Club

While the bulldozers are a welcome sign of progress for one of Sydney’s great monuments to planning dysfunction, the site’s future is far from assured, owing to a bit of argy-bargy between the Chinese developer Heworth Holdings Group and Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne.

Heworth want to build a $285 million development, including 227 apartments (59 of which are marked as affordable housing) in three towers between 14 and 16 storeys. Heworth initially secured approval for a smaller build but produced new plans for bigger towers after the Minns government offered height and density bonuses for developments that included at least 15 per cent affordable housing.

Byrne slammed that move as “complete idiocy” urging the developer to “just get on with the job”.

It looks like Heworth have heeded those calls, unleashing the bulldozers on Wednesday while grumbling about having to wait on both the revised application to get approved and for the outcome of a compensation claim against the state government over an aborted 2018 plan to turn the site into a dirt dump for the $6.7 billion Western Harbour Tunnel.

“At significant expense, we have prioritised bringing forward the demolition works in response to the mayor’s call for action,” the firm’s Head of Property Christopher Walsh said without the slightest hint of saltiness.

While some locals aren’t convinced by the visual amenity of the three towers set to loom over Victoria Road, CBD reckons anything is an improvement on the current burnt-out dumpster fire that has existed for far too long.

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