By Kishor Napier-Raman and Stephen Brook
Mark Latham, the former Labor leader turned resident weird uncle of the NSW Upper House, is a man with plenty of grievances.
Even by his standards, the unexpected savaging of racing and rugby league supremo Peter “Showbags” V’landys, accused by Latham under parliamentary privilege of “dictatorial behaviour” and “megalomania”, was quite something.
Latham then used a parliamentary inquiry into the proposed sale of Rosehill racecourse to continue beefing with V’landys, who in turn accused him of using the event as a show trial to get his own “gotcha” moment.
This clash of the titans was brought about by an inquiry into the Minns government’s plans to raze Rosehill and build 25,000 new homes under a deal that could net the site’s owners, the Australian Turf Club, $5 billion from the sale.
But division within the ATC membership and the racing fraternity have put that plan in jeopardy. Meanwhile, Latham, a staunch opponent of Premier Chris Minns’ plan, has had many choice words about the ATC and its chair Peter McGauran, a former Howard government minister who recently pointed to Parramatta’s “Indian families” as a reason behind the racecourse’s declining attendance.
All of this has got Latham very steamed up. The former One Nation man accused McGauran and the ATC of misleading members over the value of the site, and has repeatedly taken swipes at the club in parliament. But none of that is going to keep Latham away from the races.
A lover of the sport of kings, Latham is a regular fixture on the track, despite his repeated broadsides against some of its most powerful figures. And on Saturday, CBD’s spies spotted him in the members’ section of Royal Randwick, making the most of the ATC’s generous hospitality. Latham was decked out in an orange tie, the same colour he wore when giving John Howard that infamous, election-losing macho handshake in 2004.
No doubt there were a few similarly awkward handshakes at Royal Randwick’s champagne lounge.
RAISING THE BAR
CBD recently brought news that independent Kiama MP Gareth Ward, who will next year face court over sexual abuse allegations (which he denies), had recently passed the NSW bar exam. It was a process Ward described as very difficult, even begging Attorney-General Michael Daley to push for an overhaul of the test.
Since then, in totally unrelated news, Ward has had to deny reports he was drunk and in his underwear outside parliament, insisting he’d simply managed to get locked out of home, dismissing suggestions he was intoxicated as “gutter journalism”.
While that wasn’t the best news cycle for Ward, he has got his wish with the NSW Bar Association, which last week announced it would be reforming the exam by moving to an open-book format.
It won’t affect Ward, who’s already posed in his robes and wig. But he’s assured CBD that becoming a barrister was simply a matter of upskilling, rather than a whole new career.
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
The AFL might have beaten the NRL on television ratings – 4.05 million viewers to 3.42 million – but old rugby league takes itself a lot less seriously than the Victorian code.
Unlike the AFL grand final weekend, with its champagne breakfasts and its self-important pomp, rugby league’s showpiece has fewer pretensions at being some kind of networking event for the Qantas Chairman’s Lounge set.
Still, the NRL did manage to get a few big names out to Sunday’s Grand Final at Accor Stadium, that charmless suburban concrete bowl named after a mid-range hotel conglomerate, to watch the Penrith Panthers complete a historic four-peat, edging out the every annoying Melbourne Storm.
Both Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and his opposite number, Peter Dutton, were guests at the Accor Stadium’s President’s Suite, and both backed the Panthers. The politically astute move, we think.
Albanese was accompanied by his fiancée Jodie Haydon, the pair of Souths’ diehards no doubt reminiscing about that club’s drought-breaking premiership a whole decade ago now.
Also in the good seats were Premier Chris Minns (a Bulldogs man), Opposition Leader Mark Speakman, fun-loving NSW Governor Margaret Beazley and former AFL commissioner Sam Mostyn, who is now, of course, the governor-general.
She wasn’t the only Aussie rules type around: former AFL boss turned Tabcorp chief executive Gil McLachlan was forced to hang out with the same politicians he has so ruthlessly banned from the betting giant’s Melbourne Cup marquee.
Rounding out the political contingent was Sports Minister Anika Wells (who never misses an event such as this one) and Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy, who is working with the NRL on its bid for an expansion team in Papua New Guinea. No surprises that the Pacific nation’s leader, James Marape, was also in the suite.
The Kid Laroi, who provided the pre-match entertainment, dropped in for a brief hello in the President’s Suite.Credit: Getty Images
From the media world, guests included Matt Stanton, acting chief executive of Nine (owner of this masthead), the media company’s new chair Catherine West, News Corp executive chair Michael Miller, Seven West Media director of news and current affairs Anthony DeCeglie and Herald editor Bevan Shields.
But the real star of the show was NRL executive officer Rachel Kramer, the one behind the league’s events, who received rapturous applause from the room when announced by chief executive Andrew Abdo.
Meanwhile, The Kid Laroi, who provided the pre-match entertainment, dropped in for a brief hello. The NRL did well in landing a relevant star, a week after the AFL spent big on a washed-up Katy Perry.
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