By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Melbourne’s Mr Connected has just swapped billionaires. And in the cloistered world of family foundations, it’s a big deal.
When rich listers John and Pauline Gandel, the $6.33 billion part-owners of retail pleasure palace Chadstone shopping centre, announced that the highly connected Vedran Drakulic was stepping down as chief executive of the Gandel Foundation, the tributes were glowing and the speculation intense.
Vedran Drakulic has just been poached from the Gandel Foundation by the Hansen Little Foundation.
“John and Pauline Gandel and the board of Gandel Foundation would like to thank Vedran for his long-standing and significant contribution not only to the family’s charitable activities but also to the broader philanthropic sector as well, and we all wish him all the very best in his future endeavours,” the foundation said.
After all, Drakulic had worked for more than 12 years at the foundation, one of the nation’s largest – it’s given away more than $150 million in grants since it was founded in 1978.
John and Pauline Gandel’s foundation has given away $150 million in grants.Credit: Jason South
Drakulic, who arrived in Australia in 1995 as a refugee from war-torn Bosnia, is a busy chap. He is also deputy chair of migrant education provider AMES Australia, a non-executive director of VicHealth, deputy chair of the Betty Amsden Foundation, on Haileybury’s school council, a board member of the Order of Australia Association Foundation and an adjunct professor at RMIT University.
Now billionaire business investors and philanthropist power couple Paul Little and Jane Hansen have poached Drakulic to be chief executive of the Hansen Little Foundation. Drakulic takes over the role from Hansen, who is chancellor of the University of Melbourne and also a board member of Opera Australia.
Philanthropists Jane Hansen and Paul Little have poached Drakulic to be their chief executive.Credit: Peter Casamento
Little is the founder and chair of Little Group, which has interests in property, investments and philanthropy, and previously led Toll Holdings, Visit Victoria, Essendon and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation.
“As Paul and I approach our giving with greater focus and intent in coming years, Vedran is ideally placed to help us achieve our ambitious goals and aspirations, and we are thrilled to be working with him,” Hansen said. Sounds like major expansion plans to us.
CAN DO FOR CANAVAN
For 10 years now, Matt Canavan, the Canberra public servant who became a Nationals senator for Queensland, has graced parliament with his passionate advocacy for the resources sector, a milestone celebrated over drinks, nibbles and speeches at the Paddock in Yeppoon last month.
It was drinks and nibbles for Matt Canavan, Alan Jones, Barnaby Joyce and Graham Richardson.Credit: John Shakespeare
Broadcaster Alan Jones, who has kept an uncharacteristically low profile since this masthead revealed allegations of indecent assault, which he firmly denies, resurfaced to take up MC duties. Former Labor powerbroker turned lobbyist Graham “Richo” Richardson and former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce entertained.
Details of Canavan’s generous friends appeared on the senator’s register of interests this week. The Retail Guild of Australia picked up the tab for beer and wine, while the Minerals Council of Australia gifted Canavan a bottle of Henschke Mount Edelstone 2016 shiraz, which retails for about $235.
The Minerals Council was outdone by billionaire beef baron Trevor Lee, who coughed up 12 bottles of plonk.
TV RETURN
Despite promising in March that he’d be “back soon”, Jones remains conspicuously absent from ADH TV, his online conservative outrage outlet, which is backed by James Packer.
Chris Smith on Sky News.
But another broadcaster with a troubled past landed among ADH TV’s rogue’s gallery of right-wing pundits this week. Chris Smith, who was dumped by Sky News and 2GB after alleged inappropriate comments to female colleagues at a 2022 work Christmas party, launched his new gig on Monday night, with a special episode featuring former anti-vax Liberal MP and now One Nation campaign director Craig Kelly, anti-transgender activist Katherine Deves, and former special forces commando Heston Russell, who went nude on OnlyFans. Hell of a line-up.
Smith, who’s now sworn off alcohol since the Christmas Party incident, swiftly landed on his feet after his high-profile sacking, picking up an ongoing gig at conservative platform TNT Radio and setting up a crisis communications company last year.
So, is Smith the new Jones? No chance.
“No one can possibly be the new Alan Jones, I wouldn’t even venture to try,” he told CBD.
He also promised to focus on the latest developments in American and British politics, and give viewers “an unwokeful view of the world”. We can’t wait.
WOODSIDE BROADSIDE
Harrumph! That’s the sound we imagine one-time journalist and former prime minister Tony Abbott’s beige 1980s Olivetti Lettera 25 portable typewriter makes when he completes yet another dispatch railing against the sorry state of the modern world.
His latest missive in the opinion pages of The Australian, headlined “Labor’s snub of Woodside an act of foul politics”, details the almost visceral disgust the fossil fuel champion felt at the lack of respect paid by Resources Minister Madeleine King and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in snubbing the gas producer’s 70th birthday celebrations in Perth on Saturday.
“The engineering Luddites and political breeze-testers currently in charge couldn’t even be bothered politely to acknowledge a 70-year-old Australian success story for fear of transgressing against the climate cult,” wrote Abbott, who was at the shindig along with former prime minister Scott Morrison and former WA premiers Mark McGowan, Colin Barnett and Richard Court.
Siblings Christine Forster and Tony Abbott in 2019.Credit: Jessica Hromas
It is not surprising that Abbott went in to bat for Woodside. And not that he mentioned it in his column, but Woodside’s head of communications is, in fact, his very own sister, Christine Forster. Sources assure us the column was entirely of his own volition. Given PM28’s predilection for fossil fuels, we are sure that was the case.
The West Australian had a delicious detail on the resources minister’s whereabouts. King was “on leave”, the paper reported, but happened to be next door to the party at Optus Stadium watching an AFL game and was “gutted” when her beloved Fremantle (sponsored by Woodside, lol) lost to Geelong.
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