By Noel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that in one of the nation’s last bastions of old-school fuddy-duddery, Melbourne’s the Australian Club – where you must have a member to be a member – the establishment has triumphed.
In the men-only club’s first contested election in its 146-year history for the office of president, the candidate backed by the exclusive outfit’s senior leadership – former Tupperware boss Charles Henry – has triumphed over his less-fancied opponent, lawyer Justin Lethlean.
The Australian Club is for men only.Credit: James Davies
Lethlean was once the anointed successor to the current prez, Melbourne Airport chairman Peter Hay, but withdrew his candidacy after a “whispering campaign” suggesting the lawyer might be in favour of allowing women to join the club.
When Lethlean changed his mind and again threw his hat into the ring, triggering that unprecedented contested poll, his team had to work hard to stress that their man would not be going anywhere near the question of female membership if he landed the role.
Lethlean’s campaign was also up against determined opposition from a small but noisy group known internally as the “young fogies”, who want to keep the club partying like it’s 1872.
Nobody was talking on Monday and the margin of Henry’s victory was being closely guarded by the Hay camp, but the big voter turnout – 60 per cent of eligible members – suggests a significant protest vote for Lethlean.
We even hear that somebody on staff had sufficient sense of humour to serve sausages in the grand dining room on Monday as the gentlemen cast their ballots.
So who knows, maybe this democracy thing will catch on at the grand old William Street institution.
SOLDIER ON
Amid all the fuss over allegations of the Seven Network paying for Bruce Lehrmann’s cocaine and sex workers, don’t think we’ve forgotten about the network’s dogged defence of war criminal Ben Roberts-Smith.
Seven’s billionaire patriarch, Kerry Stokes, is prepared to spend more than $30 million in legal bills on his former employee’s behalf, and at the Walkley Awards last year, a table of Seven’s senior journos remained seated while the rest of the room gave this masthead’s Nick McKenzie and Chris Masters a standing ovation over their reporting on BRS.
And plenty more of Seven’s talent remain in Roberts-Smith’s orbit. Later this month, the SAS Resources Fund – a charity to support veterans of that elite unit – will hold its $230-a-head gala dinner at the MCG Members’ Dining Room, with Sunrise presenter Mark Beretta on hosting duties and a to-be-announced panel of Australian sports stars providing entertainment.
Roberts-Smith is one of the fund’s ambassadors. Stokes, a devoted supporter of the elite unit and co-founder of the charity, stepped away from its board of trustees last September after 25 years.
With all the bad press following evidence that emerged in Lehrmann’s defamation trial and the heads rolling at Seven, you’d think now might be time to get as far from BRS as possible. No chance of that, it seems.
BATTERY CHARGE
Don’t look now, but the Australian Securities and Investments Commission is back on Frank Poullas’ case.
This time the corporate regulator appears to mean business in its pursuit of Magnis Energy, once the next big thing in batteries, and its chairman, Poullas, with ASIC launching court action claiming both failed to make relevant market disclosures over the performance of its lithium-ion battery plant in New York.
The factory was Magnis’ flagship project, but the company’s claims that the venture would deliver huge returns, with revenue topping $1.8 billion by 2027, have come to nothing. The project is now in deep strife as its lenders seek control.
Frank PoullasCredit: John Shakespeare
ASIC’s Federal Court action concerns claims by Poullas and Magnis between 2021 and 2023 that the plant was fully funded and on track for automated production capacity of 15,000 battery cells a day by the end of 2023.
But by January that year, ASIC claims, the company knew perfectly well that just 300 cells were being produced per day using a slow and costly production process and that Magnis and Poullas took their sweet time telling the market about the problems in New York.
The regulator’s chairman, Joe Longo, said on Tuesday that it all amounted to conduct that was “misleading or deceptive”.
But this matter will take some watching; ASIC took a good look at Poullas and Magnis back in 2021 in relation to suspicions of “pump and dump” share trading activity, but the investigation went nowhere.
Poullas didn’t have a lot to say in the wake of news of the Federal Court action, responding with a curt statement.
“The company will examine the statement of claim in conjunction with its legal advisers and will keep the market informed as required,” it read.
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