Ian McLachlan, sacked councils, Rich List
July 22, 2008
Here are Stephen Mayne's four stories from the Crikey edition on Tuesday, 11 July, 2006.
7. The curious timing of Ian McLachlan
By Stephen Mayne
Ian McLachlan never made the front pages during his political career like he's done this week – and he was supposed to be a supporter of John Howard.
So what's behind the timing of Sunday's confirmation-of-deal-notes to Glenn Milne? Could it be that the chairman of Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) wants to be seen as a major political player at the World Merino Conference which starts in Perth tomorrow.
Have a look at the program and you'll see that Ian McLachlan AO has a 15-minute spot on Thursday afternoon titled "Influencing the Influencers". Who better to give such a talk than a kingmaker of conservative prime ministerial succession deals. All those hundreds of international delegates gathering at Burswood casino will be most impressed.
The only problem that McLachlan now faces is the small matter of the Prime Minister having his photo on a dart board in his office. Does that mean an attempt by AWI's sister company Woolmark to push a multi-million dollar pension liability onto the public purse might now be something of a dead duck?
Glenn Milne has done well with his seriously good scoop but it is baloney to suggest that McLachlan has sat tight on this information. Several other former Ministers have been informed and some corporate boardrooms are even claiming to have heard McLachlan talk about it.
And if obscure Liberal Party backbenchers like Alex Somlyay are even claiming to have read the notes, surely we're talking several dozen people who are aware of it. If so, why on earth has it taken so long for someone to put the meeting, the presence of McLachlan and his note-taking on the record before now?
It's all very well for people like Paul Kelly to claim this story is not new, but where did he actually report the detail? McLachlan has clearly been itching to get this into the open for up to three years and, just like everybody else, we missed it as well.
14. Sacked councils and more mayoral misadventures
By Stephen Mayne
As well as tracking colourful councillors, Crikey is also examining whole councils who have been sacked over the years. Excluding Jeff Kennett's sacking of all 210 Victorian councils in 1993-94, here are seven names to kick-start this list:
Cockburn: sacked by the Court Government in June 2000, a $1.8 million inquiry found 66 incidents of unlawful activity involving eight councillors.
Glen Eira: Liberal council in Melbourne's southern suburbs that was sacked by the Bracks government in 2004-05 after ridiculous in-fighting.
Melbourne City Council: sacked by the Bracks Government in 2000 amid claims of bullying and harassment, travel rorts and expenses fraud.
Nillumbik: the council in Melbourne's north east was sacked in October 1998 by the Kennett Government after infighting and taking a strong anti-development stance.
Maitland: this Hunter Valley council was sacked by the Carr Government in 1997 after an inquiry revealed some councillors had drawn up "hit lists" of those in rival factions.
Tweed Shire Council: sacked in 2005 over developer donations and control over certain councillors.
Wanneroo: began as a secret police inquiry into a corrupt council but then turned into a $5 million Royal Commission which even featured on Four Corners.
Another five councillor misadventures
John Kenny: charged with having sex with a 15-year-old whom he picked up on a chat line, but stayed on Randwick City Council so his vote could be used to keep the Green/Liberal coalition together.
Maryann Lindsay: elected to Hobsons Bay Council as an Independent while a member of the ALP. A local Community group, Hobsons Bay Community First, claimed she was really a dummy candidate for ALP candidate Peter Undy. The Municipal Electoral Tribunal, after a four day hearing, decided there was not enough evidence to unseat her, but she was definitely the dummy candidate who ended up winning.
Brad Matheson: Hobsons Bay Mayor, former high profile president of the Municipal Association of Victoria and right wing ALP member was forced to resign after The Age revealed he wrote letters under fake names supporting new electoral boundaries for Hobsons Bay.
Phuong Ngo: the Fairfax councillor in Sydney was given leave of absence and continued to receive his councillor's salary when facing charges over the murder of Cabramatta MP John Newman in the mid-1990s.
Dick Prendergast: the Moyne councillor was charged with assault and recklessly causing injury, after a fight with the Council's planning director, Greg Anders, and will appear in court in August
Check out the rest of the names here and keep the entries coming to smayne@crikey.com.au.
26. Stand by for Seek's Packer-backed real estate offensive
By Stephen Mayne, shareholder in Seek, Fairfax and News Corp
We ran this fascinating unsubstantiated tip yesterday:
PBL is at advanced stages of launching a broad attack on the property classifieds market by a combo of internally developed property services and acquiring remaining property classifieds businesses. They will merge this with Ninemsn's distribution network, lower prices for the agents and really squeeze Domain and realestate.com.au etc. It will have the financial backing to make a big dent in the market!Apparently the assault will be launched through PBL's 25% owned associate Seek, which has bought large volumes of free to air television and outdoor media to market something large in September and October. It seems very unlikely that Seek would be planning to extend their "lotto" campaign in a multi-million dollar FTA TV campaign two months after launching it.
Seek's employment classifieds business can't get a whole lot bigger given it dominates with almost 60%, so clearly there is a need to diversify into something else to keep the share price rosy. PBL already has the cars in Carsales.com.au so it's only a matter or time before it takes on News and Fairfax Digital in the real estate game as well.
News Ltd attempted to mop up control of realestate.com.au last year but its $2 and $2.50-a-share offers were rejected by the independent shareholders, who must be thanking their lucky stars as the stock leapt 13c to $3.90 yesterday, giving it a market capitalisation of almost $500 million. News Ltd is more than $150 million in front on its 44% stake and NineMSN must be feeling pretty silly for selling its 3% stake to News at just $2 a share. Then again, the opportunity cost is only about $7 million and PBL is now almost $350 million in front on its Seek stake.
It's worth comparing the size and scale of a faltering Fairfax and a surging Seek just to get a sense of the online revolution. Fairfax had revenues of $977 million in the December 2005 half and reported a net profit of $124.8 million. The lumbering newspaper giant closed on Friday with a market capitalisation of $3.53 billion. Seek had revenues of just $47.3 million in the December half, but managed a net profit of $27.1 million and is now capitalised at $1.5 billion. If Seek can make serious inroads into the property market, James Packer might yet get to score another victory over News Ltd and Fairfax without buying into the dinosaur world of dead tree newspaper journalism.
27. The Rich List death list
By Stephen Mayne
The death of Multiplex founder John Roberts last month and Transfield founder Franco Belgiorno-Nettis this week has highlighted a trend which has been emerging over the past few years – that more and more Rich Listers are meeting their maker.
Indeed, three of our top 100 companies – PBL, Multiplex and Transfield Services – have seen dominant founders and drivers of their empires pass on over the past seven months.
Here is a list of the departures due to death in the past seven editions of the BRW Rich List
2000, four: TNT founder Sir Peter Abeles, shipping and lobster king Michael Kallis, Sydney property developer Henry Roth and music publisher and media owner Tony Albert.
2001, four: textiles and property developer Nathan Baron, property investor Bela Schwartz, Reece plumbing founder Leslie Wilson and 7-11 owner Reg Withers.
2002, none.
2003, three: Stockland founder Ervin Graf, Sydney industrialist Kevin Kirby and Melbourne property developer Ted Lustig.
2004, one: chicken and racing king Jack Ingham.
2005, four: Rupert Murdoch's sister Helen Handbury, property developer Bernard Lewis, Melbourne developer Isador Magid and Sydney car dealer Fred Sutton.
2006, seven: Kerry Packer, cattle king Peter Menegazzo, colourful developer Brian Ray, Perth property developer Bill Wyllie, hotels matriarch Eve Schwartz, Brisbane builder products czar Joe Saragossi and property developer Eddie Kornhauser.
These statistics tell a story about the fact that Australia's wealth is still concentrated in the hands of business leaders who built their empires over the past 50 years but have now largely handed over to their children.
The names are clearly getting bigger and Rich List obituaries will continue to come at a faster rate over the years ahead. The past seven months has probably seen the balance move to the next generation in a majority of situations although there are some notable entrepreneurs such as Frank Lowy, Rupert Murdoch and Dick Pratt who are still in the driving seat well into their 70s.
The Belgiorno-Nettis and Roberts families have had their problems in recent years although both successions were well and truly sorted before their death of their founders.
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