Latham diaries, Oakes fails, NRMA bias, Orica cops it from Macquarie

2. The Latham Diaries: a study in revenge



By Stephen Mayne

As we look into the political future, the biggest story of The Latham Diaries is not what it says about Mark Latham, although this is what so many members of the media establishment and the ALP are focusing on as they attempt to exact some of their own revenge.

For instance, Senator Steve Hutchins was widely featured on television bulletins snarling that Latham was "a grub." That is probably because Hutchins features in the index 17 times and is accurately portrayed as one of the underwhelming union-backed factional hacks who have been dumped on the ALP in Canberra. The corrosion of this system is best demonstrated by the fact that this bloke was somehow placed above Senator John Faulkiner on Labor's NSW senate ticket in 2004.

The defamation laws, the need to contain the book to 400 pages and a desire to protect some people means that Latham has probably only fired less than half of his ammunition in The Latham Diaries.

For instance, the journalist who passed him the joint was not named. We can reveal that it was someone from the ABC youth network Triple J, but won't be naming names at this point. It is ironic that Latham was talking about dope smoking on Triple J yesterday, when he chose to drop Lindsay Tanner right in it as a heavy dope smoker at university. Check out The Age's coverage here.

This was an example of Latham meting out some more punishment to Tanner after he appeared on Insiders last Sunday saying the Australian people got it right at the last election backing John Howard. It's all a big game of revenge.

And why has "Little Billy" Shorten copped such a pounding from Latham in his interviews over the past week? Perhaps it was his comment at the time of the Lagan book that "Mark Latham displays all the attributes of a dog, except loyalty."

The real story of The Latham Diaries will be its impact on relationships, both public and private. There was press gallery talk yesterday that one marriage has already broken down as a result of it, but that may just be an attempt to further demonise Latham by the Canberra Club.

Laurie Oakes and various others are playing down the impact but how can national secretary Tim Gartrell possibly work with all the factional hacks and union leaders on the ALP national executive when Latham reveals he described all of them as "a*seholes"?

How can ACTU Secretary Greg Combet work with President Sharon Burrow when Combet's private criticisms have been placed on the public record? How can Paul Kelly stay at News Ltd after being revealed as a heavy critic of his bosses? How can Harold Mitchell win another ALP media buying contract when Gartrell's private condemnation is now public? How can Latham's best mate Joel Fitzgibbon possibly retain his preselection given so many of his private conversations have been passed to Latham and now appear in public?

This list goes on and on, yet the Canberra Club is not addressing it, preferring instead to rant and rave about how much Latham has damaged his own credibility.



3. Latham vs Lagan, with the first wife in between



By Stephen Mayne

Bernard Lagan was sacked by The Sydney Morning Herald a few years back for hacking into Fred Hilmer's email account. Then he emerged as Mark Latham's biographer and enjoyed enormous publicity when John Faulkner gave a fascinating speech launching Loner: Inside a Labor Tragedy, which featured a few barbs from Iron Mark delivered by email.

Remarkably, Latham then took issue with what he claimed were 133 factual errors in Lagan's book and his lawyer even sent a letter threatening defamation action claiming Lagan suggested he'd ­carried on “a disgusting affair” while lying to his now ex-wife.

The only mention of Lagan in The Latham Diaries is an entry on June 10 last year, which describes him as "not the world's most accurate journalist but a good bloke who has promised a full biography on me."

Lagan has today teamed up with the Packer camp and Latham's first wife Gabrielle Gwyther to produce a cover story for The Bulletin: "Sex, Lies and Latham: How Mark Latham tried to smear his first wife," which is available in full here.

In a dramatic escalation of all the muckraking, it alleges that Gwyther told Latham she was bisexual, something she denies. The key lines are as follows:

Tacked to the email's end, however, Latham volunteered ­salacious allegations about his first wife. Latham alleged that in 1997, his former wife informed him that she wanted to pursue relationships with other women.

“Well root my boot,” said Latham's email to me. “I wished I had known she was bisexual when I married her. She said that this little fact went back to her days in nursing but she was too embarrassed to tell me. A very weird person, I can tell you.

“And my attitude once the surprise had abated? If she could chase other women, then so could I. Effectively our marriage ended at that point. When I had more success with women than her, she went savage and psycho on me and the rest, as they say, is political history. Not really an event I could talk about as leader of the opposition, but happy now for the full story to be known.”

It's not surprising that The Latham Diaries are bitter towards Gwyther when you consider the damage she tried to inflict on Iron Mark over many months in the lead-up to the 2004 election. She certainly contributed to Latham's final polling numbers showing he was plus 24 with men and only break even with women.

Latham is absolutely right to fume about the fact that then NSW Planning and Infrastructure Minister Craig Knowles kept Gwyther on his payroll right through this period. If anyone from inside the ALP deserved a spray from Latham for lack of party loyalty in the lead-up to the election it was Gwyther.

We've now got a real credibility question over who is telling the truth. Why would Gwyther approve The Bulletin splashing with these allegations if it was true? Her interest, having remarried with a child, would be to avoid this getting out.

Latham has been shown to have exaggerated many things in his diaries – the Beazley muckraking and Mark Reilly's response today being just two examples – but these claims against his first wife are pretty black and white, so it looks like one party is an out and out liar.

We saw last year that Gwyther would do anything to damage Latham and she's damaged him again today. However, why on earth would Latham completely concoct a claim that his first wife told him she was bisexual? Lagan says he believes Gwyther, but in a way he has to say that, having received permission from her to go into print and make more money from the Mark Latham story.

I'm unsure, but tend to believe Latham is not completely concocting this. But it is possible that Gwyther said something in passing about being unsure of her sexuality and Latham then blew this up into a declaration that she wanted to actively pursue lesbian relationships. As with so many claims in politics, the truth often lies somewhere in the middle.



6. Laurie Oakes fails the accountability test



By Stephen Mayne

Laurie Oakes is arguably the most powerful and respected figure in the Canberra press gallery. Today he has ferociously unloaded on The Latham Diaries in a Bulletin article, which is partly available here.

But Laurie has failed the accountability test by refusing to be drawn on the numerous claims about his own alleged bias and distortions. Jabba, as Latham calls him, cracks 22 mentions in the index, yet the Sphere of Influence has just ignored the lot and instead unloaded in the same way as so many other members of the Canberra Club – with Lathamesque vitriol and over-statement, while failing to address many of the genuine issues raised.

Some of Laurie's descriptions include "poisonous," "bucket of bile," "weird and ugly mind," "vulgarity" and "horrible" – it sounds like the attacks on his credibility have really hurt.

On the page opposite Laurie's column today, Bernard Lagan, the Latham biographer who has since badly fallen out with his subject, writes that the diaries are "absorbing, far more considered and interesting than the media coverage has so far suggested." Put Laurie straight into that category, Mr Lagan.

If only Laurie Oakes had put his ego to one side for a moment and actually focused on the content rather than his own revenge. Instead, he's done the same to Latham as he did to Cheryl Kernot: "You've bagged me in your book – I'll show you."

Crikey today sent the following email to Laurie:

Dear Laurie,

Mark Latham has made a series of allegations about you in his diaries. Why did you choose not to refer to these in your piece in today's Bulletin?

Could you please advise whether you believe any of the allegations are justified, such as the claim that you were the most biased of the four television chiefs during the 2004 election, and whether any other references to you in the book are incorrect? Is your silence an acceptance of everything Latham has written about you?

Regards, Stephen Mayne

The response came back as follows:

Dear Stephen,

my attitude is that Mark Latham is entitled to his opinion.

Cheers, Laurie Oakes

Okay, Laurie's chosen not to deny that he's a Packer company man who was the most biased television reporter in favour of John Howard during the last election. The silence is deafening!



12. The political power and bias of the NRMA



By Stephen Mayne, candidate for the RACV board

John Howard spent half an hour talking to Jon Faine on 774 ABC Melbourne this morning and one of the interesting features of an excellent interview was his attack on the NRMA for running a campaign suggesting the Government can pressure the big oil companies to cut their profit margins and reduce petrol prices.

Given that shares in Caltex have increased 900% in three years, there is certainly room for a bit of political pressure and the economy could well do with some relief when you consider that each 1c increase in petrol prices adds $380 million to the cost-base of Australian petrol consumers.

However, what the PM should have said is that the NRMA is in the middle of an election campaign in which a pile of Labor Party associated people are running.

President Alan Evans has been all over the media and appeared to be working in lock-step with the Federal Opposition yesterday to drive the government's backflip on a tiny increase in petrol excise from January 1. Evans, of course, is an ALP journeyman who was once chief of staff to then Federal Treasurer, John Dawkins. The other NRMA figure who has appeared publicly on the question of petrol prices is Gary Punch, an underwhelming former Minister in the Hawke Government.

The NRMA has been associated with and often controlled by different factions of the ALP ever since 1990 when it ran a damaging campaign against the Hawke government to force more petrol tax revenue to be spent on roads.

With its two million members it certainly has an ability to influence the public and at the moment is proving far more effective than the sleepier RACV in Victoria, which remains a clubby mutual run by a 15-strong board with an average age well into their 60s and an average length of service of about 12 years.

Compare that with this list of almost 70 NRMA directors over the past 12 years, which is likely to expand again when the current election concludes in a few weeks.



20. Orica: latest victim of the Millionaire's Factory



By Stephen Mayne, owner of 12 Macquarie Bank shares

When the stock market closed at a record high last night, it looked like Macquarie Bank had just ripped a net $660 million in value out of Melbourne-based Orica.

How so? Well, Macquarie Bank's $2.3 billion acquisition of Dyno Nobel Holdings was announced on Monday afternoon and the deal included the on-sale of the non-US and Australian operations to Orica for $900 million. The market's reaction was to send Orica shares down 55c or 2.6% to $20.35, a $200 million drop in market capitalisation to $5.5 billion.

In stark contrast, Macquarie Bank shares rocketed 2.6% to a record $68.69, a move which lifted its market capitalisation by $460 million to $15.88 billion. That's a net change of $660 million in the relative valuations of the two companies, although Orica has bounced 30c to $20.65 today although Macquarie Bank has risen a further 6c to $68.75 in a falling market.

Terry McCrann got it absolutely right in Tuesday's Herald Sun when he pointed out, before seeing any share price reaction, that Macquarie Bank had won this negotiation and Orica was paying too much.

Poor old Orica might claim it has loads of synergies to extract but it simply joins a long list of corporates who have been massively out-smarted by the sharp suits from Martin Place in Sydney.

Strangely, many of the victims are in Melbourne. Jeff Kennett will never be able to live down the goldmine he delivered to Macquarie through the Transurban tollroad, nor will former Foster's CEO Ted Kunkel who took the advice of Macquarie in selling his pubs and pokies division ALH in a move which ended up making more than $100 million for the Millionaire's Factory but left Foster's shareholders more than $600 million out of pocket when you consider the price that Woolworths paid only a few months later.

That said, the Dyno Nobel deal is also great for Australian because the Australian and US business will shift its headquarters from Oslo to Sydney, float on the ASX and compete vigorously with Orica, which will extend its lead as the world's biggest explosives company with a 25 per cent global market share.

It's often a case of client and counter-party beware when dealing with Macquarie, but you've got to admire the value they've created for Australia.



21. Macquarie plays Bermuda card to reject Crikey nomination



Stephen Mayne writes:

Can anyone understand the rationale thrown up by Macquarie Bank for rejecting my tilt at the Macquarie Infrastructure Group board? MIG is the world's biggest tollroad owner and a listed vehicle which pays ridiculously excessive fees to the massively conflicted Macquarie Bank that have almost topped $1billion over the last decade. I tried to nominate on the basis that MIG needs some genuinely independent directors and got the following rejection letter this morning:

Dear Mr Mayne

Thank you for your letter of 5 September 2005 regarding your consent to nomination by Ms P Piccinini, for the board of Macquarie Infrastructure Group (MIG).

You have taken a keen interest in MIG and its progress over the last few years, so we assume you are aware that MIG is a Macquarie Bank Group externally managed fund comprising two Australian trusts and a Bermuda mutual fund company, Macquarie Infrastructure Bermuda Limited (MIBL). The responsible entity for the trusts is the Australian based, Macquarie Infrastructure Investment Management Limited (MIIML). MIBL is advised by the UK based Macquarie Investment Management UK Limited (MIM UK).

On the basis that you may not have the documents handy, we enclose a copy of the MIG 2004 Annual report, where information on the structure is set out in the Corporate Governance Statement commencing on page 39. We also enclose a copy of the Notice of Meeting and Explanatory Memorandum relating to MIBL, which was approved at the security holder meeting on 30 November 2004.

You will see that the directors of MIIML are appointed by the shareholder, Macquarie Bank Limited and three of the four directors on the MIBL Board are appointed by either MIM UK or MIIML acting in the interests of investors . Additionally, because of its Bermudan status there is a requirement for some of the directors on the MIBL Board to be Bermuda based.

The one director on the MIBL Board who is retiring by rotation this year is Mr Jeff Conyers, an appropriately qualified and experienced Bermuda resident. Mr Conyers is entitled to stand for re-election and proposes to do so. He will be put forward by the MIBL Board as the candidate for the fourth existing directorship.

Should you wish to seek election to the MIBL Board, we are advised by our Bermuda counsel that, as you would be seeking to add an additional director to the Board, your nomination will need to satisfy Bermuda legal requirements (which are very similar to Australian ones). Under these requirements your nomination must be supported either by shareholders holding 5% of total voting rights or not less than 100 shareholders.

As your nomination by Ms Piccinini to the board of MIG cannot be progressed, we are copying her on this email and will also mail this response and enclosures to Ms Piccinini. We look forward to hearing from you or Ms Piccinini.

Your faithfully
Christine Williams
Company Secretary
Macquarie Infrastructure Investment Management Limited

CRIKEY: How handy. The Bermuda defence. I need to have 5% of the stock or 100 signatures to run. What a joke!

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