Voting update, Manningham mayoral delay, Fairfax upheaval, DJs AGM, pokies, Cornwall, ASIC jail list, Rich List and former staffers
December 8, 2010
Greetings one and all,
Before beginning this lively and lengthy 2.22am missive, the web version is here if you fancy an on-pass or you can unsubscribe here.
Manningham delays AGM
The mystery surrounding the balance of power position in the Victorian upper house is sending us round the twist.
The result won't be known until December 14 and the uncertainty has even contributed to Manningham City Council yesterday deferring tonight's annual meeting to vote on mayor, deputy mayor and committee positions.
Whilst resolving the state election outcome is important, the extra time for us councillors to determine future leadership positions might also help secure a broader peace deal at Manningham in 2011. The Manningham website explains the deferral as follows:
Please note that the Annual Meeting of Council, scheduled to take place at 7.00 pm on Tuesday, 7 December 2010 in the Manningham Council Chamber has been cancelled. Councillors were due to elect the new Manningham City Council Mayor for 2011 and committee representatives at that meeting, but have not concluded their deliberations. A new meeting will be confirmed once a suitable alternative date and time has been identified.
In terms of mayoral possibilities, the candidates appear to include Meg Downie, Geoff Gough and Grace Lavella.
The other issue to play out at Manningham over the next few days will be the response to this 40-page Councillor Conduct Panel final report which was tabled at last week's council meeting. Here's hoping everyone will now be able to put this issue behind us and move forward co-operatively in 2011.
Ups and downs of an election count
Enough of this election counting torture! Greg Barber was right to recommend two weeks of post-election fishing because all of this conflicting advice is proving rather annoying.
On the one hand you get mentions such as the following in a page 33 feature on Ted Baillieu in The Weekend AFR:
"It should be noted that Baillieu may also face a very real break on his ambitions in the Legislative Council. The balance of power there could well be controlled by the Greens or an independent (most likely investor activist Stephen Mayne)."
Then you have Tim Colebatch from The Age reporting yesterday that the Australian Sex Party was "within a breath" of winning the fifth spot. Much as this would excite Robbie Swan and his partner/lead candidate Fiona Patten, she's got buckleys chance because the Labor and Liberal votes are both too high and the Green vote is way too low.
Channel Seven's veteran state political reporter Brendan Donohue then goes on Jon Faine yesterday and declares my prospects are fading as the Green prospects rise. The Greens have no chance of winning the fifth spot.
And then you get the VEC abandoning internet reporting of its original count last Wednesday afternoon with barely 75% of the Northern Metropolitan vote counted. Suddenly we were back to Antony Green's calculator spitting out forecasts based on 8% of the recount.
At first it tipped second Green Alex Bhathal would win the fifth spot, but by Sunday afternoon this had shifted to showing Fiona Patten from the Sex Party although it was clear the 30% re-checked at that point was in the stronger inner-city Green areas. Then, by close of counting on Sunday night, we were up to 44% counted and I was back in favour.
Fast forward to Monday and the Antony Green projector was slotting in Labor's incumbent number three Nathan Murphy, then I was back in favour with 68% counted but by close of counting last night with 72% counted it was back to the Liberal candidate Craig Ondarchie.
A prediction for Northern Metro as Labor scrutineers swarm over every vote
Asked for predictions at the mayoral functions in Moreland and Banyule last night, I was sticking with the Liberals being 60% favourites, followed by the independent at 30% and Labor's Nathan Murphy being the outside prospect with a 10% chance.
That said, it remains bizarre that Labor is absolutely swarming the Northern Metro scrutineering process, knocking out hundreds of rival votes, whilst the Liberals have barely been seen as they are two busy popping the champagne corks celebrating their victory. You'd have thought the Coalition would be chasing outright balance of power hard, or maybe there isn't a lot of passion to see South Morang cricket coach Craig Ondarchie become the ultimate accidental upper house MP for the Victorian Liberals.
If anyone fancies getting into the scrutineering caper over the coming days, please drop us a line to Stephen@maynereport.com.
As for our prospects, the formula hasn't changed much from what we explained in the December 1 edition and we remain a chance.
The Green vote needs to finish as close to 18.10% per cent as possible. It finished last night at 18.38% but this 280 vote deficit behind the second Green candidate was after almost 10,000 absentee and pre-poll votes from the hugely Green seat of Melbourne were counted. The likes of Broadmeadows and Thomastown will bring that lead down.
There remains about 60,000 votes to be counted and you can get some idea on the pre-poll and absentee votes by looking at the 11 lower house seat results which comprise the Northern Metropolitan upper house region.
How voting is progressing in 11 lower house seats
Broadmeadows: 87.07% counted so far and turnout was 90.42% in 2006. Along with Thomastown, is the worst seat for the Greens.
Brunswick: 90.89% counted which is more than turnout of 89.28% in 2006. A strong seat for the Greens.
Bundoora: 93.51% counted included a whopping 6050 early votes and turnout of 94.26% in 2006. Below average for Greens.
Ivanhoe: 92.66% counted including a whopping 6486 early votes and turnout was 92.89% in 2006.
Northcote: 76% counted with only 2122 early votes so far and no absentees so estimated 5889 votes to come given turnout was 90.53% in 2006.
Melbourne: 86.89% counted including more than 10,000 in early and absentee votes and overall turnout exceeds 84.84% in 2006.
Mill Park: 88.8% counted so still plenty to come given turnout of 94.73% in 2006.
Preston: 80.85% counted so plenty to come based on turnout of 91.15% in 2006.
Richmond: 87.62% counted including a whopping 7000 absentee votes which delivered 35.26% to the Greens. Exceeds turnout of 86.02% in 2006.
Thomastown: 91.03% counted and turnout was 93% in 2006.
Yan Yean: 90.20% counted so still some to come based on turnout of 94.7% in 2006.
How the Greens perform in late counting categories
In Western Metropolitan, the Greens are back in with a chance of beating Labor's Bob Smith into the final spot after polling 11.72%. They managed 14.21% of the 20,326 absentee votes, an increase of 2.49% on the average and only 11.68% of the 71,476 early votes.
At the moment this is the status of voting on the three late categories in Northern Metro and keep clicking here throughout the day as we're expecting another 60,000 largely absentee and pre-poll votes to come through today and tomorrow:
Postals: Greens polled 13.2% of the 23,968 votes counted so far, against 18.38% overall.
Pre-poll: Greens polled 31.8% of the 6215 votes counted in Melbourne, in line with average.
Absentee: Greens polled 37.6% of the 3926 votes counted from Melbourne against an average of 32%.
Such a trend in Northern Metro would still leave us in with a chance of containing the Green vote to 18.1%, although the absentee vote was a whopping 7000 in Richmond and the Greens polled 35.26% versus an average of about 31%.
Defending a lead of about 1250 over the Greens going into the absentee and pre-poll counting is clearly going to be a close run thing.
However, we do know the first batch of 10,000 absentee and pre-poll votes - which lifted their vote to a high of 18.38% - were from the strongest Greens district of Melbourne as you can see from these results.
Keep watching this page from the VEC website today, plus Antony Green's useful but flawed election calculator which ignores below the line votes when distributing the preference flows.
Carrying on like a balance of power independent
If the votes fall the wrong way when the button is pushed on December 14, it will probably look quite silly to have done all this media about policy positions and tactics.
For instance, click on the screen shot below to watch a 6-minute interview with Virginia Trioli and Michael Rowland on ABC News 24 last Wednesday morning.
However, holding the balance of power on my own does remain a prospect and with the final Northern Metropolitan seat likely to determine whether the Coalition has control of both houses, it is surprising that papers like the Herald Sun are yet to cover the issue at all. Indeed, we produced this Crikey story on Friday which is behind the paywall but included the following lines:
Beating up on executive pay is a no brainer for the tabloid media and Australia's biggest-selling paper, the Herald Sun, came up with a ripper splash yesterday as it linked an electricity pricing decision by a federal government regulator to the salary packages of the AGL and Origin Energy CEOs.
The hypocrisy of such a line by the Murdoch press is stunning, so the following letter was submitted yesterday:
The reason for that last line about censorship was that Herald Sun editor Simon Pristel was confronted by 774 ABC Melbourne morning host Jon Faine on Wednesday as to whether the paper was refusing to cover the possibilities in the Victorian upper house because of its long-standing ban on mentioning its former business editor.
Even The AFR, which has also imposed a ban of sorts over the past 11 years, recognised that the real potential of exclusively holding the balance of power in the Victorian upper house was a story worth reporting.
The piece by The AFR's Matthew Dunckley on Wednesday finished off with a quote expressing concern that Ted Baillieu's proposed abolition of the Office of the Police Integrity was merely "responding to an outrageous campaign by the Murdoch press".
Of course, it is quite premature to start pontificating about various policy positions when tens of thousands of votes are still to be counted in the Northern Metropolitan region.
etc etc
Greg Hywood's Fairfax ascension - we tipped this
The shock resignation of Fairfax Media CEO Brian McCarthy has the journalism world in quite a lather, but we're claiming to have tipped the prospect of newly installed acting CEO Greg Hywood as a potential successor. Here's the relevent transcript from the November 11 AGM when Hywood was up for re-election as a recently appointed non-executive director:
Stephen Mayne: I'd like to strongly support the re-election of Mr Hywood, similar comments with Mr Anderson, it's good to have someone with a long media career.
Within the media industry we are going pretty well. We've got Sam Morgan with the internet, we've got Michael Anderson with radio, we've got Greg Hywood with newspapers and we have Nick Fairfax in an on-going sense with a proprietorial history in the media. I do know when the Fairfax Rural Press merger happened, Rupert Murdoch rang someone and said "Brian McCarthy is the best newspaper man in Australia". I don't know what Rupert was saying about John Hartigan when he said that, but I know for a fact he did say that. So I'm very happy with the growing amount of media experience on the board, and the diversity within a fast moving media sector. So well done.
I have a specific question for Mr Hywood. Is it his intention to be a professional, non-executive director into the future? Is that the career decision he has taken?
Some people have said that this is good potential succession planning at a management level, and that Greg Hywood would one day make a terrific CEO of this company. He is not here to undermine the CEO - we've got a very good CEO. But many companies do this now where you put someone on the board, you can see them, you can see them think strategically, they have the expertise. When Brian gets to the natural end of his term, you've got someone there you can slot in from board level, or you can have someone coming up the ranks through management.
So is Greg, has he made a career decision, forever, to be a professional non-executive director?
Chairman Roger Corbett: Well, I think once again you are making very good advice Stephen, but quite far ranging. Greg I won't ask you to comment on your aspirations for the chief executive's job or otherwise, but I give you the opportunity to make a comment if you wish.
Greg Hywood: Thank you Roger, and thank you Stephen for the support. I was approached to be a director of Fairfax - which was a great honour, given my long background with the company, and I thought it was an appropriate time in my career development to take on a directors role of a major company, and I will do so with great expectations that the company can go forward in the demanding environment.
As for other interests, I have a range of other directorships which I'm engaged in, and really at this stage I am quite happy to fulfil those. The age is down, but can I just say that I have a bit left in me yet.
Tim Shaw and Cornwall on Wiki Leaks
The Wikileaks saga rolls on and we had an interesting chat about it with Tim Shaw on 2UE's legal program on Sunday night. Naturally, our cartoonist Mark Cornwall is also weighing in:
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Victorian Liberals shaft their preference partners on the pokies
Ted Baillieu has got off on the wrong foot with the anti-pokies lobby after Gaming Minister Michael O'Brien gave an interview to The Sunday Age sledging the mandatory pre-commitment proposal agreed to by Andrew Wilkie and Julia Gillard.
Whilst the Liberals are running a libertarian individual responsiblity argument, mixed in with a states' rights agenda, it is amazing they ignore the positions of the parties which consistently deliver them upper house seats through preference flows.
Talk to the Christan Democrats, Family First and the DLP and they are all dead against the pokies.
The Coalition would be at least 5 upper house seats worse off without these preferences, yet the minor party position on the pokies is seemingly ignored.
In other pokies news, do have a listen to this pokies tax slug-fest with Neil Mitchell on 3AW two days before polling day.
It was hard yards getting the pokies onto the agenda this campaign. Gabi Byrne did a great job pulling together the big pokies forum on Tuesday, but as we explained in this Crikey story before the election, the mainstream media didn't front.
Standing next to Gaming Minister Tony Robinson and his shadow Michael O'Brien and labelling their respective policies "pathetic" was a highlight of the campaign and it was good that Woolies pokies boss Ross Blair-Holt turned up to hear it all as well.
David Jones AGM - shareholders not interested in flogging the board
David Jones refused to webcast their AGM last Friday and we somehow lost our audio recorder on the trip up to Sydney.
That said, the meeting was probably the most hostile reception I've had from fellow shareholders in almost 400 AGM encounters over the past 12 years.
The trick at AGMs is not to get up too many times and the largely elderly shareholders were clearly not interested in hearing the board get criticised several times over.
Indeed, The Weekend AFR led its business section on Saturday with a story head-lined: "Board blessed with forgiving investors" and it included the following:
Shareholders at the AGM had every right to vent their collective spleen. But they chose instead to applaud Mr Savage on David Jones' handling of the case and had little tolerance for the few activists who dared to criticise.
I probably overdid the arguments about their being too many old white blokes on the board and then really ran into trouble when criticising the new female director Philippa Stone, who has been a partner at Freehills for 20 years.
It was only after arriving at the AGM that I recognised Philippa as the Freehills partner who'd ticked me off on a couple of things after a Babcock & Brown AGM in Sydney a couple of years back.
I then bumped into her at the David Jones AGM in Melbourne last year and made some crack about it being good to see she was hanging around with better corporate clients than Babcock.
Given that she was talking to the senior management and directors at David Jones last year, I then became suspicious that the retailer had just slotted in their preferred corporate lawyer to fill a vacancy on the board.
Even worse, this historical service provider relationship was not disclosed in the notice of meeting.
Yet when it came to the re-election of former PwC CEO John Harvey, the notice of meeting stressed that during 20 years as a qualified auditor, he never worked on the David Jones account.
Given that chairman Bob Savage had earlier refused to reveal the age of former Woolworths CEO Reg Clairs when he was up for re-election, it was clear the company didn't exactly have a great culture of disclosure.
For instance, when Savage himself was up for re-election I asked how much David Jones spent on advertising at Fairfax, where he is also a director. No need for disclosure, he replied.
The same thing happened with AMP chairman Peter Mason who is about to become an ever bigger landlord to David Jones once the Axa Asia Pacific takeover goes through, yet there is no disclosure of these related party transactions.
Didn't we supposedly get on top of these sorts of related deals at Coles Myer in the early 1990s with Solly Lew and Lindsay Fox?
Anyway, Philippa Stone batted away these questions and claimed she'd only worked on the original DJs float in 1996 and the RPS capital raising prospectus more recently.
She just happened to be in Melbourne at the time of last year's AGM and came along out of interest without billing the retailer.
Having heard of all this, I finished by recommending a vote against on the basis that Philippa had done a lot of work for Babcock which had blown up $10 billion.
Chairman Savage then lived up to his name and demanded I sit down and after the meeting a clearly upset Ms Stone gvae me a much-deserved rocket.
Hundreds of lawyers worked on the vast over-leveraged Babcock empire at its peak and it was a bit rough to summarise an impressive corporate career working for a whole host of blue-chip clients by just focusing on the Babcock connection.
We'll try and get you some audio or transcripts of all of this in future editions because it was pretty lively stuff.
Where former Federal government staffers went
We continue to track the career paths of former Federal Government staffers and this list tracks where staffers who exited the Rudd Government finished up. Check out the lists of the former Labor Hawke-Keating staffers and former Howard government staffers.
And here are a few new and updated entries:
Martin Callinan: a former senior policy adviser having worked for Kelvin Thomson in 2004 and Peter Garrett in 2007 on climate change, then as Defence Science Adviser for Warren Snowdon, now Policy Director at the Australian Academy of Science.
Michael Danby: briefly (1993-94) assistant private secretary to Barry Cohen, Minister for Environment, then for Alan Griffiths; industrial officer for Shoppies Union, elected MHR for Melbourne Ports in 1998.
John Donovan: adviser to Ros Kelly as Minister for Sports; a witness to the whiteboard ‘sports rorts' affair; then became adviser to John Brumby as Victorian Opposition leader; has a low-key political consultancy, JD Consulting, and runs a publicity outfit for funds managers (AFM Investment Partners Pty Ltd) specializing in the industry funds space; appointed a director of Gippsland Water in 2009.
Michael Fleming: senior private secretary to Michael Duffy (1993–97) as Minister for Communications and then Minister for Trade Negotiations; returned to the Victorian Bar and appointed Senior Counsel in 2010.
Nick Gruen: adviser to John Button, Minister for Industry & Commerce (1993–96); then Commissioner of the Productivity Commission, now an independent economist, Crikey contributor and newspaper columnist and mortgage broker.
Chris Maxwell: senior private secretary to Gareth Evans as Attorney-General (1993-94); returned to the Victorian Bar; appointed Supreme Court Justice and President of the Victorian Court of Appeal in 2005.
John Rau: private secretary to Mick Young, Special Minister of State in 1985, then to Michael Tate and Neal Blewett (Community Services and Health) to 1988; returned to legal practice in South Australia; elected to South Australian Parliament in 2002 and appointed Attorney-General in 2010.
Neil Williams: adviser to Arthur Gietzelt (minister for Veterans' Affairs, 1983-84) then senior private secretary to Gareth Evans as Attorney-General; returned to legal practice in Sydney; now a Senior Counsel.
Peter Willis: private secretary to Gareth Evans and Lionel Bowen, as Attorney-General (1984–86); returned to legal practice, in Melbourne and London as partner of a big law firm; now at the Victorian Bar.
Recent email editions and updates
For first time readers, here are links to our recent editions since the state election tilt was first revealed:
How to track the voting and a media deluge on balance of power possibilities
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
In with a chance to win final Northern Metro spot
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday morning briefing on the weather
Saturday, November 27, 2010
A final update for booth workers
Friday, November 26, 2010
A must-read final pre-election edition choc full of lively material
Friday, November 26, 2010
A message to our wonderful booth volunteers
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Developer defamation threat, pokies, councillor expenses, Future Fund, Telstra, AWB and a great offer to campaign volunteers
Monday, November 22, 2010
Future Fund goes to war with Telstra, Woolies AGM wash-up, council pokies taxes and much more
Friday, November 19, 2010
Woolies anti-pokies campaign speech, Manningham mayor boxes on, campaigning for women, Bob Brown, pokies forum, HTVs, Rich List and then some
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Preferences revealed, sleazy deals, Cleary, questioning Bob Brown, The Age, soaring debt, videos, Cornwall and then some
Monday, November 15, 2010
Campaign lift off, Fairfax AGM, councillor expenses, pokies, SP Ausnet, Rich List, women directors, Spark scale back and much more
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Xenophon backs anti-pokies tilt, Packer, Ten, BHP, women directors, Rich List, state debt and much more
Friday, November 5, 2010
Cornwall on the NBN
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Even RBA governor Glenn Stevens feels the need to downplay public debt
It was very strange to hear Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens make the following statement during the federal election campaign: "There is virtually no net public debt in the country at all in contrast to much of the developed world."
Whilst Rupert Murdoch's flagship newspaper Down Under, The Australian, loves to beat up on Labor governments irrespective of the facts sometimes, this recent splash pointing out that state government debt is projected to top $240 billion was a worthwhile piece of journalism.
I bumped into former Bendigo Bank managing director Rob Hunt in Bendigo four weeks ago and congratulated him on landing the tough job of chairing Treasury Corporation of Victoria, our state debt management authority.
He was told that debt disclosure by TCV is very poor. The Federal Government's own debt management website puts the gross debt figure at $152 billion and the bond issues have flowed as follows since our last update:
Friday, December 3, 2010: $700m tender of 2 year bonds expiring in November 2012 were sold for an average yield of 4.94% and was over-subscribed 5 times.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010: $500m tender of 10 year bonds expiring in April 2020 were sold for an average yield of 5.41% and was over-subscribed 4.1 times.
Friday, November 26, 2010: $700m tender of 3 year bonds expiring in December 2013 were sold for an average yield of 5.16% and was over-subscribed 4.3 times.
Incoming Victorian Treasurer Kim Wells is suddenly talking about the evils of debt, so if he wants to get that message out there the first thing he should do is start disclosing bond issue auction results on the TCV website, just like the Feds do.
The Mayne Report Rich List
BRW magazine does a great job with its various Australian Rich Lists but we've broadened their efforts to track any Australian who has ever been worth more than $10 million. We began the process of building the list in early 2008 where we had an initial 327 names. Now, after much research, we've got more than 1500 names with those who've fallen back below $10 million italicised. Below are some new entries:
Bruce Gibson: regional real estate agent, with livestock and prime rural property holdings across Victoria. He is also chairman of real estate company Alex Scott & Co.
Peter Sidwell: is actively involved in a diverse range of businesses in Australia. He was managing director of Shomega Limited, and transformed a family business into one of the most progressive digital printing, media and publishing businesses in South East Asia before selling to Murdoch-controlled PMP in 1996.
Hartman scalp a rare ASIC jailing highlight
The Mayne Report's ASIC jail list highlights what a slack job the corporate plod has done over the years locking up white collar crooks but it was pleasing to see some accountability for an insider trading job last week which we've recorded as follows:
3 December 2010 - Mr John Hartman, of Mosman, New South Wales, was to serve a term of four years and six months imprisonment on 25 insider trading related charges. Mr Hartman pleaded guilty to all charges which were committed while he was employed by Orion Asset Management as an equities dealer. Mr Hartman is to serve a minimum term of three years imprisonment before being eligible for parole on 1 December 2013.
From the press room
Crikey
CEO's salaries, Rupert's package and still counting the votes…
Friday, 3 December, 2010
Mayne could hold balance of power in Victoria
Andrew Crook, Crikey Blog, November 28, 2010
Can Sarah Hanson-Young's cousin pull off a shock upper house victory?
Friday, 26 November, 2010
Australian Financial Review
Upper house count still 'too early to tell'
Mathew Dunckley, Financial Review, December 1, 2010
The Age
Mayne set to be third time lucky - see PDF
Richard Willingham, The Age, December 1, 2010
Activist poised to control state's upper house
Tim Colebatch, The Age, November 30, 2010
SMH
Counting on Kerr, even in her absence
Tim Barlass, Sun-Herald, November 28, 2010
Leader newspapers
STATE ELECTION: Stephen Mayne good chance for Upper House seat
Will Jackson, Manningham Leader, November 28, 2010
Upper house intrigue in Northern Metro region
Nic Price, Melbourne Leader, November 24, 2010
Lateline - Victorian election update
November 30, 2010
Radio
2UE Sydney - interview with Tim Shaw about Wiki Leaks and the Victorian election - December 5, 2010.
2UE Sydney - interview with Tim Shaw about the Victorian election and the upcoming David Jones AGM - December 2, 2010.
1377 MTR Melbourne - interview about the possibility of holding the balance of power in the Victorian upper house - December 1, 2010.
720 ABC Perth - discussing the current election situation - November 30, 2010.
3AW Melbourne - Neil Mitchell has a whinge - November 30, 2010.
774 ABC Melbourne - interview with Jon Faine about the possibility of holding the balance of power in the Victorian upper house.
ABC News radio on ABC News radio discussing the last seat up for grabs in the Victorian upper house.
774 ABC Melbourne - breakfast radio interview with Red Symons about the election - November 29, 2010.
774 ABC Melbourne - Panel discussion including independent candidate Phil Cleary, myself and Fiona Patten from the Sex Party with Jon Faine on November 26, 2010.
3AW Melbourne - with Neil Mitchell on 3AW about the pokies during his traditional "whackos and fringe dwellers" session on November 25, 2010.
The Cornwall collection
Former Fairfax and Crikey cartoonist Mark Cornwall has been contributing to The Mayne Report since March 2009. Here is a collection of his best cartoons and check out this latest animation:
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Click on the image above to join more than 3000 followers on Twitter. Here are some recent tweets:
8.49am December 6: Interview with Tim Shaw on 2UE Sydney last night discussing Wiki Leaks and the Vic election http://urlm.in/ggqu
10.52pm December 5: With 44% of the vote re-checked, am back winning 5th spot, says Antony Green: http://abc.gov.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/nmet-results.htm
1.14pm December 5: Big week for mayoral elections in Victoria. Hot tips are Oscar Yildiz in Moreland, Peter McKenna in Banyule and Diana Asmar in Darebin.
12.57pm December 5: With 32% recounted, Antony Green is showing Sex Party wins 5th spot. Won't last: http://abc.gov.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/nmet-results.htm
11.51am December 5: Very bad pokies start for Vic Libs: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-launches-attack-on-gillards-pokie-laws-20101204-18ksb.html
5.36pm December 4: We're up to 2999 followers. Thanks in advance to number 3000. Today is focused on mayoral discussions given Tuesday is D-day.
2.53pm December 3: Antony Green is showing 2nd Green Alex Bathal wins 5th spot but this is only after 8% of recount in strong Green areas given my 1.6%. Relax!
2.36pm December 3: Plenty of combat at DJs AGM on McInnes, related deals, disclosure, blokey culture. Went too hard against new director over Babcock links.
7.31am December 3: Check out Wednesday's lively interview with Virginia Trioli and Michael Roland on ABC News 24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DetwUy4aPY0
10.01pm December 2: Tim Colebatch now saying in The Age I'm "more likely" to win 5th spot than 2nd Liberal. Food for thought on flight up to Sydney for DJs AGM.
8.03pm December 2: Bizarre developments in the upper house count today. VEC briefly tipped a DLP win in Western Vic and then pulled all primary counts offline.
7.47pm December 2: Some insightful comments on prospects in this thread: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/11/28/victorian-election-photo-finishes/
5.25pm December 2: Both VEC count and Antony Green's calculator for North Metro have become redundant as recheck is in progress showing less than 5% counted.
4.01pm December 2: Pic of ALP lead scrutineer in Nth Metro: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/budgie-stunt-just-colour-and-movement-20100719-10hu1.html
3.16pm December 2: Green vote up to 18.14% after 1st 4000 absentee votes counted - not a good sign. Cuts lead over Greens to just 137, although need small win.
12.23pm December 2: After all the dramas of past 2 years, amazing that only ASA and I asked questions at Nufarm AGM today held at RACV. Tweeting from library.
12.18pm December 2: Another 2000 postals are in. Lead over Green out to 1250 as they have slipped to 17.80%. Good news but bit worried about below the lines.
9.43am December 2: Interview last night on 1377 MTR Melbourne about the election results which may not be know until Dec 14 http://urlm.in/gfux
8.32am December 2: Can't stand all this waiting for voting updates. Heading off to Nufarm AGM to take the mind off politics for a bit. Plenty of issues.
8.07pm November 30: Victorian Liberal whips are briefing MPs that I'm a serious prospect of joining them in the upper house. Still very tight 50-50 situation
5.59pm November 30: Antony Green has just updated calculator. Am still in with 73% of vote counted: http://abc.gov.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/nmet-results.htm
5.58pm November 30: Just heard from Labor's upper house whip with an opening conversation about processes, so must be in with some sort of a show.
6.11pm November 29: David Jones have canned the webcast of this year's AGM in Sydney on Friday - very defensive strategy given obvious criticism coming.
5.27pm November 29: Shock, horror - journo from The OZ just called. How long will the Herald Sun maintain their ban during Victorian balance of power situation?
That's all for now.
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by shareholder activist, local government councillor, Crikey founder and political candidate Stephen Mayne with regular email editions. To unsubscribe from the free emails click here.
Before beginning this lively and lengthy 2.22am missive, the web version is here if you fancy an on-pass or you can unsubscribe here.
Manningham delays AGM
The mystery surrounding the balance of power position in the Victorian upper house is sending us round the twist.
The result won't be known until December 14 and the uncertainty has even contributed to Manningham City Council yesterday deferring tonight's annual meeting to vote on mayor, deputy mayor and committee positions.
Whilst resolving the state election outcome is important, the extra time for us councillors to determine future leadership positions might also help secure a broader peace deal at Manningham in 2011. The Manningham website explains the deferral as follows:
Please note that the Annual Meeting of Council, scheduled to take place at 7.00 pm on Tuesday, 7 December 2010 in the Manningham Council Chamber has been cancelled. Councillors were due to elect the new Manningham City Council Mayor for 2011 and committee representatives at that meeting, but have not concluded their deliberations. A new meeting will be confirmed once a suitable alternative date and time has been identified.
In terms of mayoral possibilities, the candidates appear to include Meg Downie, Geoff Gough and Grace Lavella.
The other issue to play out at Manningham over the next few days will be the response to this 40-page Councillor Conduct Panel final report which was tabled at last week's council meeting. Here's hoping everyone will now be able to put this issue behind us and move forward co-operatively in 2011.
Ups and downs of an election count
Enough of this election counting torture! Greg Barber was right to recommend two weeks of post-election fishing because all of this conflicting advice is proving rather annoying.
On the one hand you get mentions such as the following in a page 33 feature on Ted Baillieu in The Weekend AFR:
"It should be noted that Baillieu may also face a very real break on his ambitions in the Legislative Council. The balance of power there could well be controlled by the Greens or an independent (most likely investor activist Stephen Mayne)."
Then you have Tim Colebatch from The Age reporting yesterday that the Australian Sex Party was "within a breath" of winning the fifth spot. Much as this would excite Robbie Swan and his partner/lead candidate Fiona Patten, she's got buckleys chance because the Labor and Liberal votes are both too high and the Green vote is way too low.
Channel Seven's veteran state political reporter Brendan Donohue then goes on Jon Faine yesterday and declares my prospects are fading as the Green prospects rise. The Greens have no chance of winning the fifth spot.
And then you get the VEC abandoning internet reporting of its original count last Wednesday afternoon with barely 75% of the Northern Metropolitan vote counted. Suddenly we were back to Antony Green's calculator spitting out forecasts based on 8% of the recount.
At first it tipped second Green Alex Bhathal would win the fifth spot, but by Sunday afternoon this had shifted to showing Fiona Patten from the Sex Party although it was clear the 30% re-checked at that point was in the stronger inner-city Green areas. Then, by close of counting on Sunday night, we were up to 44% counted and I was back in favour.
Fast forward to Monday and the Antony Green projector was slotting in Labor's incumbent number three Nathan Murphy, then I was back in favour with 68% counted but by close of counting last night with 72% counted it was back to the Liberal candidate Craig Ondarchie.
A prediction for Northern Metro as Labor scrutineers swarm over every vote
Asked for predictions at the mayoral functions in Moreland and Banyule last night, I was sticking with the Liberals being 60% favourites, followed by the independent at 30% and Labor's Nathan Murphy being the outside prospect with a 10% chance.
That said, it remains bizarre that Labor is absolutely swarming the Northern Metro scrutineering process, knocking out hundreds of rival votes, whilst the Liberals have barely been seen as they are two busy popping the champagne corks celebrating their victory. You'd have thought the Coalition would be chasing outright balance of power hard, or maybe there isn't a lot of passion to see South Morang cricket coach Craig Ondarchie become the ultimate accidental upper house MP for the Victorian Liberals.
If anyone fancies getting into the scrutineering caper over the coming days, please drop us a line to Stephen@maynereport.com.
As for our prospects, the formula hasn't changed much from what we explained in the December 1 edition and we remain a chance.
The Green vote needs to finish as close to 18.10% per cent as possible. It finished last night at 18.38% but this 280 vote deficit behind the second Green candidate was after almost 10,000 absentee and pre-poll votes from the hugely Green seat of Melbourne were counted. The likes of Broadmeadows and Thomastown will bring that lead down.
There remains about 60,000 votes to be counted and you can get some idea on the pre-poll and absentee votes by looking at the 11 lower house seat results which comprise the Northern Metropolitan upper house region.
How voting is progressing in 11 lower house seats
Broadmeadows: 87.07% counted so far and turnout was 90.42% in 2006. Along with Thomastown, is the worst seat for the Greens.
Brunswick: 90.89% counted which is more than turnout of 89.28% in 2006. A strong seat for the Greens.
Bundoora: 93.51% counted included a whopping 6050 early votes and turnout of 94.26% in 2006. Below average for Greens.
Ivanhoe: 92.66% counted including a whopping 6486 early votes and turnout was 92.89% in 2006.
Northcote: 76% counted with only 2122 early votes so far and no absentees so estimated 5889 votes to come given turnout was 90.53% in 2006.
Melbourne: 86.89% counted including more than 10,000 in early and absentee votes and overall turnout exceeds 84.84% in 2006.
Mill Park: 88.8% counted so still plenty to come given turnout of 94.73% in 2006.
Preston: 80.85% counted so plenty to come based on turnout of 91.15% in 2006.
Richmond: 87.62% counted including a whopping 7000 absentee votes which delivered 35.26% to the Greens. Exceeds turnout of 86.02% in 2006.
Thomastown: 91.03% counted and turnout was 93% in 2006.
Yan Yean: 90.20% counted so still some to come based on turnout of 94.7% in 2006.
How the Greens perform in late counting categories
In Western Metropolitan, the Greens are back in with a chance of beating Labor's Bob Smith into the final spot after polling 11.72%. They managed 14.21% of the 20,326 absentee votes, an increase of 2.49% on the average and only 11.68% of the 71,476 early votes.
At the moment this is the status of voting on the three late categories in Northern Metro and keep clicking here throughout the day as we're expecting another 60,000 largely absentee and pre-poll votes to come through today and tomorrow:
Postals: Greens polled 13.2% of the 23,968 votes counted so far, against 18.38% overall.
Pre-poll: Greens polled 31.8% of the 6215 votes counted in Melbourne, in line with average.
Absentee: Greens polled 37.6% of the 3926 votes counted from Melbourne against an average of 32%.
Such a trend in Northern Metro would still leave us in with a chance of containing the Green vote to 18.1%, although the absentee vote was a whopping 7000 in Richmond and the Greens polled 35.26% versus an average of about 31%.
Defending a lead of about 1250 over the Greens going into the absentee and pre-poll counting is clearly going to be a close run thing.
However, we do know the first batch of 10,000 absentee and pre-poll votes - which lifted their vote to a high of 18.38% - were from the strongest Greens district of Melbourne as you can see from these results.
Keep watching this page from the VEC website today, plus Antony Green's useful but flawed election calculator which ignores below the line votes when distributing the preference flows.
Carrying on like a balance of power independent
If the votes fall the wrong way when the button is pushed on December 14, it will probably look quite silly to have done all this media about policy positions and tactics.
For instance, click on the screen shot below to watch a 6-minute interview with Virginia Trioli and Michael Rowland on ABC News 24 last Wednesday morning.
However, holding the balance of power on my own does remain a prospect and with the final Northern Metropolitan seat likely to determine whether the Coalition has control of both houses, it is surprising that papers like the Herald Sun are yet to cover the issue at all. Indeed, we produced this Crikey story on Friday which is behind the paywall but included the following lines:
Beating up on executive pay is a no brainer for the tabloid media and Australia's biggest-selling paper, the Herald Sun, came up with a ripper splash yesterday as it linked an electricity pricing decision by a federal government regulator to the salary packages of the AGL and Origin Energy CEOs.
The hypocrisy of such a line by the Murdoch press is stunning, so the following letter was submitted yesterday:
It is a bit rich of the Herald Sun to attack the $5 million pay packets of power company bosses at AGL and Origin Energy when the paper is published by News Corp whose executive chairman Rupert Murdoch was paid $US16.8m in 2009-10. And News Corp CEO Chase Carey received a $US10 million sign-on fee just for starting the job. These things need to be kept in perspective and I trust this comment won't be censored.For some baffling reason, the letter didn't make it into today's paper.
The reason for that last line about censorship was that Herald Sun editor Simon Pristel was confronted by 774 ABC Melbourne morning host Jon Faine on Wednesday as to whether the paper was refusing to cover the possibilities in the Victorian upper house because of its long-standing ban on mentioning its former business editor.
Even The AFR, which has also imposed a ban of sorts over the past 11 years, recognised that the real potential of exclusively holding the balance of power in the Victorian upper house was a story worth reporting.
The piece by The AFR's Matthew Dunckley on Wednesday finished off with a quote expressing concern that Ted Baillieu's proposed abolition of the Office of the Police Integrity was merely "responding to an outrageous campaign by the Murdoch press".
Of course, it is quite premature to start pontificating about various policy positions when tens of thousands of votes are still to be counted in the Northern Metropolitan region.
etc etc
Greg Hywood's Fairfax ascension - we tipped this
The shock resignation of Fairfax Media CEO Brian McCarthy has the journalism world in quite a lather, but we're claiming to have tipped the prospect of newly installed acting CEO Greg Hywood as a potential successor. Here's the relevent transcript from the November 11 AGM when Hywood was up for re-election as a recently appointed non-executive director:
Stephen Mayne: I'd like to strongly support the re-election of Mr Hywood, similar comments with Mr Anderson, it's good to have someone with a long media career.
Within the media industry we are going pretty well. We've got Sam Morgan with the internet, we've got Michael Anderson with radio, we've got Greg Hywood with newspapers and we have Nick Fairfax in an on-going sense with a proprietorial history in the media. I do know when the Fairfax Rural Press merger happened, Rupert Murdoch rang someone and said "Brian McCarthy is the best newspaper man in Australia". I don't know what Rupert was saying about John Hartigan when he said that, but I know for a fact he did say that. So I'm very happy with the growing amount of media experience on the board, and the diversity within a fast moving media sector. So well done.
I have a specific question for Mr Hywood. Is it his intention to be a professional, non-executive director into the future? Is that the career decision he has taken?
Some people have said that this is good potential succession planning at a management level, and that Greg Hywood would one day make a terrific CEO of this company. He is not here to undermine the CEO - we've got a very good CEO. But many companies do this now where you put someone on the board, you can see them, you can see them think strategically, they have the expertise. When Brian gets to the natural end of his term, you've got someone there you can slot in from board level, or you can have someone coming up the ranks through management.
So is Greg, has he made a career decision, forever, to be a professional non-executive director?
Chairman Roger Corbett: Well, I think once again you are making very good advice Stephen, but quite far ranging. Greg I won't ask you to comment on your aspirations for the chief executive's job or otherwise, but I give you the opportunity to make a comment if you wish.
Greg Hywood: Thank you Roger, and thank you Stephen for the support. I was approached to be a director of Fairfax - which was a great honour, given my long background with the company, and I thought it was an appropriate time in my career development to take on a directors role of a major company, and I will do so with great expectations that the company can go forward in the demanding environment.
As for other interests, I have a range of other directorships which I'm engaged in, and really at this stage I am quite happy to fulfil those. The age is down, but can I just say that I have a bit left in me yet.
Tim Shaw and Cornwall on Wiki Leaks
The Wikileaks saga rolls on and we had an interesting chat about it with Tim Shaw on 2UE's legal program on Sunday night. Naturally, our cartoonist Mark Cornwall is also weighing in:
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Victorian Liberals shaft their preference partners on the pokies
Ted Baillieu has got off on the wrong foot with the anti-pokies lobby after Gaming Minister Michael O'Brien gave an interview to The Sunday Age sledging the mandatory pre-commitment proposal agreed to by Andrew Wilkie and Julia Gillard.
Whilst the Liberals are running a libertarian individual responsiblity argument, mixed in with a states' rights agenda, it is amazing they ignore the positions of the parties which consistently deliver them upper house seats through preference flows.
Talk to the Christan Democrats, Family First and the DLP and they are all dead against the pokies.
The Coalition would be at least 5 upper house seats worse off without these preferences, yet the minor party position on the pokies is seemingly ignored.
In other pokies news, do have a listen to this pokies tax slug-fest with Neil Mitchell on 3AW two days before polling day.
It was hard yards getting the pokies onto the agenda this campaign. Gabi Byrne did a great job pulling together the big pokies forum on Tuesday, but as we explained in this Crikey story before the election, the mainstream media didn't front.
Standing next to Gaming Minister Tony Robinson and his shadow Michael O'Brien and labelling their respective policies "pathetic" was a highlight of the campaign and it was good that Woolies pokies boss Ross Blair-Holt turned up to hear it all as well.
David Jones AGM - shareholders not interested in flogging the board
David Jones refused to webcast their AGM last Friday and we somehow lost our audio recorder on the trip up to Sydney.
That said, the meeting was probably the most hostile reception I've had from fellow shareholders in almost 400 AGM encounters over the past 12 years.
The trick at AGMs is not to get up too many times and the largely elderly shareholders were clearly not interested in hearing the board get criticised several times over.
Indeed, The Weekend AFR led its business section on Saturday with a story head-lined: "Board blessed with forgiving investors" and it included the following:
Shareholders at the AGM had every right to vent their collective spleen. But they chose instead to applaud Mr Savage on David Jones' handling of the case and had little tolerance for the few activists who dared to criticise.
I probably overdid the arguments about their being too many old white blokes on the board and then really ran into trouble when criticising the new female director Philippa Stone, who has been a partner at Freehills for 20 years.
It was only after arriving at the AGM that I recognised Philippa as the Freehills partner who'd ticked me off on a couple of things after a Babcock & Brown AGM in Sydney a couple of years back.
I then bumped into her at the David Jones AGM in Melbourne last year and made some crack about it being good to see she was hanging around with better corporate clients than Babcock.
Given that she was talking to the senior management and directors at David Jones last year, I then became suspicious that the retailer had just slotted in their preferred corporate lawyer to fill a vacancy on the board.
Even worse, this historical service provider relationship was not disclosed in the notice of meeting.
Yet when it came to the re-election of former PwC CEO John Harvey, the notice of meeting stressed that during 20 years as a qualified auditor, he never worked on the David Jones account.
Given that chairman Bob Savage had earlier refused to reveal the age of former Woolworths CEO Reg Clairs when he was up for re-election, it was clear the company didn't exactly have a great culture of disclosure.
For instance, when Savage himself was up for re-election I asked how much David Jones spent on advertising at Fairfax, where he is also a director. No need for disclosure, he replied.
The same thing happened with AMP chairman Peter Mason who is about to become an ever bigger landlord to David Jones once the Axa Asia Pacific takeover goes through, yet there is no disclosure of these related party transactions.
Didn't we supposedly get on top of these sorts of related deals at Coles Myer in the early 1990s with Solly Lew and Lindsay Fox?
Anyway, Philippa Stone batted away these questions and claimed she'd only worked on the original DJs float in 1996 and the RPS capital raising prospectus more recently.
She just happened to be in Melbourne at the time of last year's AGM and came along out of interest without billing the retailer.
Having heard of all this, I finished by recommending a vote against on the basis that Philippa had done a lot of work for Babcock which had blown up $10 billion.
Chairman Savage then lived up to his name and demanded I sit down and after the meeting a clearly upset Ms Stone gvae me a much-deserved rocket.
Hundreds of lawyers worked on the vast over-leveraged Babcock empire at its peak and it was a bit rough to summarise an impressive corporate career working for a whole host of blue-chip clients by just focusing on the Babcock connection.
We'll try and get you some audio or transcripts of all of this in future editions because it was pretty lively stuff.
Where former Federal government staffers went
We continue to track the career paths of former Federal Government staffers and this list tracks where staffers who exited the Rudd Government finished up. Check out the lists of the former Labor Hawke-Keating staffers and former Howard government staffers.
And here are a few new and updated entries:
Martin Callinan: a former senior policy adviser having worked for Kelvin Thomson in 2004 and Peter Garrett in 2007 on climate change, then as Defence Science Adviser for Warren Snowdon, now Policy Director at the Australian Academy of Science.
Michael Danby: briefly (1993-94) assistant private secretary to Barry Cohen, Minister for Environment, then for Alan Griffiths; industrial officer for Shoppies Union, elected MHR for Melbourne Ports in 1998.
John Donovan: adviser to Ros Kelly as Minister for Sports; a witness to the whiteboard ‘sports rorts' affair; then became adviser to John Brumby as Victorian Opposition leader; has a low-key political consultancy, JD Consulting, and runs a publicity outfit for funds managers (AFM Investment Partners Pty Ltd) specializing in the industry funds space; appointed a director of Gippsland Water in 2009.
Michael Fleming: senior private secretary to Michael Duffy (1993–97) as Minister for Communications and then Minister for Trade Negotiations; returned to the Victorian Bar and appointed Senior Counsel in 2010.
Nick Gruen: adviser to John Button, Minister for Industry & Commerce (1993–96); then Commissioner of the Productivity Commission, now an independent economist, Crikey contributor and newspaper columnist and mortgage broker.
Chris Maxwell: senior private secretary to Gareth Evans as Attorney-General (1993-94); returned to the Victorian Bar; appointed Supreme Court Justice and President of the Victorian Court of Appeal in 2005.
John Rau: private secretary to Mick Young, Special Minister of State in 1985, then to Michael Tate and Neal Blewett (Community Services and Health) to 1988; returned to legal practice in South Australia; elected to South Australian Parliament in 2002 and appointed Attorney-General in 2010.
Neil Williams: adviser to Arthur Gietzelt (minister for Veterans' Affairs, 1983-84) then senior private secretary to Gareth Evans as Attorney-General; returned to legal practice in Sydney; now a Senior Counsel.
Peter Willis: private secretary to Gareth Evans and Lionel Bowen, as Attorney-General (1984–86); returned to legal practice, in Melbourne and London as partner of a big law firm; now at the Victorian Bar.
Recent email editions and updates
For first time readers, here are links to our recent editions since the state election tilt was first revealed:
How to track the voting and a media deluge on balance of power possibilities
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
In with a chance to win final Northern Metro spot
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Saturday morning briefing on the weather
Saturday, November 27, 2010
A final update for booth workers
Friday, November 26, 2010
A must-read final pre-election edition choc full of lively material
Friday, November 26, 2010
A message to our wonderful booth volunteers
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Developer defamation threat, pokies, councillor expenses, Future Fund, Telstra, AWB and a great offer to campaign volunteers
Monday, November 22, 2010
Future Fund goes to war with Telstra, Woolies AGM wash-up, council pokies taxes and much more
Friday, November 19, 2010
Woolies anti-pokies campaign speech, Manningham mayor boxes on, campaigning for women, Bob Brown, pokies forum, HTVs, Rich List and then some
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Preferences revealed, sleazy deals, Cleary, questioning Bob Brown, The Age, soaring debt, videos, Cornwall and then some
Monday, November 15, 2010
Campaign lift off, Fairfax AGM, councillor expenses, pokies, SP Ausnet, Rich List, women directors, Spark scale back and much more
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Xenophon backs anti-pokies tilt, Packer, Ten, BHP, women directors, Rich List, state debt and much more
Friday, November 5, 2010
Cornwall on the NBN
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Even RBA governor Glenn Stevens feels the need to downplay public debt
It was very strange to hear Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens make the following statement during the federal election campaign: "There is virtually no net public debt in the country at all in contrast to much of the developed world."
Whilst Rupert Murdoch's flagship newspaper Down Under, The Australian, loves to beat up on Labor governments irrespective of the facts sometimes, this recent splash pointing out that state government debt is projected to top $240 billion was a worthwhile piece of journalism.
I bumped into former Bendigo Bank managing director Rob Hunt in Bendigo four weeks ago and congratulated him on landing the tough job of chairing Treasury Corporation of Victoria, our state debt management authority.
He was told that debt disclosure by TCV is very poor. The Federal Government's own debt management website puts the gross debt figure at $152 billion and the bond issues have flowed as follows since our last update:
Friday, December 3, 2010: $700m tender of 2 year bonds expiring in November 2012 were sold for an average yield of 4.94% and was over-subscribed 5 times.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010: $500m tender of 10 year bonds expiring in April 2020 were sold for an average yield of 5.41% and was over-subscribed 4.1 times.
Friday, November 26, 2010: $700m tender of 3 year bonds expiring in December 2013 were sold for an average yield of 5.16% and was over-subscribed 4.3 times.
Incoming Victorian Treasurer Kim Wells is suddenly talking about the evils of debt, so if he wants to get that message out there the first thing he should do is start disclosing bond issue auction results on the TCV website, just like the Feds do.
The Mayne Report Rich List
BRW magazine does a great job with its various Australian Rich Lists but we've broadened their efforts to track any Australian who has ever been worth more than $10 million. We began the process of building the list in early 2008 where we had an initial 327 names. Now, after much research, we've got more than 1500 names with those who've fallen back below $10 million italicised. Below are some new entries:
Bruce Gibson: regional real estate agent, with livestock and prime rural property holdings across Victoria. He is also chairman of real estate company Alex Scott & Co.
Peter Sidwell: is actively involved in a diverse range of businesses in Australia. He was managing director of Shomega Limited, and transformed a family business into one of the most progressive digital printing, media and publishing businesses in South East Asia before selling to Murdoch-controlled PMP in 1996.
Hartman scalp a rare ASIC jailing highlight
The Mayne Report's ASIC jail list highlights what a slack job the corporate plod has done over the years locking up white collar crooks but it was pleasing to see some accountability for an insider trading job last week which we've recorded as follows:
3 December 2010 - Mr John Hartman, of Mosman, New South Wales, was to serve a term of four years and six months imprisonment on 25 insider trading related charges. Mr Hartman pleaded guilty to all charges which were committed while he was employed by Orion Asset Management as an equities dealer. Mr Hartman is to serve a minimum term of three years imprisonment before being eligible for parole on 1 December 2013.
From the press room
Crikey
CEO's salaries, Rupert's package and still counting the votes…
Friday, 3 December, 2010
Mayne could hold balance of power in Victoria
Andrew Crook, Crikey Blog, November 28, 2010
Can Sarah Hanson-Young's cousin pull off a shock upper house victory?
Friday, 26 November, 2010
Australian Financial Review
Upper house count still 'too early to tell'
Mathew Dunckley, Financial Review, December 1, 2010
The Age
Mayne set to be third time lucky - see PDF
Richard Willingham, The Age, December 1, 2010
Activist poised to control state's upper house
Tim Colebatch, The Age, November 30, 2010
SMH
Counting on Kerr, even in her absence
Tim Barlass, Sun-Herald, November 28, 2010
Leader newspapers
STATE ELECTION: Stephen Mayne good chance for Upper House seat
Will Jackson, Manningham Leader, November 28, 2010
Upper house intrigue in Northern Metro region
Nic Price, Melbourne Leader, November 24, 2010
Lateline - Victorian election update
November 30, 2010
Radio
2UE Sydney - interview with Tim Shaw about Wiki Leaks and the Victorian election - December 5, 2010.
2UE Sydney - interview with Tim Shaw about the Victorian election and the upcoming David Jones AGM - December 2, 2010.
1377 MTR Melbourne - interview about the possibility of holding the balance of power in the Victorian upper house - December 1, 2010.
720 ABC Perth - discussing the current election situation - November 30, 2010.
3AW Melbourne - Neil Mitchell has a whinge - November 30, 2010.
774 ABC Melbourne - interview with Jon Faine about the possibility of holding the balance of power in the Victorian upper house.
ABC News radio on ABC News radio discussing the last seat up for grabs in the Victorian upper house.
774 ABC Melbourne - breakfast radio interview with Red Symons about the election - November 29, 2010.
774 ABC Melbourne - Panel discussion including independent candidate Phil Cleary, myself and Fiona Patten from the Sex Party with Jon Faine on November 26, 2010.
3AW Melbourne - with Neil Mitchell on 3AW about the pokies during his traditional "whackos and fringe dwellers" session on November 25, 2010.
The Cornwall collection
Former Fairfax and Crikey cartoonist Mark Cornwall has been contributing to The Mayne Report since March 2009. Here is a collection of his best cartoons and check out this latest animation:
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Click on the image above to join more than 3000 followers on Twitter. Here are some recent tweets:
8.49am December 6: Interview with Tim Shaw on 2UE Sydney last night discussing Wiki Leaks and the Vic election http://urlm.in/ggqu
10.52pm December 5: With 44% of the vote re-checked, am back winning 5th spot, says Antony Green: http://abc.gov.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/nmet-results.htm
1.14pm December 5: Big week for mayoral elections in Victoria. Hot tips are Oscar Yildiz in Moreland, Peter McKenna in Banyule and Diana Asmar in Darebin.
12.57pm December 5: With 32% recounted, Antony Green is showing Sex Party wins 5th spot. Won't last: http://abc.gov.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/nmet-results.htm
11.51am December 5: Very bad pokies start for Vic Libs: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieu-launches-attack-on-gillards-pokie-laws-20101204-18ksb.html
5.36pm December 4: We're up to 2999 followers. Thanks in advance to number 3000. Today is focused on mayoral discussions given Tuesday is D-day.
2.53pm December 3: Antony Green is showing 2nd Green Alex Bathal wins 5th spot but this is only after 8% of recount in strong Green areas given my 1.6%. Relax!
2.36pm December 3: Plenty of combat at DJs AGM on McInnes, related deals, disclosure, blokey culture. Went too hard against new director over Babcock links.
7.31am December 3: Check out Wednesday's lively interview with Virginia Trioli and Michael Roland on ABC News 24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DetwUy4aPY0
10.01pm December 2: Tim Colebatch now saying in The Age I'm "more likely" to win 5th spot than 2nd Liberal. Food for thought on flight up to Sydney for DJs AGM.
8.03pm December 2: Bizarre developments in the upper house count today. VEC briefly tipped a DLP win in Western Vic and then pulled all primary counts offline.
7.47pm December 2: Some insightful comments on prospects in this thread: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2010/11/28/victorian-election-photo-finishes/
5.25pm December 2: Both VEC count and Antony Green's calculator for North Metro have become redundant as recheck is in progress showing less than 5% counted.
4.01pm December 2: Pic of ALP lead scrutineer in Nth Metro: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/budgie-stunt-just-colour-and-movement-20100719-10hu1.html
3.16pm December 2: Green vote up to 18.14% after 1st 4000 absentee votes counted - not a good sign. Cuts lead over Greens to just 137, although need small win.
12.23pm December 2: After all the dramas of past 2 years, amazing that only ASA and I asked questions at Nufarm AGM today held at RACV. Tweeting from library.
12.18pm December 2: Another 2000 postals are in. Lead over Green out to 1250 as they have slipped to 17.80%. Good news but bit worried about below the lines.
9.43am December 2: Interview last night on 1377 MTR Melbourne about the election results which may not be know until Dec 14 http://urlm.in/gfux
8.32am December 2: Can't stand all this waiting for voting updates. Heading off to Nufarm AGM to take the mind off politics for a bit. Plenty of issues.
8.07pm November 30: Victorian Liberal whips are briefing MPs that I'm a serious prospect of joining them in the upper house. Still very tight 50-50 situation
5.59pm November 30: Antony Green has just updated calculator. Am still in with 73% of vote counted: http://abc.gov.au/elections/vic/2010/guide/nmet-results.htm
5.58pm November 30: Just heard from Labor's upper house whip with an opening conversation about processes, so must be in with some sort of a show.
6.11pm November 29: David Jones have canned the webcast of this year's AGM in Sydney on Friday - very defensive strategy given obvious criticism coming.
5.27pm November 29: Shock, horror - journo from The OZ just called. How long will the Herald Sun maintain their ban during Victorian balance of power situation?
Do ya best, Stephen Mayne
* The Mayne Report is a multi-media governance website published by shareholder activist, local government councillor, Crikey founder and political candidate Stephen Mayne with regular email editions. To unsubscribe from the free emails click here.