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CBD is loving the emotional highs that the ongoing Qantas saga has unleashed on the nation, but we’re going to have to call on all parties to the matter not to go taking the law into their own hands.
The excitement of Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie’s threat last month to jail the airline’s former CEO Alan Joyce hasn’t worn off – nor are we quite over the shock revelation that Bridget could order a bloke to be locked-up – and now Joyce’s other nemesis – no, not the AFR’s Joe Aston, but the Transport Workers Union – is getting in on the act.
Chairman Richard Goyder will leave the Qantas board by next year’s AGM.Credit: Simon Schluter
“EXTRADITE GOYDER EXIT AND SHAKE UP QANTAS BOARD,” thundered the union’s press release on Wednesday morning – shouty capitals and all – greeting the news that Qantas chairman Richard Goyder had finally bowed to the inevitable and announced his retirement from the airline’s board, albeit taking his sweet time about it.
Now, we’re sure the TWU’s National Secretary Michael Kaine meant to say something else – expedite, maybe – because any attempt to extradite Goyder would need to overcome the fact that he hasn’t left the county, nor has he been accused of anything even remotely illegal.
Still, if McKenzie can milk a bit of coverage out of the notion of Joyce being detained on the tarmac – whenever he returns from the Republic of Ireland – and hauled before her Senate committee – then who could begrudge Michael his own little flight of fancy.
But a union spokesperson cautioned us not to take the extradition line too seriously. “We are eager for him to follow Joyce out the door – but although we do have an extradition treaty with Ireland, we didn’t mean it quite that literally.”
CHAIR ENOUGH
We’ll take the subject of Goyder in for landing now, with Wednesday morning’s news prompting a frenzy of speculation, in certain circles, about what might happen now with one of Goyder’s other high-profile gigs as chairman of the Australian Football League Commission.
He’s also chairman of oil and gas giant Woodside, but that’s a whole other day’s work.
Goyder was elected at the league’s AGM earlier this year for another three-year term at the helm of the commission and when we gave footy central at Docklands a call the message was a firm nothing-to-see-here.
But do you think any of that’s going to stop us?
There’s talk that Port Adelaide footy club president and former breakfast TV host David Koch might fancy Goyder’s job, while former Medibank chief executive and Geelong club prez Craig Drummond and BGH Capital founding partner Robin Bishop, who both sit on the commission, have been reported to have support among the AFL clubs as potential replacements.
Bishop wouldn’t comment when we called on Wednesday but we’re reliably informed that the bloke who has his hands full running the nation’s biggest private equity firm would be most unlikely to put himself forward.
Koch was reported by his people to be in transit on Wednesday when we tried to bail him up. A Geelong spokesperson said the club was “not in the business of speculating on the AFL chairperson’s role” and Goyder’s people at the airline, for the record, weren’t going anywhere near this one either.
POOR PAIR
Our eye was caught by a fascinating footnote in the legal spat between Escala Partners, the wealth management outfit now partially owned by New York-listed Focus Financial Partner, and two of its former high -flying financial advisers Paul Sealey – who is also on the board of Cricket Victoria – and Jonathan Vickers-Willis.
Escala has taken its two former advisers, both of whom are regulars in the rankings of Australia’s best, to court in a non-competition and restraint of trade dispute stemming from a 2019 deal, in which Sealey and Vickers-Willis sold their stakes in the firm – with Sealey cashing in $4.2 million worth of shares.
The merits of all that will be assessed all in good time but most recently Escala sought an interim injunction halting Sealey and Vickers-Willis – who both earned a touch under $600,000 last financial year – from working in the industry until the matter is resolved. Judge Ian Waller wasn’t having any of it, especially after he’d been told that neither Sealey or Vickers-Willis had worked in three months and that they had monthly expenses of $30,000-$40,000 and $24,000 respectively.
PARK BARRELLING
Finally, a gem from State Parliament last week where Treasurer Tim Pallas, whose budget is an ocean of red ink, found a bright spot in the gloom as he took to his hind legs to update the lower house on what he sees as an unsung triumph of the Labor government’s capital works program – dog parks.
Tim was especially proud of the new off-leash reserve at Levittown Rise in his own electorate of Werribee, “part of the government’s $5 million investment to deliver 14 new off-leash dog parks across the state,” he reckons.
“My own dog Max cannot wait to go and spend some time there as we take full advantage of the parks both off-leash and on-leash throughout Melbourne’s west, not to mention our growing pathways,” the treasurer said. “Life is better with a walk with a furry friend.”
CBD is glad to hear Tim has something to take his mind off it all.
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