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In 1969, when Mark Leibler joined Arnold Bloch to partner in a small Lonsdale Street law venture, he “knew full well that, being a Jewish lawyer, none of the establishment firms would have taken me on”, Leibler told an audience in the Grand Hyatt Melbourne Savoy Ballroom on Monday night.
The glittering guest list for the event – Arnold Bloch Leibler’s 70th anniversary – was evidence the firm is small no longer. Anthony Albanese was listed as the guest of honour in a room stacked with political heavies, including Labor ministers Bill Shorten and Mark Dreyfus, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews and his Coalition rival John Pesutto.
Lawyer Mark Leibler says his referendum vote “will be a resounding Yes”.Credit: Michael Clayton-Jones
It’s a testament to the firm’s influence that many of the gathered Rich Listers are ABL clients – including billionaires Anthony Pratt and Solomon Lew. A posse of other business figures in attendance included Ruslan Kogan, Seek co-founders Paul and Andrew Bassat, Australian Community Media boss Antony Catalano, former Labor minister turned lobbyist Stephen Conroy, Latitude Financial’s Ahmed Fahour and property developer Rino Grollo.
Israeli ambassador Amir Maimon, satirist John Safran and Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp were also expected in the room.
With key Voice to parliament architects Noel Pearson and Marcia Langton in attendance, much was made of ABL’s longstanding support for Indigenous constitutional recognition.
The firm’s Voice stance might’ve made it too uncomfortable for Opposition Leader Peter Dutton to accept his invitation. Simon Birmingham, one of the few opposition frontbenchers not to campaign for a No vote, was the only federal Liberal in attendance, which was telling.
Pearson was an articled clerk at ABL, where he impressed on Leibler the similarities between the Jewish and Aboriginal peoples.
“Noel has often described our two peoples as sharing a ‘land-based identity’ – historical and spiritual,” Leibler said on Monday. “Noel also says that Indigenous Australians can and must resist victimhood, as the Jewish people have done, even in the face of persistent racism and victimisation.”
Leibler was there in 2017 when the Uluru Statement from the Heart was endorsed calling for a Voice to parliament. “The hope, the joy, a sense of having reached a turning point in our shared history – all those feelings were palpable. My vote will be a resounding Yes vote – not just because of my absolute confidence in the legal underpinnings of the constitutional change being proposed … But because I know it’s the right thing to do.”
PESUTTO’S PEBBLE
Muhammad Ali once said it wasn’t “the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe”. Embattled Liberal MP Moira Deeming remains equally embattled Opposition Leader John Pesutto’s pebble.
Opposition Leader John Pesutto and MP Moira Deeming.Credit: Darrian Traynor
Deeming has threatened to sue Pesutto for defamation after she was expelled from the party room at the opposition leader’s instigation amid the fallout from her appearance at a Let Women Speak rally gatecrashed by neo-Nazis.
She hasn’t let that dent her public profile, though, and was in the news again at the weekend after her appearance at the conservatives’ version of Lollapalooza, CPAC. Deeming warned, among other things, that teachers were introducing “sexual ideas” to children behind parents’ backs.
She described the reaction to her appearance at the infamous rally as a “public stoning that is still going on to this day”.
Pesutto is doing his best to put on a brave face, insisting Deeming’s comments were not hurting the party. “I don’t think so. We’re just driving ahead on the issues and priorities of the Victorian people.”
TALK TO THE HAND, DAN
After 120 days of consecutive press conferences during the COVID lockdowns, Premier Daniel Andrews typically dominates the microphone when addressing the media.
He is well known for stepping in on, or adding to, a question directed at one of his ministers to keep the team on message. And given its Andrews’ show, they are usually more than happy to oblige.
But Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas caught the premier off guard this weekend when answering questions about rural Victorians languishing on elective surgery waitlists.
Daniel Andrews and Mary-Anne Thomas on Sunday.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Andrews pulled his usual trick of leaping in to add to Thomas’s comments – before being told to wait his turn, with Thomas holding up her hand and saying “one more thing”. It drew a big laugh from the assembled hacks.
The bemused premier took it in his stride, encouraging her to go ahead with “two or three” more points if she was interested.
GAME ON FOR CONROY
Keeping the ball rolling: Sam Kerr and Stephen Conroy.Credit: John Shakespeare
The Women’s World Cup party is over – and it appears Stephen Conroy will have a big role to play in ensuring the good times keep rolling for Australian soccer.
The former Labor senator is in line to become the new chair of the Australian Professional Leagues, the body that runs the A-Leagues and is hoping to carry on the momentum of the past month into the start of the new season in October.
Conroy, who was born in England and supports Sam Kerr’s Chelsea, is no stranger to Aussie soccer politics – he was in the mix to join the board of what was then known as Football Federation Australia in late 2018, when the Lowy family were being squeezed out of the game amid a club-led revolution.
He didn’t make it, but his relationship with certain APL powerbrokers has made him the leading candidate to become the organisation’s new “independent” chair and take over from Western Sydney Wanderers owner Paul Lederer.
Conroy’s Labor ties would have been helpful a few weeks ago, when the APL was pitching for a share in the recently announced $200 million fund for women’s sport. But his lobbying nous – he chairs TG Public Affairs and was called in by PwC when the tax scandal broke – surely can’t hurt the game’s ambitions to unlock more government support.
Conroy did not return calls, and sources say it’s not quite a done deal – his appointment as APL chair is subject to formal approval by the board, which includes representatives from Football Australia and Silver Lake, the private equity firm that has invested $140 million into the A-Leagues.
Let’s hope the APL can do a little better than the last time it tried to capitalise on Australian success at a World Cup. It was only eight months ago that Melbourne Victory fans stormed the pitch and assaulted an opposition goalkeeper, partly out of anger at the league’s decision to controversially sell future grand final hosting rights to NSW.
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