Sports broadcaster Tim Lane didn’t miss Barry Hall or the AFL’s disciplinary system when ABC Radio’s PM program called yesterday:
Barry Hall was given a glorious reprieve in the lead up to the 2005 grand final. In my opinion he shouldn’t have played in that game because of a misdemeanour that he committed in the preliminary final against St Kilda, and yet a way was found for him to play in the game. The game is very big on talking about the messages that it delivers these days and I would suggest that the message that that event’s delivered to him was that he could get away with it.
Unfortunately, failing to punish or even remember misdemeanours seems to be a recurring theme in Australia at the moment.
ANZ Bank retrenched Laurie Emini back in 1997, but a decade later they’d lent the spivvy Opes Prime CEO $650 million and are now battling the biggest reputational shellacking in its history.
The same thing happened with our biggest corporate collapse. John Howard’s then insurance regulators told him to cancel FAI’s licence way back when he was Malcolm Fraser’s Treasurer. A lunch with spivvy founder Larry Adler ended any chance of that but whatever deal they struck contributed heavily to the $5 billion collapse of HIH in 2001.
Then again, John Howard’s moral bankruptcy was on display for all to see when he appeared on the Alan Jones show the day after his own media regulators had shredded the shock jock’s reputation in the 1999 cash for comment inquiry.
And what about One.Tel founder Jodee Rich? If our two richest families and investors more broadly had remembered the collapse of Imagineering after the 1987 crash, surely One.Tel would never have got off the ground.
We see the same thing in politics. Brian Burke went to jail but 20 years later his power inside the Labor Party remained unchecked until the CCC finished him off last year.
Even Graham Richardson refuses to go away. Despite revelations of Swiss bank accounts and battles with the ATO, there was Richo again last night featuring on Four Corners as a “strategic adviser” for Hunter Valley developer Hardie Holdings.
It’s hard to think of a more fortuitous property deal than what reporter Sarah Ferguson laid out:
SARAH FERGUSON: Hardie bought the land – 1700 hectares for an estimated $75 million.
MATT SOMERS: You’ve got to remember we’ve been acquiring the site for nearly 10 years before the strategy came out.
SARAH FERGUSON: That strategy was a regional development plan for the Hunter under the direct control of Minister Sartor. In 2006 he stepped in to rezone almost half their land here for housing. Hardie immediately sold it to another developer for $185 million retaining a 25 per cent share of the project and netting an instant profit of more than $100 million.
Richardson presumably pocketed millions in success fees from Sartor’s controversial decision to rezone the land. Even James Packer continues to employ Richo despite his notorious reputation.
Throw in Mick Gatto and the conflicts at the ASX and we really are a banana republic.
The freak was reference to the incomparable Gary Ablett of course, on field mercurial off field a train wreck, sadly. Lastly, it’s pretty clear there is a Stockholm Sydnrome at play in our business/political culture. It’s what we know – the liars, the spivs etc. Mayne in my impression has got some kind of outsider observer thing going, always has from the start of crikey and I suspect it comes from his proud tough grand old pomme grandfather Brit veteran lineage, of us and also beyond as well, to get that perspective. A bit of a hybrid Aussie is Mayne (?). Keep going I reckon. John Button was right, who can stand this “dullness”.
Quoting Sarah Ferguson in this context doesn’t impress. Talk about police verballing! Her talents are not for thorough and credible investigative journalism. Her whining, self righteous tone desperately trying to be do a Sally Neighbour was a real turn off last night. She was careful to make disclaimers about cash not actually being paid by developers to MPs before shock horror statements about some $350,000 in declared donations over ten years (!), traced back by an obsessive Greens party man. Her inept ambushing of the the NSW Premier and Noreen Hay made me actually sympathise with these unlovely people. There was some grubby sex mentioned between a planner and a developer. How did Kevin Rudd and Greg Combet figure in that? So why suggest they did? The ALP publicly acknowledged benefit from the effective fund raising of people like Hay and Abetts. Where was the “dirty sexy money” so sensationally promised and promoted by Four Corners? Ratings losers? Of course.
Ah yairs, as Christian Kerr might say. The flattering niggle versus the outright insult I’m used to (?!). Mayne is on the cultural trend here. Big Barry should be convicted for criminal assault. Got nothing to do with boundary lines. It’s the law of the land and big money sport$ be b*ggered. It’s a LIE. As for Patrcian Weston I say to you sister being loyal to the ALP is great (according to your own lights) but let me repeat as previously here on crikey.com.au “Stick to your beliefs their Patricia Weston, and just to clarify, you are … mother of Gillian Papalia, wife of Paul Papalia, ALP MP for Peel in the WA Parliament? Just wondering as there is “Patricia Weston” in this Hansard here 27 Feb 2007. [link] Loyalty is an admirable quality, I’m sure every reader would agree.”
Tom, like all bloggers I have strong views and yes I am a long term “true believer”, but I share my name with many others, not least Patricia the wife of Roy Weston Nationwide, a really big name in real estate! I’m surprised the moderator has permitted your personalising of my opinion. But regardless of your mistaken assumption why play the ball and not the woman, to coin a phrase. I have always watched 4 Corners for real content and not sensationalism. I have little sympathy for developers who don’t follow the rules, because there are some ethical ones who do. Clearly the rules re developers and political lobbyists need changing as the WA fiasco with Burke et alia shows. Re rules I absolutely agree with you about Barry Hall being convicted for criminal assault. How does that sort of example help with the one punch death rate which is alarmingly on the rise.
No. You are right Mr Mayne. Stick with it. The Howard period of governance was ugly for lax corporate standards. Prison sentences for serious economic crimes are the way to go, and everyone actually knows it as per my law lecturer on competing models of regulation in 1984! As for Barry Hall I spotted him in a big game, televised up here in the last few years and having been of religious disposition about the game until 20 or so, sad to say I saw a guy who needed to intimidate because he didn’t trust his own ability to go the ball rather than the man. You could see it in his nervous half starts, and niggles when an actually gifted forward would be leading or making space or like ‘the freak” (he’s ‘not a human being’ as per Roy and HG) was already launched into the atmosphere. In short Hall is not actually that good, but he is big and he is dangerous. His haymaker was an eloquent speech to all footy fans my talent has well and truly peaked and is rolling fast down the other side.