By Patrick Durkin
A who’s who from Victoria’s corporate scene turned out for The Australian Financial Review Chanticleer 50th Anniversary Brunch.
It was inevitable the Chanticleer brunch hosted in Melbourne by The Australian Financial Review, the nation’s business newspaper that’s based in Sydney, reverted to the age-old rivalry between the country’s two largest cities.
Melbourne has been the spiritual home of Chanticleer since the column was founded by Robert Gottliebsen in 1974 and a who’s who from the city’s corporate scene turned out to Crown for Friday’s event ahead of Derby Day. The line-up included Coles CEO Leah Weckert who underlined the need for corporate profits to drive jobs and growth, taking up the baton after Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney this week told politicians of all sides to lay off big business.
Other guests included Lendlease CEO Tony Lombardo and incoming Lendlease chairman John Gillam, Transurban CEO Michelle Jablko, AustralianSuper’s equity head Shaun Manuell, Port of Melbourne CEO Saul Cannon, former regulator Graeme Samuel, UBS managing director Kelvin Barry and executives from ANZ, CBA and IAG.
Asked about the success of Racing NSW and Peter V’landys’ The Everest, now the second-biggest race in Australia in terms of gambling turnover behind the Melbourne Cup, Victoria Racing Club’s new CEO Kylie Rogers took the opportunity to praise what V’landys had done – while delivering a glancing shot at Sydney.
“I like to say that we’re the wife and Sydney is the mistress,” Rogers said.
“We’ve got substance, and we’re traditional – 165 years of it – but what they’re doing in Sydney is fun and good on them.”
Relations between the state’s two racing bodies reached a low point last year when Racing NSW launched an anticompetitive case against Racing Victoria.
Veteran fund manager and keen punter and horse race owner Geoff Wilson, grew up in Melbourne where he “ran the SP book at St Kevin’s” but lives in Sydney. On stage with Rogers, he was well-placed to weigh in.
“Living in Sydney these days, it frustrates me. It’s the scheduling. Why do they have to have The Everest around the Caulfield Cup time?”
“Can’t they just decide, let’s put it over there, and can’t we just have a bigger, longer period, rather than trying to cannibalise someone else [by pulling in] the best horses with the best jockeys and the best trainers. I think NSW has done a poor job.”
In response, Chanticleer columnist James Thomson quipped, “there goes your ticket to the Everest”. Wilson said he didn’t mind and noted he also wasn’t a member of the Qantas Chairman’s lounge. “Judging from this week, you must be the only person in Australia,” Thomson retorted.
Financial Review editor-in-chief James Chessell, who revealed one federal minister had compared Victoria’s economy to Argentina’s, acknowledged Chanticleer’s connection to that state’s capital. He noted Gottliebsen was followed by Melburnians Alan Kohler, Malcolm Maiden, John Durie and Ivor Ries.
Present at the event on Friday, Ries gave a patriotic take on the state’s dire financial predicament. “Everyone realises the Victorian economy has lots of problems, chiefly being the state government is racking up debts at a very, very rapid rate … but the underlying cause of Victoria’s problems … is the fact there’s just too many people moving here.”
“The myth about Victoria is that it’s the Rust Belt state. It’s in decline. But in fact, over any period you want to look at 10 years, five years, the population has grown faster than that of Queensland and West Australia combined. And when you get that kind of population growth, the demands on services and infrastructure are just extraordinary.”
“From a funding point of view, Victoria gets the lowest rate of tax share of any of the Australian states. Victoria, roughly 26 per cent of the national economy gets 23 per cent of the tax revenue. So it’s always having to rob Peter to pay Paul,” Ries said.
As Thomson noted, anyone who walks around the city in the next couple of days during the Spring Racing Carnival will see that “it’s still a pretty special place”.
With that, corporates like Victoria’s business chamber CEO and Racing Victoria director Paul Guerra shuffled next door for the Carbine Club’s Derby eve lunch.
The Carbine Club was the one that met on grand final eve last year and broke into spontaneous cheers and applause when Eddie McGuire revealed Daniel Andrews was resigning.
Let’s hope there’s something more to cheer on next week when the Melbourne Cup and the Reserve Bank’s rate decision on Tuesday will be swiftly followed by the US election. What a time to be alive.
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