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Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn’s lonely corporate support of the Albanese government’s May budget has (among other things) given the banking stalwart renewed celebrity status in the halls of Parliament House.
So passengers on the 8.10am Qantas flight from Sydney to Canberra on Tuesday morning were agog to see the man himself on board, flanked by his government relations advisor, Dan Doran, who until last year served as chief of staff to Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek.
The flight also ferried Coalition frontbencher Andrew Hastie, seated in front of Doran, back to the capital, along with Small Business Minister Anne Aly. (The pair appeared alongside One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce on the ABC’s National Forum program the night before.)
Comyn eventually surfaced at the Parliament House staff cafe wearing an orange lobbyist pass reportedly sponsored by Treasurer Jim Chalmers. A Commonwealth Bank spokesman declined to comment on the visit.
The CBA boss drops into Canberra regularly, and as recently as July held court with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the now-infamous dinner organised by Felix Lee, as was revealed by The Australian Financial Review at the time. His backing of Labor’s budget, coupled with the intrigue surrounding his personal life, has enlivened the cult of Comyn in the nation’s capital.
As for Tuesday, we’re told he was in the capital for a set of routine policy meetings with senior figures from both the Albanese government and the Coalition. Our guess is Chalmers was high up on the list.
Not in Comyn’s diary, we’re told, was the Australian Labor Party’s “Economics Team Networking Event” fundraiser headlined by Chalmers later on Tuesday evening. But no doubt he was there in spirit.
Labor’s charm offensive
It sounds like the “Economics Team Networking Event” fundraiser put on by the Australian Labor Party wasn’t the only show in town on Tuesday evening. But we’ll start there.
The Labor Party apparatus promised to wheel out Treasurer Jim Chalmers, along with Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, Assistant Treasurer Daniel Mulino, and Assistant Minister for Competition Andrew Leigh. Access to Albanese’s money mavens was offered to lobbyists and other corporate types for just $2000 a head. It looks like that one was hosted at EY’s Clarke Street office, according to event details seen by CBD.
“We are also delighted to welcome ALP members serving on the Standing Committee on Economics,” reads the invite. “We look forward to an evening of engaging discussion on the opportunities and challenges shaping Australia’s economy.” Oh, we bet.
But for lobbyists eager to peddle their wares and ingratiate themselves with the capital’s elected officials on a budget, it looks like there was better value elsewhere – specifically Joe’s Bar at the East Hotel for an event co-hosted by Ausveg and Labor’s member for Bendigo, Lisa Chesters.
Tickets to that one were going for $1000, which one lobbyist described to CBD as a “bargain”, given the sprawling list of MPs who were expected to show face at the get-together.
Among the MPs who were expected to go along were Health Minister Mark Butler and Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth. Skills Minister Andrew Giles was set to show face, as was Resources Minister Madeleine King and Transport Minister Catherine King.
Also on that list: Jess Walsh, Kate Thwaites, Ged Kearney, Lisa Darmanin, Julian Hill, Dan Repacholi, and a string of others. A “bargain” indeed.
Trudeau’s Australian options
CBD brought word on Tuesday of former Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau’s second coming as an aspiring Hollywood producer.
Well, it turns out the former Canadian leader and boyfriend to Katy Perry has optioned not one but two Australian books after using Toronto Film Festival to announce he was launching a new production company with his former chief of staff, Katie Telford.
The first was Phoebe Saintilan-Stocks’s The Right Hand. The second, which we weren’t aware of until after publishing Tuesday’s column, is Leesa Ronald’s political-media romantic comedy, Power Moves. The “rivals-to-lovers” story doesn’t quite sound like our bag. But no doubt the 20-somethings in Canberra LARPing as characters on The West Wing will be on tenterhooks for a release date.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.From our partners
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