Markets 
The rise of One Nation this year has already triggered a frenzy among corporate offsiders and lobbyists trying to fashion themselves as relationship brokers for the Pauline Hanson-curious.
It appears the latest famous-for-Canberra type to hit the market is former Liberal senator Hollie Hughes. This week, Hughes joined the Coalition-aligned lobby shop DPG Advisory as “strategic counsel”. The firm, which counts Rio Tinto and Meta-owned Facebook among its registered clients, was founded by former Liberal adviser David Gazard, also a confidant to former prime minister Scott Morrison.
But something tells us Hughes hasn’t been brought in to offer corporates a line into the opposition leader. Consider, for instance, it was only last year that Hughes went public with criticism of then-shadow treasurer Angus Taylor, questioning his “capability” and wondering aloud on ABC Radio “what he’s been doing for three years”.
The previous year, Hughes claimed Taylor had endorsed a challenger to the NSW Senate team to boost his numbers in Canberra for a future leadership tilt.
So our guess is Hughes will be offering her “strategic counsel” on all things One Nation. In May, of course, Hughes joined the late former Liberal Party vice-president Teena McQueen in defecting to One Nation. A couple of months later, Hughes posted to Facebook saying she was “Ready to watch the boss!” before Hanson’s live appearance on Paul Murray’s News24 live show.
“Pauline Hanson – the only chance we all have to get our country back,” Hughes wrote in the accompanying caption. Then, just a few days ago, Hughes posted a photo of herself standing beside a man wearing an orange One Nation T-shirt at a Sunday morning party branch meeting.
“The orange wave is coming!” she wrote.
Hughes’ new job has set tongues wagging in Canberra, where the former NSW Liberal senator is expected to be pitched by Gazard and Co as a way to get the ear of Hanson and her gatekeeper, James Ashby.
But when we tried to reach Hughes on Monday to ask whether she could be expected to help clients get an audience with One Nation as part of the new job, we didn’t hear back. No word either on whether the former senator has intentions to run at the next federal election.
A spokesman for One Nation confirmed Hughes was a member of the party.
Kogan tries his best Musk impression
It was only five years ago that Kogan founders Ruslan Kogan and David Shafer faced a massive backlash from investors over the company’s proposal to give the pair a $100 million-plus options payday without much in the way of performance hurdles.
So when Kogan proposed on Monday its co-founder and CEO Kogan take the lowest wage he could from the company while betting $50 million on the share price doubling within the next five years, we doubt we were the only ones choking on the corporate theatre.
Kogan is suddenly so interested in shareholder returns, he’s “indicated” to the company he’ll not only sacrifice his $847,838 fixed salary, but he’ll also donate his revised salary of $50,000 a year over the next five years to charity!
What a change of heart. The announcement was accompanied by a wall of quotes from chairman Greg Ridder, the first of which pointed out how carefully the board has listened to shareholder feedback, “particularly on the importance of clear and demanding performance conditions”.
“Kogan goes the full Musk,” was the subject line of an analyst note fired off shortly after the announcement by the folks at RBC Capital Markets, who seemed to like what they saw. Shareholders will get their say at an upcoming meeting.
Musk secured support from Tesla shareholders late last year for an eye-watering $1.5 trillion compensation package tied to targets including expanding the EV manufacturer’s market value to $US8.5 trillion ($11.81 trillion). He will also have to meet robotics and robotaxi targets.
And Kogan? Well, he better get to flogging more of those home-brand smart TVs.
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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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