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Rugby league kingpin Peter V’landys may still be considering whether he’ll mount a bid to secure the all-powerful role of executive chairman of the code. But that hasn’t stopped him from trying the gig on for size.
The Australian Rugby League Commission chairman has been working through a handover with the NRL’s departing chief executive Andrew Abdo since Monday, CBD hears, and will be left with the reins as interim executive chairman for the next four or so months.
Abdo is off to lead Tennis Australia as chief executive, where he’ll be responsible for the Australian Open. His last day as NRL chief is Wednesday. From then, V’landys will be rugby league’s very own Sun King, leaving his duties as Racing NSW chief to the sporting body’s chief operating officer Graeme Hinton for the same four-month period.
But if chatter in sporting and media circles is anything to go by, the arrangement could well be made permanent.
Combining the roles of chairman and chief executive would require a change to the code’s constitution, which prohibits an ARLC director from becoming chief executive. But the commission’s directors have in recent weeks discussed legal advice which they believe would allow V’landys to take control without change to the constitution, as the Herald revealed late last month.
Such a move would only entrench V’landys’ status as one of the most powerful figures in Australian sport and media, and strengthen his influence in federal politics. Not that he’s left wanting as things are.
It was only last week, at this year’s State of Origin decider in Brisbane, V’landys played host to multiple prime ministers. There was Anthony Albanese, who was joined by Lord Fakafanua, Tonga; Laʻauli Leuatea Schmidt, Samoa; and James Marape, Papua New Guinea.
The nation’s most influential media executives also turned out to rub shoulders with V’landys over the course of the series. News Corp chairman Lachlan Murdoch and his wife, Sarah, showed face, as did Foxtel chief executive Patrick Delany. Then there was Peter Tonagh, chairman of Nine Entertainment (owner of this masthead), and Nine’s CEO Matt Stanton.
V’landys went on to beat the $5 billion asking price he’d set for the NRL broadcast rights this month, when the NRL announced a new deal with Nine and Foxtel. Should he ultimately secure the executive chairmanship, V’landys would get an annual salary of more than $1 million for his trouble.
In the family
It may still be too soon to tell whether the Albanese government’s move to strip senior politicians of uncapped entitlements to fly their partners and children around the country has had any material impact.
But data provided to CBD by the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority shows Communications Minister Anika Wells and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland aren’t the only MPs who’ve been making the most of the entitlements.
According to IPEA, both the number of tickets booked by parliamentarians and the total value of travel increased over the past financial year. Some $1.3 million was spent in the 2025-26 financial year, up 38 per cent on the $954,000 spent the previous year. The number of tickets booked, meanwhile, crept up from 1282 bookings to 1725.
“Prior to July 1, 2026, parliamentarians were provided with two travel budgets, one being a dollar amount budget for travel to Canberra and within their local area, and the other an Australia-wide budget, which was a total of three trips per financial year,” a spokesperson for the authority told CBD. The data covers the costs and tickets for both budgets, the spokesperson said.
Keating, Andrews, Swan and Albo break bread with Pratt
What do you call four of the Australian Labor Party’s most influential figures?
We couldn’t come up with anything fit to print. But we imagine Anthony Pratt, the Donald Trump-loving billionaire Visy chairman, had some thoughts when he found himself surrounded by Labor luminaries at a breakfast hosted by his company and The Australian Financial Review on Tuesday.
Among the Labor heavyweights wheeled out were former prime minister Paul Keating, the everywhere man and former treasurer Wayne Swan. Sat beside Swan on a long table strewn with breakfast treats and glasses of orange juice was none other than former Victorian premier Daniel Andrews, who found himself next to Pratt, sporting a bit of stubble.
To Pratt’s right sat Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, with his trusted adviser and Labor Party national secretary Paul Erickson further down the table, Keating sandwiched between them. Debby Blakey, the chief executive of super fund HESTA, also went along.
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John Buckley is a CBD columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via email.
Fiona Byrne is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.From our partners
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