By Kishor Napier-Raman and Noel Towell
Alan Jones swiftly disappeared from public view last year after this masthead published historical allegations of indecent assault, which the veteran shock jock denies.
But after a sojourn in London, Jones returned to Australia last month, insisting he’d soon be back on his online streaming network ADH TV, and wouldn’t be selling his famous apartment in the Toaster building at Circular Quay, despite rumours to the contrary.
Whatever about Sydney, there’s no sign Jones might part with his swanky $12.25 million Gold Coast apartment in Southport. As a matter of fact, the broadcaster was entertaining there over the Easter weekend, hosting the Bastiaan family.
Back in Malcolm Turnbull’s day, Marcus Bastiaan was a young conservative disruptor giving the Liberal Party – particularly in his native Victoria – the kick in the bum that many on the right thought it badly needed.
Nowadays, though, politics appears to have taken a back seat for Marcus and his wife, Stephanie Bastiaan, who’s more likely to be in the spotlight. She’s active in the “gender-critical” movement and is often seen on Sky News after dark. She kicked in a few quid to the legal fighting fund of Moira Deeming, the exiled Victorian Liberal state MP, and also works as a research fellow at the conservative Australian Women’s Forum.
The Bastiaans have relocated to the Goldie, where Marcus is expanding his doors business.
Stephanie told us the family were old and dear friends of Jones. “He has only ever been a gentleman and friend to us,” she said.
COP OUT
CBD can’t remember a time when staffing movements among NSW Police have been a matter of such close media scrutiny.
But the cops’ decision to hire (and eventually “unhire”) former Seven producer Steve “Jacko” Jackson to inject a bit of tabloid pizzazz into commissioner Karen Webb’s thudding media performances has been a fortnight-long slow-motion train wreck of the most mesmerising kind.
The ballad of Webb and Jacko, with all its intriguing “peak NSW” subplots (Thai masseuses, defamation threats, jobs for the boys) has meant another staff move at the force has been, understandably, overshadowed.
On Monday, deputy commissioner Mal Lanyon, widely tipped as Webb’s eventual heir apparent, was quietly given the job of acting chief executive at the NSW Reconstruction Authority for a six-month stint. In a message to the troops, Webb said Lanyon had been appointed at the request of the Premier’s Department.
NSW Police Force Commissioner Karen Webb and Deputy Commissioner Mal Lanyon at a media conference in October 2023.Credit: Dominic Lorrimer
That department’s secretary, Simon Draper, who was leading the authority as well as running the state’s entire public service for the past seven months, will step aside to focus on the bigger job.
Lanyon was once a favourite to succeed Mick Fuller as top cop in 2022, but that all unravelled thanks to an ill-fated night on the turps in Goulburn. Lanyon collapsed on the pavement behind the Big Merino, and later swore at paramedics who tried to help him.
It prompted Fuller to tell a NSW parliamentary inquiry that he was “disappointed … Lanyon had brought the office into question”. The then-commissioner also told the hearing the incident might have been caused by low blood pressure.
Either way, Lanyon will hope that by the time Webb moves on, all that nonsense is forgotten.
GREEN BACKED
Former Dow Chemical boss and one-time Donald Trump and Barack Obama adviser Andrew Liveris’ golden touch with US presidents has delivered again.
Liveris last crossed CBD’s desk in February when former Australian Council of Trade Unions president and anti-Murdoch activist Sharan Burrow was appointed to the board of global battery technology company Novonix, which is closely linked to Liveris and his family; Chair Anthony Bellas is Liveris’ brother-in-law, his son Nick Liveris is chief financial officer, while Andrew keeps an eye on things from his seat at the board table.
Novonix announced on Tuesday that it had been given the green light by the US Department of Energy to get a $US103 million tax break under the Qualifying Advanced Energy Project Allocation Program “to support production of critical battery materials from its Riverside facility in Chattanooga, Tennessee”.
The “48¢ tax credit” scheme (if you want to get technical) was initially part of an Obama-era post-GFC recovery package, but it’s had new life breathed into it by a $US10 billion injection from Joe Biden’s mammoth-spending Inflation Reduction Act, with Novonix among the first companies to benefit.
The tax credit can either be redeemed against Novonix’s tax bill within a couple of years or – get this – sold. For cash.
Ah America, the land of opportunity.
The tax break comes on top of another $US100 million the Department of Energy poured into the Chattanooga plant from a different funding pot, under something called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law – but that’s not all folks.
Novonix chief executive Chris Burns said on Tuesday that the company was after loan funding for its Tennessee operation from the department under its “Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing” program.
And you wouldn’t bet against them getting it.
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