Scots College needs all the help it can get building its extravagant, long-delayed and near $80 million new student centre, which looks more like a knock-off Mormon church than the Scottish baronial castle on which it was modelled.
Fortunately, an institution that charges fees of almost $50,000 a year can draw on a pool of very affluent donors to help fund its building sprees. And while Scots has consistently refused to answer questions about when headmaster Ian Lambert’s “vanity castle” will open, the school is uncharacteristically transparent about the identity of some of its more generous friends.
The Scots College in Bellevue Hill received more than $100,000 in donations from an alleged Chinese money launderer.Credit: Louise Kennerley
That’s how we know Chinese businessman Zhaohua Ma made three big donations, worth over $100,000 in total for the student centre, the school’s Harry Triguboff Auditorium, and its Bannockburn bush campus respectively.
We also know, thanks to the work of our colleagues, that last year, Ma was accused by the Australian Federal Police of involvement in a sprawling $10 billion Chinese money laundering operation, alleged to have accumulated vast sums of wealth by becoming the Australian bankers of choice for international drug cartels.
The syndicate amassed a highly lucrative prestige property portfolio in Sydney, and once the ring was smashed by the AFP, they turned their sights on Ma, who was forced to swap a $9 million Bellevue Hill mansion for a remand cell. He was charged with conspiring to deal with more than $120 million intended to become an instrument of crime.
He is currently awaiting judgment on a bail hearing from last week, and will face a further committal on Wednesday.
Now, Ma’s donations to Scots were made well before the AFP case became public. But in a statement, Scots told us it had quarantined the donations, totalling less than $110,000, and would be assisting authorities with any enquiries.
“The College has not received communication from authorities about the donations, and we understand the matter is currently before the courts,” a spokesperson said.
“This means the status of the donations is unclear, and we are unable to comment further.”
Long-running tiff: Kim Williams and Phillip Adams.Credit: John Shakespeare
ANIMUS AUNTY
CBD appreciates the refreshing candour Kim Williams has brought to his role as ABC chair.
Opining on a decades-long tiff with departing Late Night Live host Phillip Adams, one of Aunty’s most beloved veterans, Williams was typically frank.
“I don’t have a fight with Phillip Adams, he has one with me,” Williams told shock jock Neil Mitchell, on a new episode of his podcast Neil Mitchell Asks Why.
“I haven’t spoken to Phillip Adams in 35 years, but he clearly harbours a deep animus towards me.
“I have written to him a couple of times about matters that are known between him and me and which I have never publicised, where he has uttered things that are seriously untruthful, and I have corrected him and asked him to cease doing that, and he has obviously reacted rather badly to that,” he said, adding that he’d stopped listening to Adams “a long time ago”.
Clearly no love lost. In fact, when Williams came to the ABC in January this year, Adams announced he’d be leaving Late Night Live the next month.
Not to be outdone, when Williams got the top job, Adams told The Guardian he wasn’t “a great fan of Kim Williams”.
Apart from a few choice words for Adams, Williams also took the opportunity to lay out a vision for Aunty, warning against ads on the ABC, and arguing that the broadcaster doesn’t skew left.
In his own words: “I’m an old-fashioned weirdo.”
FLIGHT FELLAS
Alan Joyce, former chief executive of Qantas who made an emergency landing from the cockpit of the national carrier last year, was spotted in London for the Airline Strategy Awards over the weekend.
No surprises Joyce didn’t win anything given the various customer service and industrial relations Hindenburgs that marked the end of his reign. Neither did the bloke who shared a selfie with Joyce on LinkedIn – Manish Raniga, a former director of “bogan” airline Bonza, which crashed this year shortly after departure.
ABSOLUTELY NOBODY
In the world of Australian pop princesses, Vanessa Amorosi might count only as minor royalty when ranked alongside the likes of Kylie Minogue, Olivia Newton-John, Delta Goodrem and the woman equally beloved of former PM Scott Morrison and the French, Tina Arena. But she has had her moments in the spotlight – first, as a 19-year-old singing her hit single Absolutely Everybody at the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, and more recently as the star of a legal stoush playing out in Victoria’s Supreme Court last year.
The trial has pitted mother Joyleen Robinson and daughter Vanessa Amorosi against each other.Credit: AAP
At issue was the ownership of a house in Narre Warren, bought with the proceeds of that first flush of fame in 2001 by a company registered a couple of years earlier in the names of a 17-year-old Amorosi and her cleaner mother, Joyleen Robinson. The property was put in Mum’s name, but Vanessa claims that was only ever intended as a move to protect the young singer from potential creditors.
It was an ugly dispute that saw mother and daughter in tears on the stand; former singer, barrister and Australian Idol judge Mark Holden lending moral support to Vanessa; and Justice Steven Moore – who this masthead noted bears a striking resemblance to Guy Pearce – ticking off Robinson’s legal team for sloppy preparation and last-minute attempts to change the basis of their case.
It had it all. Well, almost. The only thing missing – still, nine months later – is a decision.
There are complexities to the case, one beak close to proceedings has observed. But says another, it’s not exactly the Constitution that’s at issue here.
Ultimately, it may well be a numbers game – a question of who gets what, and in what percentage. And on that score, we defer to another pop deity, Depeche Mode, for guidance: Everything counts in large amounts.
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