The "scrubber" slur, Latham, tracking Macquarie and Babcock

4. McGeough's "scrubber" slur and that NY punch up



By Stephen Mayne

While Crikey loves to perpetuate the tales of Col Allan's wild fighting days, it is our sad and solemn duty to report that the tabloid thug wasn't actually to blame for the extraordinary scenes at New York's Soho House back in June. The version we retailed from the New York Daily News is, apparently, in the grand tradition of tabloid rivalries – quite a beat-up.

Never let the truth get in the way of a good story tabloid story, especially when it's about your rival. Col has been responsible for dozens of such beat-ups over the years, so he can hardly complain.

However, Crikey can reveal that the mystery Australian hack involved in the fracas was none other than SMH reporter at large and Iraq specialist Paul McGeough. The blow-up occurred after Carol Myler, the wife of Colin Myler, Col's deputy at the New York Post, was incredibly rude to McGeough's wife, AFR investigative reporter Pam Williams.

When the Mylers were leaving the club, McGeough told Carol Myler very quietly that he thought she had behaved like "a real scrubber." Carol Myler then rushed off to wind up her husband.

While it normally takes two to tango, Myler was apparently so drunk that none of his punches actually connected with anyone. He kept trying to grab McGeough's shirt, but it was a one-man brawl with a volley of slurred expletives from the Manic Myler with his arms flailing whilst the rest of the guests, including McGeough and Col Allan, remained in their seats – completely transfixed by the spectacle. Col Allan's wife kept saying “stop it Colin” when he nearly hit her several times.

Col finally had to get up and help restrain the berserk Myler and assist security in getting his drunken deputy out of the club. Then Col came back and the party continued to catch up as if nothing had happened for at least another hour. Of course, this being New York, if Myler had managed to land a punch the police might have been called.

Myler is from Liverpool and sounds like a dreadful piece of work with a very short fuse.

He was the editor of The Sunday Mirror who published those appallingly intrusive photographs of Princess Diana at the gym. Myler was sacked from the same paper four years ago after publishing an interview that caused the collapse of the Leeds footballers trial. Check out the press release explaining his sacking in April 2001, this BBC piece on his resignation and some other coverage in The Guardian which explains his major blunder.

The bloke is obviously a complete goose, yet Rupert keeps on employing these disgraceful tabloid characters. Here was Col Allan having to intervene to make sure his own wife didn't get hit by a stray drunken haymaker coming from his deputy. Myler should be sacked and we might just take this issue up with Rupert at next month's AGM in New York.

The Australian's Media gossip column covered this intriguing story today but missed all out detail, so it will be interesting to see if anyone follows it up given there is some embarrassment for both News Ltd and Fairfax.




5. Latham and the revenge game



By Stephen Mayne

As we've observed before, Mark Latham is very much playing the revenge game as he adds more barbs to his diaries with media appearances and his gloomy public lecture at Melbourne University on Tuesday night.

Why did he say this on Lateline?

TONY JONES: You named one press gallery reporter as being a regular dope smoker, you've accused another prominent journalist of actually supplying drugs to the rest of the gallery. I mean, these are very serious allegations for professional people to have to deal with.

MARK LATHAM: Oh, Tony, I mean, this is on Triple J, joking around with comedians who appear on this network – the 'Chaser Program' – you need to, you know, perhaps understand the context, but also what am I supposed to say about Tony Wright? He turns up at my function in Lismore in early 2004 telling me that he's stoned off his face, he's been down to Nimbin and been on the hoochy coochy all day. What do you want me to say, Tony? What do you want me to say?

TONY JONES: Well, first of all, I'd like you not to name people on this program, if you wouldn't mind.

It's obvious. Tony Wright was part of last week's furious assault on Latham in The Bulletin. Packer raised Latham a first wife slur and feral Laurie Oakes column and Latham came back with a dope allegation against the magazine's federal political correspondent on national television.

The same goes with Jeff Kennett, who entered the debate yesterday declaring Latham "the new Pauline Hanson."

"All he's done is reinforce in people's minds that he's unstable," Kennett told the Herald Sun, once again highlighting Latham's call for Kennett to be sacked as chairman of Beyond Blue for going around making public comments on who he thinks suffers from depression.

In his ring around of key journalists, Kennett also used the word "unstable" when talking to Michelle Grattan. Is there anyone else out there that the Federally funded anti-depression campaigner would like to insult by accusing them of having a mental illness when this has already been vigorously publicly denied?

Latham took some public revenge on Kennett and now Kennett is firing back, although he still hasn't answered Latham's challenge to explain why he wouldn't be sacked for his reckless public diagnosis.

It was also curious to see Tony Jones going into bat defending Murdoch's Sunday Telegraph editor Jeni O'Dowd over this entry:

Saturday, 13 December, 2003

"An attempted rapprochement with News Ltd: dinner last Thursday at Azuma's in Sydney with John Hartigan, Campbell Reid (editor, Daily Telegraph) and Jeni Cooper (editor, Sunday Telegraph). Cooper and I once had a fling, so it was weird to see her in such a senior role - who would have thought?

When you consider what Jeni O'Dowd published about Latham in 2004, of course he would be inclined to return fire with a bit of embarrassment. Glenn Milne's efforts about Latham in Jeni's paper were a disgrace. Given that Jeni only got married last year, it's not as if the revelation could have damaged her marriage.

The media is used to dishing it out and embarrassing politicians but they get incredibly precious and protective when they cop some of their own treatment. Jeni and News Ltd's spinner have still not replied to my email asking if the fling is true and whether it happened when Latham was on Bob Carr's staff and Jeni was covering state politics for Murdoch.




20. Tracking the Macquarie and Babcock juggernauts



By Stephen Mayne, happy small shareholder in MBL and BNB

Kim Beazley's big education speech this morning called for Australia to create more engineers and less merchant bankers. Alas, who'd want to get their hands dirty for a relative pittance when all the evidence suggests the fastest way to wealth in Australia is joining Macquarie Bank, the ultimate Millionaire's Factory.

Crikey met a commerce student from Sydney University at this year's Macquarie AGM and he said all his colleagues aspired to a career with the Millionaire's Factory. This points to how the bank is able to hire and nurture the best and brightest honours students that Australia's commerce and economics faculties can produce.

Macquarie Bank shares are up another 45c to a record $77.15 today, increasing the bank's market capitalisation by $104 million to a staggering $17.768 billion.

Similarly, Macquarie's Mini-Me, Babcock & Brown, has today jumped 43c to a record $21.03, valuing that business at more than $5 billion.

However, these figures actually understate the true market valuations of both businesses, because of the enormous number of in-the-money and unexercised options out there.

The last Macquarie annual report reveals that in the year to 31 March 2005, it issued 10.3 million new options at an average strike price of about $34. These are now showing paper profits of about $445 million.

Excluding options issued after March 31 this year, Macquarie had 13% of its capital already outstanding over 28.3 million shares and they are carrying paper profits of almost $1.5 billion which are not included in that official market capitalisation figure of $17.768 billion.

All of this provides quite a dilemma for BRW as it formulates next year's Rich List and decides whether to maintain its strategy of not including a single Macquarie or Babcock executive. The Crikey Revised Wealth (CRW) list included about 10 investment bankers from the two firms but the doubling of both stock this year would suggest this should now be increased to 15-20, although tracking them all is not easy.

Here's a tip for an enterprising finance journalist: spend a couple of days crunching the numbers after searching both share registers and try to come up with a list of the 20 investment bankers who are each worth more than $110 million thanks to their enterprising and value-creating paper shuffling.

However, don't tell Kim Beazley or the nation's engineering departments.

Copyright © 2022 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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