From Fairfax:
Former trade minister, Liberal Party president, and Kerry Packer adviser, Andrew Robb, has been appointed as a non-executive board member at Ten Network Holdings as Gina Rinehart’s representative.
Mr Robb replaces Ms Rinehart’s earlier representative John Klepec, who joined the board in October 2013 and is chief development officer at Ms Rinehart’s mining company, Hancock Prospecting. As a former trade minister Mr Robb is likely to have worked closely with Ms Rinehart, whose company exports iron ore.
“I look forward to bringing my extensive political and business experience to the Ten board,” Mr Robb was quoted saying in an announcement to the sharemarket.
“I also hope to contribute a strong regional perspective from my years running the National Farmers’ Federation.
This follows Robb’s recent appointment at investment bank Moelis & Company selling Australian assets to wealthy Chinese under rules that he developed while in Parliament. From The AFR:
The role with Moelis, a New York-listed investment bank, will see Mr Robb mainly helping Chinese companies looking to enter the Australian market…
Moelis also has an asset management business focused on wealthy Chinese wishing to obtain an Australian passport, through the Significant Investor Visa program.
Mr Robb was responsible for redesigning this program while in government to tilt the required $5 million in investment away from passive bonds, towards higher risk venture capital and small company investments.
Moelis says it has about $1 billion in assets under management from this program.
What the article doesn’t mention is that the rules were changed to be highly compatible with Moelis’ offerings.
Let’s just say that Mr Robb’s tenure in parliament was hardly hostile to Gina Rinehart’s interests either.
As noted by Alan Austin recently:
The rationale for generous pensions for MPs is that they can engage in public service – asMalcolm Fraser did chairing an overseas aid agency – and thus avoid the temptation of corporate payoffs…
So why are these politicians allowed to have their cake and eat it too? Did the Australian tax-payer train Andrew Robb and stick him on a fat pension so he could cream it by selling its best assets to China and disseminating his inappropriate notions of public policy obligations in the press?
No, s/he did not.
