By Angus Dalton and Madeleine Heffernan
Pop-rock prince Harry Styles had Australia in a chokehold during his worldwide tour (before Taylor Swift hype blew everyone out of the water).
Over the course of the two-year tour Styles raised $US6.5 million ($9.8 million) for charity, and the beneficiaries of that cash were announced on Tuesday.
One of the 25 recipients, announced in Variety, was “Sydney Zoo”. We love a conservationist.
We’re sure the feathers were ethically sourced.Credit: AP
However, it appears a slight mix-up is afoot: while there’s a Sydney Zoo in the city’s west that was founded in 2015, Taronga Zoo, the more established harbourside attraction, is the actual recipient of Style’s philanthropic gift.
Taronga doesn’t say publicly who donates to them or how much, but CBD has confirmed the cash is headed Taronga’s way, although there are no plans for a Styles snake enclosure or a tribute to the star’s feather boas (which are probably slightly controversial in conservation circles, plastic feathers or otherwise). In any case, we’ll take the win for wildlife.
Taronga Zoo became part of Styles’ Australian legacy when the singer was here in March and struck up a relationship with Horses singer Daryl Braithwaite. On March 3, Braithwaite performed at the zoo and held up signs from the audience reading “I had a ticket to see Harry but I picked you instead!” The 74-year-old performed a cover of Styles’ Watermelon Sugar to soothe the burn.
The next night, Styles repaid the tribute in spades, inviting Braithwaite to perform Horses with him in front of 80,000 Sydneysiders in his final Australian show.
Matter of interpretation
One month ago embattled consultancy giant PwC announced it was booting eight partners, including Sydney-based Peter van Dongen, following an internal investigation into its tax leak scandal.
This week, van Dongen made his departure from PwC LinkedIn official with a decidedly different perspective on events.
“Almost 40 years since starting as an undergraduate in the Melbourne assurance practice, I have agreed with PwC to bring forward my planned retirement by a few months, and voluntarily retire,” he wrote, adding he wished PwC nothing but great success. “Now for a short career break – and then to re-emerge for whatever is next …”
CBD was confused, so we checked with PwC Australia, who said that van Dongen “was given notice of [the firm’s] findings against him, and a process was started under the partnership agreement to remove him from the partnership. He did not contest the findings made by the firm and has retired and exited from the firm.” Van Dongen did not respond to our requests for comment.
NO, THIS IS A WAIT
We know Australia’s migration system is as slow as molasses – a recent review referred to waiting times for a parent visa of 40 years or more.
But Sydney woman Anna, who has been trying to bring in her British sister-in-law under the last remaining relative visa, can top that. In 2014, Anna sought help from Scott Morrison, who was then immigration and border protection minister, and was told the wait would be 56 years. Sue, a literacy specialist, was 50 years old at the time.
Anna hasn’t been told what the wait is now, but the signs are not good. The Home Affairs Department said it was processing remaining relative visa applications with a queue date up to July 31, 2012.
A Sydney woman is contending with a half-a-century-long waitlist.Credit: John Shakespeare
DOFF TO THE PROF
Former NSW minister for digital government and QR code kingpin Victor Dominello has landed on his feet since departing Macquarie Street. Dominello was appointed director of the UNSW-UTS Trustworthy Digital Society Hub in May, tasked with leading research on “citizen-centred” digital platforms.
In listing the new role on LinkedIn, Dominello is described as a professor – a title that usually denotes a PhD, years of academic drudgery and leadership in your field of research. What gives?
Professor Victor Dominello at the Australian Financial Review’s Government Services Summit last week.Credit: Martin Ollman
The UNSW announcement of the hub has Dominello as a humble “Mr” but a recent Financial Review piece about the former minister’s appearance at the Government Services Summit also referred to him as Professor Dominello (it has a ring to it, we admit).
After a little digging, CBD confirmed Dominello has been made a “professor of practice”, an academic appointment bestowed on someone who might have a fraction the HECS debt of a bona fide boffin but makes up for it in real-world experience.
“I spent 12 years as a minister. You can’t teach that in a book,” Dominello proudly told CBD.
He’s not the only recent public figure to add that feather to his pleather cap. In 2019, former race discrimination commissioner Dr Tim Soutphommasane was appointed the University of Sydney’s first professor of practice, in sociology and political theory. (Soutphommasane had some serious academic chops that include a master’s degree and doctorate in political theory from the University of Oxford).
Hugh Harley, who was a PwC financial services leader until 2019, is also a professor of practice at USyd in the global economy. We hear he’s writing a dissertation on jumping ship at the exact right time.
YES, CHEF!
Restaurateur Shane Delia’s gourmet meal delivery business Providoor, which fed us in lockdowns and collapsed this April, has found a buyer.
But who is it and what will they do? Liquidators RSM Australia Partners would not say, and prospective buyers such as Woolworths, Coles, Menulog and DoorDash wouldn’t bite.
CBD has been reliably informed the buyer is Sam Benjamin, the founder and managing director of under-the-radar Sydney firm Seventh Street Ventures, which has investments in music publisher Rolling Stone Australia and gourmet food delivery business Kaspa.
Benjamin wasn’t available to talk, but CBD hears he plans to relaunch the brand, selling heat-and-serve meals rather than ready-to-finish meals.
The latest liquidator report shows Providoor revenue peaked at $45 million in the 2022 financial year, and then collapsed to $6.5 million as we exited COVID hibernation. There were eight offers for Providoor’s business assets, which include trademarks and its customer database, and were sold for $250,000 plus GST.
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