Bob v the builders: Former premier in home reno legal stoush

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It’s not every day that a former premier finds themselves hauled before the NSW Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

But such is the fate of Bob Carr, who ran NSW for a decade before a brief stint as foreign minister in the Gillard and Rudd governments, and who is now locked in a legal battle with his builders Jelco Project Management.

The former premier is locked in a legal stoush with his builders over a renovation bill.

The dispute relates to renovation works on Carr’s $8.8 million penthouse in Coogee, which he bought last year after downsizing from his old Maroubra residence. The former premier then hired Jelco as project managers on a renovation of the apartment. Carr’s argument is that he paid Jelco every bill he’d received over most of the year – between $800- and $850-a-day.

After moving into the home last year, following the completion of construction, Carr was shocked to receive an additional $220,000 invoice for a “builder’s margin”. He claims the additional fee had never been discussed during the renovation period. He also says the builders had never offered, nor entered into, a contract with him for the work, something they must do under NSW legislation or risk a fine.

“I’m proud of always paying my bills, but there was no contractual basis whatsoever for a ‘builder’s margin’ on top of the regular and large payments I was making for project management,” Carr told CBD.

Nevertheless, Jelco maintains that the former premier must pay up, and after months of negotiations between the parties that went nowhere, the builders commenced proceedings against Carr in the tribunal. A directions hearing is scheduled for Friday.

Evicted from Everest

Some 50,000 punters swarmed Royal Randwick for Saturday’s Everest, the $20 million race that Peter V’landys insists is bigger and better than the Melbourne Cup because it is, after all, run in the nation’s premier city.

Notably absent was one of V’landys’ most vocal political enemies, the odious NSW upper house MP and one-time prime ministerial aspirant Mark Latham, who was frogmarched out of the racecourse last month after the Australian Turf Club banned him from its premises.

Mark Latham and Nathalie Matthews in happier times.

Latham insists the ban is vengeance for his role in a fight against the ATC’s $5 billion sale of Rosehill Gardens, ultimately rejected by the club’s membership. In reality, it came after Latham resigned his membership while placed on a good behaviour bond over a nasty tirade against club official Steve McMahon.

But notably present at Royal Randwick on Saturday was Latham’s ex-partner Nathalie Matthews, who in documents filed with the NSW Local Court this year, alleged that Latham had engaged in a sustained pattern of abuse and had forced her into degrading sexual acts.

Latham denies Matthews’ allegations.

Matthews, a Liberal Party member and OnlyFans creator who was arrested and bailed this month over revenge porn charges, took to socials to thank ATC chair Tim Hale, SC for her spot at The Everest.

“Grateful to the chairman for the prime position to watch the action unfold – the view was almost as good as the company,” she wrote on X last Saturday.

CBD hears that Hale knew nothing about Matthews’ attendance. But the pair certainly have their share of recent history. The two were close for many years, and were both staunch opponents of the Rosehill sale, with Latham frequently praising Hale in parliament.

When former ATC boss Peter McGauran fell on his sword after losing the Rosehill vote, Hale succeeded him as chair after winning a tough boardroom battle.

But the relationship soured after Hale appointed McMahon, the subject of Latham’s tirade, interim chief executive. We got a sense of just how much that relationship soured when Latham, under the coward’s cloak of parliamentary privilege, launched into a vitriolic spray against Hale in the upper house last week, calling him “jellyfish Tim”, a “determined social climber” and having the ethical standards of mushroom murderer Erin Patterson.

Latham might have parliamentary privilege. But Hale runs the club that he so desperately wants to get into. And while the chair didn’t invite Matthews, Latham can’t have been thrilled about her being there while he’s on the out.

The Albo diaries

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hit the ground running after his landslide election victory in May that left Peter Dutton unemployed and the Liberal Party heading the way of the dodo. Government doesn’t stop for victory laps, as a sample of the prime minister’s diary for his first 100 days since the election shows.

The flurry of calls from world leaders and meetings with ministers and senior public servants in the days following the poll were unsurprising. But more intriguing were some of the PM’s private meetings. There was a catch-up with News Corp Australia executive chairman Michael Miller, who’s recently been calling for Albo to stop artificial intelligence companies from doing a “grand theft Australia” by stealing from local publishers.

The PM also met other top media leaders, including the Herald Sun’s editor Sam Weir, and The Age’s Patrick Elligett. In June, he met Seven West Media princeling Ryan Stokes and had lunch with Conexus Financial boss Colin Tate, who’s been very well connected with Albanese’s ministry of late. Also on Albanese’s dance-card was billionaire mining magnate turned green energy evangelist Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest. And there were 45 minutes with ex-PM and elder statesman Paul Keating, who we’re sure did not hold back from telling Albo how he’s really doing. Oh, to be a fly on the wall for that one.

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