Melbourne can be a very small pond sometimes - particularly if you are well-heeled and influential as Richard Pratt and Graeme Samuel are and have been. Because the pond is small, people criss-cross one another's lives here, there, and in all sorts of places: boards, football clubs, the arts, Crown Casino, public events and - not to mention - politics. There are plenty of people to map the criss-cross of the lives of Pratt and Samuel. Thus, when everyone thought that Pratt had settled the Visy-ACCC matter and the ACCC comes back for a personal crack at Pratt, the odd eyebrow headed northward - but we won't give words to thoughts for most obvious of reasons!
Some have been heard to ask - surely when Pratt settled the matter last year part of the settlement would have closed off all avenues of further prosecution? Maybe, maybe not. But then, one assumes, that if one can be proved to have told porky-pies then all bets - or deals, if they were made - would be off?
Mmmm....
Anyways, Samuel has denied there is any vendetta by him against Pratt.
Miss Eagle supports Samuel's call for stiffening ACCC's capacity with the possibility of jail terms. Australian white collar crims are seldom seen in handcuffs let alone in prison - although it has happened that a few have had a taste of barred existence lately. Yet in the land of USA Inc they get to see their crims arrested, in cuffs and being hauled off. It happened with Enron and now it has happened with the Bear Stearns people in the sub-prime mortgage rip-offs.
Pratt stood down from the board of Carlton Football Club. We await his future. And Samuel is not answering questions on his - will he remain at the ACCC?
~~~
When you can do nothing else: bear witness.
