The legal fraternity and the highest echelons of the business community are in shock at the sudden death of senior Freehills partner Fiona Gardiner-Hill on Sunday, after she collapsed at an event last week suffering a brain aneurism.

Gardiner-Hill was a long-time adviser to the likes of David Gonski and Kerry Stokes ’ Seven companies, as well as a member of the Takeovers Panel. She was only 50 years old and is survived by her husband (and Dyesol chairman) Richard Caldwell and their daughters.

The Indonesian holiday island of Bali is swarming with Australian media hacks vying for the first pictures of the most anticipated prison release since Nelson Mandela left Victor Verster in 1990.

The TV ratings season started on Sunday and news directors are frothing at the mouth for a look at keen boogie boarder Schapelle Corby .

Nine has two cricket teams of staff on the ground (Seven’s not light on either) with Karl Stefanovic and Mark Burrows filling the news vacuum from outside Kerobokan Prison with live crosses about nothing. It’s like Frontline does Bali.

Current affairs producers and magazine editors are desperately currying favour with sister Mercedes Corby, hoping to snag the big interview. A fake Prada bag should do the trick.

In the world of portly miners, it was always Nathan Tinkler who was referred to as the bogannaire. But when it comes to derogatory monikers, we’re pleased to hear the Singapore resident has now been joined by Clive Palmer.

The member for Fairfax is being called names in another language: China’s Caixin Magazine now refers to Palmer as a “Tuhao ” (pronounced too how). It’s China’s sledge of the moment and loosely translates to “hillbilly”, but has come to be levelled at those who are rich, loud, lacking in taste and keen for attention – which doesn’t sound at all like Clive.

The magazine did, however, pay the Coolum hero a compliment of sorts, saying he was like a domineering mother-in-law bullying China’s state-owned enterprises.

Uncharacteristically, Clive appeared to be enjoying the attention when we spoke to him on Friday. “I can’t help but make headlines,” he said, soon after accusing his Chinese partner Citic Pacific of stealing Australian resources. Tuhao?

Former PM John Howard’s former babysitter Nicola Wakefield Evans continues to hoover up directorships.

On Friday, the King & Wood Mallesons partner added Macquarie Group board duties to those at builder Lend Lease, transport company Toll Holdings and health insurer Bupa.

Let’s hope Nicholas Moore is as well-behaved as the little Howards, Melanie, Tim and Richard.

Of his many hats, David Gonski was wearing his theatrical one on Saturday night as chairman of the Sydney Theatre Company.

STC artistic director Andrew Upton and his wife, Cate Blanchett, were in New York for the funeral of Philip Seymour Hoffman, so Gonski assumed speaking duties for the opening of The Long Way Home, a theatrical partnership with the Australian Defence Force based on the experiences of its servicemen and women.

The ADF’s titular head (for now) Quentin Bryce was in the audience, as was Ryan Stokes, son of hobby military historian Kerry Stokes, Westpac’s lad-most-likely Brian Hartzer, Time Out subscriber Nick Greiner and Australia’s most cultured person, Simon “Medici” Mordant.

With more 200,000 employees on the books, it mustn’t feel like a small world at Wesfarmers. Except at the board level, that is..

As first canvassed on Financial Review Sunday , Wesfarmers has engaged Korn/Ferry – the, ahem, avant garde headhunters led by former Business Council of Australia CEO Katie “Bubbles” Lahey – to help it find a new director.

Wesfarmers is chaired by Bob Every , while his son Lindsay Every works at Korn/Ferry. The Confidential Position Specification for the job even lists Every Jr as a contact for candidates.

We asked both the conglomerate and the headhunters if they “believe it is appropriate that the chairman’s son is personally handling the search for a new member of his father’s board at one of Australia’s biggest companies?”

Bubbles wouldn’t comment, citing client confidentiality, while Wesfarmers said the choice of recruiter was “made solely at the discretion of Wesfarmers [HR boss Ben Lawrence]” and that “Every did not personally initiate, direct or suggest the selection of Korn/Ferry”.

That may be true but Wesfarmers’ 2013 annual report says it’s the board’s Nomination Committee (also chaired by Every) whose job it is “to identify candidates to complement the existing board, and make recommendations to the board on their appointment. Where appropriate, external consultants are engaged to assist in searching for candidates.” And also, seemingly, when it’s inappropriate!

Before November, Every Jr worked at another search firm, Boyden, which has also previously worked for Wesfarmers.

The job spec also notes the board “is seeking a director with ... experience in the retail sector”. That may come in handy at a conglomerate running Coles, Bunnings, Officeworks, Kmart and Target! Like David Jones, Wesfarmers has a dearth of retail experience around its board table.

Circuitously, Lahey only stepped down as a DJs director in 2012. Her BCA successor, Jennifer Westacott , is now a Wesfarmers director.

As we said, it’s a small world when you’re breathing this rarefied air.

On the subject of catch-ups, it was good to have Kevin Rudd in Sydney this week only days ahead of the byelection for his seat of Griffith, in inner-south Brisbane.

He caught up with his chum Phillip Adams, who infamously tore up his ALP membership not long after the abrupt termination of Kevin’s first stint as prime minister.

They met at the Aunty presenter’s Paddington digs on Wednesday – that’s just around the way from the Lord Dudley, the esteemed pub that, tragically, stopped serving alcohol outdoors that very Wednesday.

Sources close to the pub assure us the two events are not at all related.

Two more directors were appointed to join Paul McClintock’s Myer board on Thursday – and aren’t they brimming with retail experience?

It seems a silly thing to say, until you have a scan of the background’s of the ladies and gentlemen over at Peter Mason’s David Jones (lawyers, bankers, tech guys, accountants – although we should note that Melinda Conrad has done some work over at the similarly troubled retailer, The Reject Shop, which sells cheap things).

McClintock’s new colleagues are Robert Thorn, who joins after 13 years at Super Retail Group, along with decades at a host of other retailers, including a nine-year shift at David Jones back in the glorious 1970s; and Ian Cornell, who is similarity steeped in selling things and dealing with people who sell things – at Westfield, Franklin Holdings and Woolworths.

Well, we still can’t reveal whether or not Santo Santoro is going to stay on as a federal Liberal Party vice-president or focus all his considerable energy on his lobbying firm, Santo Santoro Consulting.

“I haven’t yet turned my mind to it,” Santoro told us on Thursday.

Just after his election, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was determined “to ensure you can either be a powerbroker or a lobbyist, but you can’t be both”. Judgement Day, unless the scheme is revised, falls at the end of March.

It seems to us that Santoro is cutting it a bit fine, but at least he knows it’s approaching.

“The decision’s going to have to be made,” he to us. In the meantime he’s keeping busy with his many business clients, including coal hauler Aurizon and wind farmers Infigen Energy.

He may even join Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten and the other funsters in the federal parliament on its return next week.

“I’m not sure yet,” he said. Fellow former Howard minister (although for quite a bit longer and with a slightly happier ending) Alexander Downer also has to pick. Decisions, decisions . . .

In contrast to the gently smiling BHP boss Andrew Mackenzie out front of the Scot’s headquarters on Melbourne’s Collins Street, Federal Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb was taking a far more strident approach at his pitch a few blocks away in front of Parliament Station on Spring Street.

“There’s some salacious material in there,” Robb shouted at the unwary commuters emerging from underground. “I can’t tell you about it, but you can read it over lunch, quietly, privately… Come on, it’s only six bucks.”

As we bought our second Big Issue for the morning, we took the opportunity to ask Robb a burning question: was there any truth to the rumour that he was filming this as a career-planning video for SPC Ardmona workers? Robb, momentarily and unusually, was lost for words.

He stalled, introducing us to his co-seller Bryce, the regular occupant of the patch Robb was occupying. Then he got back to the topic. “They’ll be ok. They don’t need my help.”

The former Liberal Party federal director had fully returned to his normal form when another notable visitor arrived, Victorian Labor Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews.

He shook hands and then continued on his way, but it wasn’t clear to us whether he had bought a copy of the magazine. We asked the Minister. ‘No, he didn’t, the bastard,” Robb replied. “They spend other people’s money…”

Will Glasgow

You can understand why Stephen Conroy might have trouble letting go. After all, the job comes with a few perks – snowboarding with Kerry Stokes , golfing with James Packer, yachting with Lachlan Murdoch.

But, really, he’s not the communications minister any more. Which is a roundabout way of saying the (allegedly) shadow minister for Bombs and Tanks was out to lunch with Nine boss David Gyngell at Global HQ (aka Rockpoll) on Thursday.

Conroy’s ministerial stint is remembered much more fondly by those in free-to-air television land than in other pockets of the media. After all, he did halve their licence fee, saving them hundreds of millions of dollars.

So was lunch just a couple of mates catching up, or – and you have no idea how much we want this to be true – is Conroy looking to hop out of the tedium of opposition and into the excitement of 60 Minutes reporting, Mark Latham-style? Please say yes!

“No,” Conroy said to us, very politely. It’s a great shame, especially considering his new television figure. We gather he’s shed 10 kilograms since leaving government.

Down the road from Neil Perry’s power diner at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art, we caught up with Perrier-Jouët’s chief winemaker Hervé Deschamps to try the champagne guru’s 2006 vintage Belle Epoque. It was just the stuff to soften the news that his fellow Frenchman, Guillaume Brahimi, of whom Hervé was a fan, had moved out of John Symond’s Opera House, just over the water. C’est la vie.

Rio Tinto’s Australia managing director David Peever buys a Big Issue from Andrew Mackenzie, who remained diplomatic on whether Peever had asked for change. Photo: Arsineh Houspian

Andrew Mackenzie doesn’t usually need to fumble for change in front of the Collins St Dolce & Gabbana boutique, but on Thursday morning the BHP Billiton CEO did just that while selling the Big Issue street magazine.

“It’s no different” from selling minerals, he confided to us as he counted gold coins and searched through his red satchel for change.

“Except that I have people to do it for me,” he added of his day job.

The smiling Scot made a good fist of it, selling 70 copies in about 45 minutes.

He was one of 70 CEOs, business leaders and pollies to come out in support of the magazine, which provides an income for the homeless and disadvantaged who sell it.

Which compelled us to ask – had his predecessor Marius Kloppers, who left the company in October, given Mackenzie any tips on selling the magazine?

“No, he didn’t,” Mackenzie laughed.

Mackenzie, whose daughter works for homeless charity Shelter in the UK, conceded that his shift had passed “very slowly” and that most passers-by just passed him by.

‘‘The vast bulk of them looked me in the eye and said the standard phrase ‘Not today, thank you,’’’ Mackenzie said.

One passerby compelled to buy was rival Rio Tinto’s Australia managing director David Peever.

Mackenzie remained diplomatic on whether Peever had asked for change.

“I would have expected to give David Peever change,” Mackenzie said.

“We are competitors after all. I didn’t try and keep the change. We have a high integrity relationship.”

Like the editorial writers at Chris Mitchell’s The Australian, we’re not in the business of “ascribing the actions of other journalists to political or commercial motives” – but, dear me, it seemed to us that Mitchell was in a huff in Wednesday’s paper, which was assembled the day we found out his media editor, Nick Leys, was off to head media relations at Mark Scott’s ABC.

“I’m not at all perturbed about Nick going,” the Oz’s editor-in-chief assured us on Wednesday.

Mitchell said the day’s exhaustive coverage of the ABC’s ethics – a front-page story, a feature, a Janet Albrechtsen opinion piece, the lead editorial, all of Cut & Paste and, we almost dropped our iPad when it popped up, a news story by Scott’s newest recruit, Leys – was simply because it’s the most interesting media story of the moment. Fair enough.

But we do think it’s strange that a newspaper at war with the public broadcaster for what it calls poor journalistic ethics is putting one of Scott’s troops in-charge of the coverage.

How much longer is this fabulous conflict of interest going to go on for?

“I haven’t decided yet,” Mitchell said when we asked how much of Leys’ four weeks’ notice period would be spent as media editor, presumably overseeing the war with Aunty.

Mitchell did confirm that Leys is editing the next media section, as did the ABC’s director of communications, Michael Millett.

“I think Chris Mitchell is out of control,” said Millett when asked about the state of affairs. Our clever readers can make up their own minds.

It seems like yesterday that former Seven chief Don “High Voltage!” Voelte was sledging Nine for being owned by hedge funds. Reminiscing about his time working for Chroma Energy, Voelte said: “I almost had to call a board meeting to be able to go to the toilet.”

But Nine appears to have been managing pretty well, with its stock up 11 per cent this year to give the free-to-air broadcaster a market value of $2.06 billion. This means it is now bigger than Seven, which is worth $2.05 billion.

Nine boss David Gyngell is no doubt pleased with the share performance. Just not so thrilled with the toilet etiquette.

We’ve been told that Liberal Party ornament Santo Santoro has been spotted lurking in Canberra in his capacity as a lobbyist.

The Queenslander – who resigned as minister for ageing in John Howard’s government for not disclosing shares traded in companies related to his portfolio – continues to run a busy shop at his lobbying firm, Santo Santoro Consulting.

Coal hauler Aurizon is one of his 15 clients, according to the Australian Government Lobbyists Register. And so is wind farm business Infigen Energy. Such an open-minded guy!

Santoro didn’t respond to our inquiry about his dark work for the pure-as-snow wind farmers.

Nor could Miles George’s green energy executives, who were, we were told, at a phone-less retreat held in a forest “somewhere in NSW”.