If you didn't read Peter Martin's follow-up on the capital markets ignorance of shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh, you must. It's the best thing we've read in The Age since the Symes family ran the joint!
Still refusing to accept that he completely stuffed up his original op ed – in which Leigh claimed corporate Australia was controlled by five shadowy stockbroking desks – by confusing custodial and beneficial shareholders, the Labor frontbencher told Martin that "the ability of institutional investors to influence corporate decision-making, including the five in this article, is far from clear". But the five – HSBC, JPMorgan, National Nominees, Citicorp and BNP Paribas – aren't institutional investors. Is he still claiming that HSBC owns 33 per cent of Caltex?
Just when we thought Leigh's hole couldn't get any deeper, Stephen Koukoulas, who was senior economic adviser to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, dived in with a shovel, lamenting "a lot of instant experts on role of custodians" on Twitter, and asking "who retains voting rights? Not at all clear."
@MrMacroMarkets @mrjoeaston @ALeighMP Who retains voting rights? Not at all clear
— Stephen Koukoulas (@TheKouk) March 15, 2017
We present to you the Australian Labor Party's economic brains. They know less about the rudimentary functions of our equities market – a market the reforms of Bob Hawke and Paul Keating built; a market awash with the cash of industry super – than an undergraduate student in applied finance, or a cadet markets reporter. Breathtaking.
