Kenneth Hayne goes from High Court judge to unlikely fitfluencer

Former High Court judge Kenneth Hayne is a very young 80.

The storied legal figure, who terrorised big four bankers during his time leading a landmark royal commission into financial misconduct in 2017, is proving that age ain’t nothing but a number, remaining active, sharp and vibrant, according to his personal trainers.

In a blog post, the personal training business where Hayne is a long-time customer says the former judge “continues to travel internationally, walk long distances, enjoy cultural and family events, and live a lifestyle that many half his age would admire”. Impressive stuff.

The former judge, who departed the court a decade ago on reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70 (and was replaced by his wife, current justice Michelle Gordon), is clearly a favourite at Complx Personal Trainers in South Melbourne, who waxed lyrical about his discipline, and how he’d never missed a session.

“He emerged through the seasons, through life’s changes and challenges, always approaching training with purpose and humility,” the post said.

A former High Court judge becoming a fitfluencer? There’s a first for everything. Hayne told us he hadn’t seen the post, but treated it as a tribute to his personal trainer, Jamie Percival.

Meanwhile, CBD’s spies spotted the retired judge out and about on Tuesday night alongside hordes of self-described middle-aged women with statement earrings and head-to-toe Gorman at an event to celebrate a hot new read on the mushroom trial that gripped Australia.

While triple murderer Erin Patterson is appealing her convictions, and the Department of Public Prosecutions is seeking a harsher sentence than life with a non-parole period of 33 years, authors Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein have released The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations about a Triple Murder Trial – the most anticipated of (no doubt many) tomes on the case.

It’s no surprise that an event at Melbourne Town Hall featuring the three authors – or “throuple”, as Krasnostein described them – sold out faster than any event in Wheeler Centre history.

Hayne was spotted queuing patiently at the event, picking up a copy of the book.

The judge told us he’d been a supporter of the Wheeler Centre for some time, as well as a long-time admirer of Helen Garner’s work.

“Like just about everything that Wheeler Centre does, it was a very interesting discussion – about questions the authors deal with in their book and which go beyond the immediate issues at the trial,” he said.

Office politics

Plenty of things are unusual about Sussan Ley’s leadership.

For starters, a woman leading the Liberal Party is an event so unfathomable that some of her comrades are already trying to end the experiment after a few months. It wasn’t that long ago that they only had one woman in cabinet, after all. Luckily, the party is committed to opposing gender quotas to ensure such a thing never happens again.

Then of course, there’s Ley’s quirky personal background – including her punk rock era, the random second “s”, and her hobby of flying planes, which is all very Nats-coded. Liberal leaders are meant to be cardboard cut-out blokes right out of an R. M. Williams catalogue with inexplicable Rhodes scholarships.

Another unusual element of Ley’s leadership is found in the make-up of her office. Listed in the Parliament House staff directory, within Ley’s team, is a separate “Office of the Chief of Staff”.

It’s a rather unusual arrangement, we’re told, and one causing a few internal gripes, particularly since Prime Minister Anthony Albanese slashed the opposition’s staffing allocation after Labor’s election triumph.

Also because, as far as we’re aware, the “office” in question is just two blokes – Ley’s chief of staff Dean Shachar and a more junior adviser. But CBD was assured that it’s nothing crazy – the junior staffer in question doesn’t work for Shachar, but is part of Ley’s broader policy team, with the unusual structure probably the result of an administrative update.

That said, perhaps a bit of unorthodox, blue-sky thinking is just what the Liberals need right now.

Listening party

Former prime minister Paul Keating has plenty of advice, unsolicited or otherwise, for his Labor comrades.

In a public interview last week, Keating revealed he’d given Prime Minister Anthony Albanese a list of “fighting points” in case his meeting with US President Donald Trump went south. Fortunately, they were not ultimately called for.

Among the latest pollies to get a bit of advice from Keating was NSW Arts Minister John Graham, who by virtue of also holding the transport, music and night-time economy portfolios, has one of the busiest schedules in Premier Chris Minns’ government.

According to a ministerial diary for the September quarter, published this week, Graham and Keating met in August for a discussion relating to arts portfolio matters.

No word on the specifics, so we can’t say whether Keating had Graham sit through a lengthy Mahler symphony, an exercise he’d put his slightly confused ministers through while in The Lodge.

Either way, we’re willing to bet that Graham did plenty of listening.

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