Melbourne board elections: Smith reconsidering approach to Demons’ board; Peter Lawrence doesn’t regret suing club
Steve Smith has nominated for one of two vacancies on the Melbourne board, as the day the Demons’ review is handed down nears. JAY CLARK has the details.
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Melbourne is set to hand down its review findings as early as Thursday as the club attempts to rebound from a tumultuous year on and off the field.
And as the Herald Sun revealed on Tuesday, former MCC chairman Steve Smith is set to put his hand up for one of two vacant spots on the board in a massive coup for the club.
Interim president Brad Green has worked hard behind the scenes to rekindle Smith’s interest in a director position after Smith declared last month he had turned an invitation down.
Smith, who played 203 games for the Demons, will bring significant respectability and expertise to the board if elected as expected as the club prepares to make public summary findings of its twin reviews into its football department and board.
But the club seems unlikely to make mass changes to senior positions within the football department aside from a rejig to its assistant coaching staff.
The Demons have been linked to former Port Adelaide assistant Nathan Bassett, club legend Nathan Jones and Adelaide great Rory Sloane for jobs on Goodwin’s coaching staff after moving on former forwards coach Greg Stafford.
Goodwin’s right-hand man, Andrew McQualter, was also appointed West Coast senior coach after missing out on the Richmond senior job to Adem Yze.
Goodwin is contracted until the end of 2026, although Adelaide Crows could make a move on Goodwin, a Crows’ great, if Adelaide coach Matthew Nicks fails to impress next year.
Goodwin has strong relationships with his players and continues to have their full support amid several unsuccessful tweaks to the game plan which failed to fix the club’s scoring woes in 2024.
The Demons are optimistic they can bounce back up to a top-four position next year with a talented list which seemed destined for more success after thrashing Western Bulldogs in the 2021 Grand Final in Perth.
It looms as a crucial year for the Demons in 2025 after missing finals this season and dealing with the fallout of several controversies including significant clouds over the futures of jet midfielders Christian Petracca and Clayton Oliver.
Importantly, the club did not entertain trade interest in the gun pair and will take picks five and nine to the national draft where the club will select a gun midfielder such as Jagga Smith at five and a potential tall such as 195cm key forward Harry Armstrong at nine.
It would be an impressive haul for the club which sacrificed its future first-round draft pick in a deal with Essendon in the belief Melbourne will rise back up the ladder.
The Demons will also delist Joel Smith, who is on a suspension for a failed drugs test and trafficking allegations, and appointed Green as interim president to replace Kate Roffey who stepped down under significant pressure over Petracca’s future.
Roffey has departed the club and board member David Robb will retire, creating two director vacancies.
Green said the club looked forward to sharing the results of the reviews into the club after a disappointing season.
Carlton deputy chief executive Graham Wright turned down an invitation to be part of the football department review before joining the Blues after a year out of the game.
“The board review, by external governance expert Megan Dwyer, is benchmarking our governance against best practice standards,” Green said in a letter to members.
“Meanwhile, former All Blacks manager Darren Shand is overseeing a review focused on the high performance environment and programs within the football department.
“We are assessing all aspects of our AFL program to ensure we are primed for success.
“These reviews are crucial for our ongoing improvement, and I look forward to sharing key findings with you by early November.”
Melbourne picked up Brisbane wingman Harry Sharp and St Kilda ruck Tom Campbell in the trade period.
WHY WANNABE DEE BOARD MEMBER DOESN’T REGRET 700K LEGAL BILL
Melbourne board contender Peter Lawrence has found that you can, in fact, put a price on integrity.
For Lawrence, his legal bill to force Melbourne into key changes to its electoral constitution ahead of another contested election is over $700,000.
As Demons diehard Lawrence said this week, that eye-watering figure could have been put into personal club donations and is matched by a similar bill the Demons spent fighting his changes to their electoral processes.
And yet as the Demons prepare for a critical Board meeting tomorrow and go to their annual general meeting with two open board spots – and a question on their presidency – it has been money well spent.
Finance expert Lawrence will again put himself forward this week for one of those vacant board positions in an eight-person board that is currently helmed by club great Brad Green.
Call him stubborn or crazy or simply prepared to put his money where his mouth is.
But at the end of a four-year struggle to win key concessions from Melbourne he had lost the battle but won the war.
Even though he officially lost his most recent Federal court case against Melbourne the club had made all but one of the key changes to its board process he had been seeking.
As a result he and the Demons will pay their own costs for that protracted fight instead of businessman Lawrence absorbing any of the Club’s costs.
“The Federal Court case cost the club about $650,000 and I spent more on it as the applicant. It was all a terrible waste of money,” Lawrence told the Herald Sun this week.
“I wrote to the club last October and said here are the four or five changes. Please let’s not go to court again. Melbourne rejected us again. At the end of the day we ended up with four of the five changes I asked for anyway.
Green’s Melbourne board is preparing to put forward two preferred candidates in addition to current board members Sally Freeman and Dr Angela Williams, who are both seeking election.
As a side note, the results of the club’s own twin reviews of the board and its football department will be revealed in “early November”.
But even if Lawrence is not selected in one of the four board spots up for grabs he will believe he has left a legacy of transparency on a board he once saw as a closed shop.
A Melbourne diehard since the age of six who grew up “on the wrong side of the tracks” in Traralgon, the chartered accountant returned in 2013 from 26 years working in Hong Kong and Manila.
He joined the Inner Sanctum supporter group, sponsored players including Kade Chandler, hosted AFLW players in his home and made financial contributions.
He has a background in fundraising given his work raising capital in business and for the British School in Manila and believes it is exactly the kind of expertise a club needing to raise $70 million for a Caulfield base would need.
But when he tried to get onto the board under Glen Bartlett he ran into what he labelled ‘The Melbourne Way’.
No term limits for directors, only postal voting for elections, little or no direct notification to members about upcoming board vacancies.
In 2020 he secured 47 per cent of those who voted but failed to win a board seat, then won a court case seeking access to the members’ data base so that he could push his group’s proposed changes to the Demons constitution.
This year his Federal Court case failed yet he secured a number of key democratic concessions, as Justice David O’Callaghan noted his board tilt it 2020 was the first MFC contested election “since at least 2004”.
“Melbourne has always portrayed me as the passionate fan we don’t need. They have always said, ‘We are full’, and they have used those same tactics since,” Lawrence said, who has been told by Demons chief executive Gary Pert that “we will no longer accept any financial donations from you.”
“I believe the way the Melbourne board compiles itself is at the heart of the club’s cultural problems. It’s why I fought back originally and it’s why the fight continues today.
“I sued my own Club twice — there was no other choice. It’s time the MFC leadership took governance seriously.”
He says the changes made by Melbourne now allow a more open and democratic process for board aspirants.
“In the old days they would put a little ad in the classifieds next to the escort agency pages in late October and it was the only time you were told board nominations were open. Now they have to let all voting members know about the nomination period, which opens on October 31.
‘’The second change is they would get someone to retire early to create a casual vacancy and they would bring someone in as the incumbent and they would get re-elected on a unity and harmony ticket. Now they can’t make those appointments after October 1.
“As you go through the process you then have a candidate assessment committee.
“In the past it was a majority of existing board members and one external HR specialist or headhunter. It was a ‘Kangaroo Court’ and if you were successful at the bottom of your candidate statement you would get a board endorsement. But they never explained why you didn’t get one. So now that committee must be a majority of external people.
“The last one is access to the register of members so you can send communications to members as someone keen to be on the board.”
Former Demons player and MCC boss Steven Smith is seen as a future president but is not ready to join the board, although that might change soon.
Lawrence still wonders if Smith might end up as a Demons board member this year then taking over from Green when he has had time to decompress after recently retiring after 40 years as a lawyer.
Does Lawrence have any regrets at the financial toll?
“I don’t regret doing it. I wish it didn’t cost so much and that they had taken a different position last year. But it’s one of those things where once you start the fight the costs start to add up.
“It starts at the top with the board and they way you compile a board.
“If you have a proper electoral process you get good people who are willing to step forward. And that can only help the club.”
At a time when Melbourne want some “clear air” and a positive way forward, it will be fascinating to see whether the MFC board embrace Lawrence, or the contest will continue?
Originally published as Melbourne board elections: Smith reconsidering approach to Demons’ board; Peter Lawrence doesn’t regret suing club
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