Eyebrows have been raised about Westpac director Ewen Crouch, who also chairs Brisbane firm Corporate Travel Management

Investors in a Brisbane firm have flagged concerns that the chairman is also a Westpac director facing a ton of grief over the banks’s Austrac debacle.

FACING WRATH

Prominent legal eagle Ewen Crouch is among the embattled Westpac board members who will encounter the wrath of shareholders next month as a result of the bank’s shocking Austrac debacle.

Notably, Crouch also chairs Brisbane-based Corporate Travel Management and that has sparked concerns from investors about whether he can fully commit to the job he took in March, when he replaced his long-serving predecessor Tony Bellas.

Crouch, who has been a Westpac board member since 2013 and faces re-election at the AGM on December 12, is seen as especially vulnerable since he chairs the bank’s Risk and Compliance Committee.

The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility and advisory outfit Ethinvest have already flagged plans to vote against him.

Corporate Travel Management chairman Ewen Crouch. Picture: Liam Kidston.

One CTM stakeholder put it bluntly on Monday. “Does Crouch still have appropriate standing within the business community to be chairman of CTM?,’’ he asked.

If Crouch departs Westpac, he could follow in the footsteps of Catherine Brenner, who quit as chairman of deeply-tarnished AMP and then subsequently bailed out on her directorships of Boral and Coca-Cola Amatil.

We couldn’t reach CTM boss Jamie Pherous on Monday. and Crouch, who earned nearly $344,000 from Westpac last year, didn’t return a call seeking comment.

But earlier this year Crouch said it was “unrealistic’’ for directors to be involved in a company’s day-to-day operation and non-executive types “cannot and should not be across operational minutiae’’.

“This doesn’t mean directors bear no responsibility for wrongdoing. Directors must take accountability for misconduct in their organisations and be transparent about their actions in response,’’ he told a Governance Institute of Australia annual conference in September.

In comments that seem nothing short of stunning now, Crouch also revealed that a sweeping self-assessment by the bank last year “found that the company’s governance structures, in totality, are appropriate’’ and “there is no need for radical change’’.

TUNING OUT

A legendary pioneer in Brisbane’s radio industry has tuned out for good and gone to that great studio in the sky.

Allen Brandt passed away at a Carseldine nursing home on Friday night just shy of his 100th birthday.

Brandt worked at several of the city’s radio stations back in the day and served as manager of the old 4IP, which started broadcasting in 1935 but really gained prominence during the 60s and 70s playing hit songs.

It later lost ground to FM stations and went through numerous callsign changes before the license was acquired by the TAB in the early 1990s.

Funeral arrangements are pending at St Clement’s on the Hill Anglican Church at Stafford.

BULLSEYE

What a load of bull!

In news we simply could not make up, Australia’s peak science agency will auction off a collection of old bull semen this week and donate the proceeds to charity.

Yes, the CSIRO collected the stuff during the 80s and 90s for research to improve the genetic quality of rare cattle lines.

But the organisation is no longer focused on creating new breeds or genetic experiments, especially since the completion of the cattle genome sequence in 2009.

The CSIRO is auctioning off a collection of old bull semen this week.

So what to do with nearly 5000 “straws’’ of semen which are now stored in liquid nitrogen at a Rockhampton livestock breeding facility?

The CSIRO could have just chucked them away but, instead, they all go under the hammer for three days starting on Wednesday on the Auctions Plus website.

Any money from the no-reserve auction will go to Drought Angels, Beyond Blue and the Queensland Country Women’s Association.

CSIRO spin doctor Pam Tyers predicted that cattle producers and breeding societies would take an interest since it offers them a chance to bring back some of the older breeds which have genetic stock not readily available anymore.

It’s not without an element of risk, however. Tyers warns the semen may no longer be viable and there is no genetic data on the bulls so there’s no guarantee on what might get passed on to the offspring.