Terry McCrann: Australia Post chair digs his own grave deeper
The chairman of Australia Post has zero understanding of the role and responsibilities of a board chairman, he has betrayed the corporation and its management and staff, and acted against the best interests of all Australians. So now he must go, writes Terry McCrann.
Terry McCrann
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The chairman of Australia Post, Lucio Di Bartolomeo, is a complete dunce and for that reason alone has to resign immediately. We certainly don’t want a dunce as chairman of such an important business.
The more substantive reasons are that he has absolutely zero understanding of the role and responsibilities of a board chairman, and as an obvious consequence has failed utterly to discharge them.
In very real terms he has betrayed the corporation and its management and staff, and acted against the best interests of you, both as the owner-taxpayer and customer, by allowing a hysterical Prime Minister to quite improperly force the suspension of AusPost’s CEO, Christine Holgate.
Last week Bartolomeo said AusPost faced “the most challenging period in the history of the organisation” over the next few weeks in the rundown to Christmas, with an expected 50 per cent increase in parcel deliveries.
Yet, he has personally deprived the organisation of its CEO by demanding she stand aside for — at least — four weeks.
Making his failure as a chairman so much worse is that there is absolutely zero justification for her to stand down, other than the hysterical and entirely political ranting of the PM.
There’s zero justification in substance. There is no prima facie evidence that she has done anything at all wrong. And there is no reason why she should have to stand aside while the PM’s utterly ludicrous “Caine Mutiny level” inquiry went ahead anyway.
There’s also zero justification in terms of process. The PM has no legislative right to order the chairman of AusPost to stand aside its CEO and nor does any other minister.
As I explained earlier in the week, the AusPost Act makes it crystal clear that only the relevant “minister” — not the PM — can direct the board to do anything, but that direction must be after consultation with the board.
It must also relate to the “performance of Australia Post’s functions as appear to the Minister to be necessary in the public interest”.
Forcing the CEO to — utterly unnecessarily — stand aside on the hysterical whim of the PM hardly fits that description.
Furthermore there are huge — and I mean huge — and multiple question marks over Di Bartolomeo’s statement last week that Holgate “will stand aside” during the, what he called, “investigation”.
My colleague at The Australian, Robert Gottliebsen, wrote Thursday that “Holgate made it easier for them by taking holidays”.
So, did she take holidays or did she stand aside?
Thursday morning I asked AusPost if the chairman stood by his statement that she was standing aside. As of 5pm I had not received a response.
Media reports late Thursday though referenced an AusPost statement that “the chair stands by his previously made statement on Thursday 22 October that Ms Holgate will stand aside and this was agreed to by both parties in a telephone conversation”.
A statement from lawyers for Holgate effectively rejected this claim. It said: “Ms Holgate has not had any proper notification that she has been stood down from her role, nor has she been informed as to why she should be stood down.”
That hardly tallies with the chairman’s claim that her standing aside was agreed between them last Thursday.
Again, we see another big fail by the chairman and yet further evidence of his total unfitness to continue.
He obviously does not have the slightest idea that a matter as substantive and significant as standing down the company’s CEO — to remind him, just as the company entered its most challenging period in its history — must be both very, very necessary and properly documented.
This is even more especially so when you as chairman are spinelessly caving to the totally improper pressure of the PM.
Further, whether in fact Holgate agreed to stand down or volunteered to take holidays is utterly beside the two substantive points of the chairman’s gross failure.
He should not have allowed AusPost to be without its CEO at this critical time. He should not have bowed to improper pressure from the PM.
He must go. And — subject to the inquiry not finding that Holgate had done something wrong — she must return.
WILSON HANDS MYER TO LEW
Investment manager Geoff Wilson has handed total control of Myer once again to billionaire Solomon Lew and thrown its future management into inevitable turmoil.
It is impossible to see Myer CEO John King and Lew occupying the same boardroom. As I wrote last week a vote to sack chairman Garry Hounsell was also a vote to sack King.
Lew repeated his call Thursday for the sacking of the entire Myer board. He did not specifically mention King who is a director, but nor did he exclude him. Lew has previously explicitly called for his sacking as well.
Now Wilson might think that “three can fit into the Myer — obviously, kingsize — bed”, so to speak; himself and Lew as the two biggest shareholders and King.
But, trust me, that is not going to happen unless Wilson and King respectively are going to be totally subservient to Lew.
King said nothing about his position on Thursday. He might — in sharp contrast to AustPost clueless Di Bartolomeo — feel an obligation to lead the retailer through the most critical two months’ trading of its year, made dramatically more critical by just emerging from Victoria’s lockdown.
But he won’t be there next year.
Originally published as Terry McCrann: Australia Post chair digs his own grave deeper