Treasurer Matt Kean replaced female board chair with a man despite department advice

Treasurer Matt Kean ignored his own directive for companies to promote more women onto boards by replacing the female chair of ­WaterNSW with a man, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

NSW Treasurer Matt Kean ignored his own directive for companies to promote more women onto boards by replacing the female chair of ­WaterNSW with a man.

Mr Kean, who has made himself a champion of gender diversity, is facing fresh attack over hypocrisy on the matter after repeatedly naming and shaming public companies for failing the gender diversity test.

Just hours after The Daily Telegraph quizzed Mr Kean yesterday on his move to replace WaterNSW chair Anne McDonald with a man, the Minister scrambled to publicly announce gender targets he’d agreed to.

The targets were initially outlined in a briefing note to the Minister prepared in November last year.

But, The Daily Telegraph can reveal, that months after NSW Treasury recommended “affirmative action” to promote women to new board appointments, a man was appointed to take over the plum WaterNSW board chairmanship instead of a woman.

Peter Duncan, the new WaterNSW board chair, replaced female outgoing chair Anne McDonald.

Up until October it had been the only state-owned corporation with a ­female chair.

Mr Kean’s internal opponents have accused the Treasurer of also supporting men at the expense of female candidates in parliament – most recently when he backed former adviser Peter Poulos to take over from Upper House MP John Ajaka in 2021.

As The Daily Telegraph revealed last week, less than 40 per cent of members on boards in the Treasury portfolio are women. Appointing women to all new board appointments would “largely” meet diversity targets by February 2023, the NSW Treasury brief said.

In preparing the gender target proposal, NSW Treasury also considered “affirmative action on … all reappointments,” which would have replaced male board members with women if their term was up for renewal.

Treasurer Matt Kean has been accused of double standards over the WaterNSW appointment. Picture: Gaye Gerard / NCA Newswire

However this was ruled out because it would “have adverse consequences for particular boards where a specific director is making a valuable contribution.”

The Labor Party yesterday strengthened its ­attack on Mr Kean for failing to promote women on his own boards while telling businesses to boost female representation.

“The NSW Treasurer is quick to lecture the private sector about equality but when given a chance to do something about it himself, he refuses,” Labor’s deputy leader Prue Car said. “The reality is that the NSW Liberals have a poor track record when it comes to appointing women to boards and leadership positions.”

Mr Kean said that “having more women on boards improves the bottom line.”