By Stephen Brook and Kishor Napier-Raman
Another day, another fascinating titbit out of one of the many inquiries that followed consulting giant PWC’s tax-leak shame.
Last year, a Senate inquiry into big consulting revealed that former finance minister Mathias Cormann had an equity stake in Sayers Group, the latest venture of former PwC Australia boss Luke Sayers.
Former PwC Australia CEO Luke Sayers.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen
Sayers, the uber-connected Carlton Football Club president, led global consulting giant PwC while its partners were using confidential Australian Taxation Office information to help its clients avoid tax. He insists he knew nothing about any of this.
Now answers to questions on notice during the latest joint-parliamentary inquiry into consultants further illuminate the relationship between the two men, highlighting how for Cormann, a job with Sayers was a kind of back-up, in case he didn’t land his Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development role (he’s secretary-general).
“Mr Cormann agreed to join Sayers Group, then a start-up advisory and investment business in the process of establishment, as a founding partner, with the intention to keep working for the firm had the application to join the OECD been unsuccessful,” the firm told the committee.
Mathias CormannCredit: Jozsef Benke
In other words, while the government was lobbying to get him elected to lead the Paris-based organisation, the then former senator was also working for Sayers.
Sayers Group told the committee that Cormann’s work was consistent with the Ministerial Code of Conduct.
Nonetheless, we reckon should Mathias not get another term come 2026, there might still be a job for him at Sayers Group.
PICKING UP THE TAB
When former AFL boss Gil McLachlan takes the reins at betting giant Tabcorp next month, he’ll enter a company that’s been wracked by a few high-profile departures of late.
The job only opened up for Gil because back in March, former chief executive Adam Rytenskild departed after making a sexually explicit comment about a female Victorian regulator.
Chief industry and corporate affairs officer Tom Callachor abruptly left in 2022. And when McLachlan arrives, the firm will be without its general manager of corporate affairs, Daniel Meers, a former senior adviser to then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull.
In May, Tabcorp launched an independent probe conducted by law firm King & Wood Mallesons to investigate a workplace-language complaint made against Meers.
But last week, Tabcorp announced that the investigation had cleared Meers, of bullying or sexual harassment. Nonetheless, he decided to move on, and will leave in August after the company’s yearly results are released.
Frankly, we think Gil will need all the corporate affairs expertise he can get.
EURO SUMMER
It seems like half of our Instagram feeds are off on Euro Summer, and the latest to join their ranks is former prime minister John Howard, spotted by CBD’s spies at the Heathrow luggage carousel last Friday along with wife Jeanette.
Coincidentally, Howard had landed just hours before Rishi Sunak conceded defeat after his Conservatives lost a whopping 250 seats to Labour under Keir Starmer, and with those seats the government the Tories had somehow held for 14 years.
Despite all the Tory tears about Starmergeddon, it’s a great time to be in London, with Wimbledon on, and the three lions hiccuping their way into the Euro semis.
FREEDOM OF JOYCE
Following his hasty departure as Qantas chief executive last year, Alan Joyce fled halfway around the world, meaning he was missing in action as the Sydney Theatre Company, which he chaired until this January, was engulfed in controversy over a couple of actors’ peaceful pro-Palestinian protests.
Clearly things have cooled off, because on Saturday evening, Joyce was finally back at the theatre after a long hiatus, spotted by CBD’s spies at the opening night of the STC’s Dracula, seated in the same row as outgoing artistic director Kip Williams.
Part of the theatre crowd: Alan Joyce.Credit: Bloomberg
MOVING UP
So intrinsic has Peter Blunden been to the operations of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, particularly its Melbourne Herald and Weekly Times operations, we thought that even when all that was left of civilisation was ash, cockroaches and those indestructible green Tupperware lettuce containers, we would still find him at his expansive desk.
So we were alarmed after the recent round of cost-cutting to hear reports of Blunden clearing out his office inside the company’s HWT tower in Southbank and that his executive assistant had a redundancy.
In the cuts announced in May, Blunden moved on from his national executive editor role to a three-day-a-week advisory gig. And in the King’s Birthday honours, he was made a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to journalism, particularly through the print media, and to the community.
So of course Blunden is not leaving, merely transitioning to that advisory gig. His big office is now handed over to Herald Sun editor Sam Weir. Blunden is moving upstairs to a smaller office but, naturally, one with a better view.
Brunch date
Spotted: Taking a breather from the corridors of power on Saturday at 11am, apex political-vice regal couple Margaret Gardner, governor of Victoria, and her husband, secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet Glyn Davis, were seen brunching and munching just a short stroll from Government House at Botanic Gardens-adjacent No. 179 cafe in Domain Road, South Yarra.
She had poached eggs and avo on toast. He had an omelette. Coffees undetermined. He paid.
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