Australia Post board set for grilling at Senate Inquiry into Christine Holgate’s exit

All seven directors have been ‘invited’ to appear at the Senate inquiry into Christine Holgate’s exit.

All seven directors have been “invited” to appear at the inquiry alongside Australia Post chair. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dylan Coker.

Australia Post’s entire board is set to be grilled before a Senate inquiry into Christine Holgate’s ousting over the Cartier watch affair, to gauge the extent of the Morrison government’s interference on the postal service’s so-called independent board.

All seven directors have been “invited” to appear alongside Australia Post chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo at the inquiry’s second hearing next Tuesday.

This includes former Liberal federal and state director, Tony Nutt; former Queensland LNP president Bruce McIver; former Liberal Senator Michael Ronaldson; former Woolworths director Diedre Willmott; Jan West; Andrea Staines and Mario D’Orazio.

The Senate committee is yet to publish full witness list and program for next Tuesday’s hearing, but it is also expected it will hear evidence from the Licensed Post Office Group and the Communications, Electrical, Electronic, Energy, Information Postal, Plumbing, Allied Services Union (CEPU), which represents postal workers.

It comes after Ms Holgate accused the board of not being independent when she appeared before the inquiry last week, claiming Mr Di Bartolomeo had “thrown under the bus of the chairman of Australia Post to curry favour with his political masters”.

Mr Di Bartolomeo has rejected the claim. He said although Communications Minister Paul Fletcher called him twice within half an hour last October to express a “strong desire” for Ms Holgate to stand down while the Cartier watch gifts to four senior executives were investigated, it was not a formal directive.

The Senate inquiry has been established to determine the exact chain of events that led to Ms Holgate’s departure, including the “direction by the Minister for Communications to the chair of Australia Post” that she be stood down pending an investigation of the watches.

Former Australia Post CEO Christine Holgate, during her appearance before the Senate committee last week. Picture: AAP

Already, the Senate inquiry has heard that soon after Mr Fletcher’s phone conversations with Mr Di Bartolomeo, Prime Minister Scott Morrison told Parliament that Ms Holgate “has been instructed to stand aside, if she doesn’t wish to do that, she can go”.

Mr Morrison made the comments before the Australia Post board met that afternoon to discuss Ms Holgate’s position. Mr Di Bartolomeo said it was during breaks at that board meeting that he spoke to Ms Holgate and she agreed to stand aside.

Ms Holgate disputes this, maintaining she was stood down unlawfully.

At last week’s Senate hearing, she said all Australia Post board directors has close ties with the Liberal Party and were not independent, going through each director and their connections to the Morrison government at last week’s hearing.

“I think we all know Mr Nutt’s relationship with the current Prime Minister,” Ms Holgate said, before highlighting Mr Ronaldson and McMcIver’s connection to the Coalition.

In regard to Mr D’Orazio, she said “he was a personal friend of Minister (Mathias) Cormann,” who oversaw Australia Post with Mr Fletcher during his tenure as Finance Minister.

Ms Holgate said while she was not aware of any “friendship or relationship” between Ms Staines and Mr Fletcher, she said it was “Minister Fletcher’s direction that she was appointed” a director.

Finally, Ms Holgate said of Ms Willmott: “I think we all know of her strong ties to the Liberal Party. She worked for the Liberal Premier in Western Australia. Minister Cormann used to work for Ms Deidre Willmott”.

Despite accusing the board for a lack of independence, Ms Holgate singled out Mr Nutt as “the most balanced person”.

“Clearly he has a very close relationship with the Prime Minister, but he often was the person who would be more balanced with all political parties than the other politically appointed people.

“I think that’s probably because of his previous life in government, when he worked for prime minister John Howard. He had to work with all of the political parties to be able to get law through, so he was used to working with different political parties.”

In another example of a lack of independence, Ms Holgate said Australia Post’s executive team were not paid their incentive, or bonus, payments last year “under the instruction of the government”.

“The chairman wrote to the board and told the board that we were not to be paid incentives, because Minister Fletcher was concerned about comments from Senator (Pauline) Hanson.

“And yet I went to a meeting with Minister Fletcher in September, and he apologised that the executive team had not been paid. It was the following week.”

Senator Hanson, who spearheaded the push for the Senate Inquiry into Ms Holgate’s ousting, told The Australian last September: “I’ve got to question why pay bonuses. They are employed because of their ability to do the best job they possibly can. Why are we paying them bonuses to do their job?”

Her comments followed the postal service confirming it was paying 2,500 of its 36,000 staff, who were not on union agreements incentive payments after it delivered a 30 per cent rise in full-year profit and record revenue of $7.5bn.

At last week’s hearing, Mr Di Bartolomeo said of his relationship with the government: “as board members you take on board the concerns, the desires and the wishes of the shareholders”.

“That doesn’t mean that the board will then do as they wish. But it also doesn’t mean that you don’t consider all of the circumstances, including their desires.”