NAB’s Rosemary Rogers: bribery charges and a cheque for $1m

On the day Rosemary Rogers was called to a meeting that would end her career, she drew a $1 million NAB bank cheque.

Former NAB executive staffer Rosemary Rogers is released on bail from Sydney Police Centre on Tuesday. Picture: Dan Himbrechts/AAP

On the day Rosemary Rogers was called back from leave for a meeting that would end her career, the former chief of staff to National Australia Bank boss Andrew Thorburn allegedly bought a $1 million NAB cheque.

The cheque and her departure may well be related.

Now that Ms Rogers has been charged with 56 counts of bribery and two of fraud, details have emerged of the lavish holidays, expensive birthday parties, luxury­ cars and boats and nearly $800,000 in spending money she and her family are alleged to have received while she guarded the inner sanctum of the bank as Mr Thorburn’s gatekeeper.

Back on December 13, 2017, Ms Rogers had been on leave to move into her newly purchased $3.8m house in Williamstown, on the shores of Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay.

That was the day she was called into Mr Thorburn’s office, questioned and then allowed to quietly resign — the same day the $1m bank cheque was drawn.

The money used to buy the cheque is now sitting in a NAB accoun­t as possible “proceeds of crime”, under a Crime Commission freezing order.

NSW police have alleged the $380,000 deposit paid for the Williamstown house in September 2017 was made by the owner of the Human Group, Helen Rosamond, who with Ms Rogers’s help secure $40m worth of business managing events and travel for NAB executives between 2013 and 2017.

Ms Rogers, 43, is confined to the Williamstown house after dark every day as she awaits trial on the bribery charges — including the deposit — and one of fraud for $2.2m committed just weeks before the fateful Thorburn meeting.

Ms Rogers was arrested on Tuesday, 12 months after NSW police established a financial crime strike force to investigate a whistleblower complaint.

Rosemary Rogers leaves the Surry Hills police station.

Court documents seen after her appearance at Central Local Court reveal alleged bribes totalling more than $3.9m over five years.

According to police charges, the last bribe arrived on December 12 — the day before the bank cheque was drawn — in the form of $7500 in marina fees for boat berthing paid by Ms Rosamond, who police say had done more than $118m worth of work for NAB over 12 years.

Mr Thorburn — who lost his job last month after damning commentary at the Hayne royal commission — would initially tell staff Ms Rogers left the bank after nine years as chief of staff because of a “lapse of judgment”.

Documents tendered to court invite a far less forgiving inter­pretation. According to police charges, Ms Rogers and Ms Rosamond were on opposite sides of corrupt payments that ranged from a $486,164.49, month-long holiday to New York, Miami and Hawaii for Ms Rogers and her family, to $350,000 in bank cheques for her and husband Anthon­y.

The biggest sum was saved almost­ to the end. Police have alleged­ that between September 27 and November 23, 2017, Ms Rosamond submitted an “unsubstantiated” invoice for $2.2m and that Ms Rogers had authorised it “knowing it to be false”. It’s understood the invoice was paid. But there’s nothing in the charges laid by police to suggest what happene­d to the money after that.

Ms Rosamond was arrested on Friday and faces 58 charges — includi­ng allegedly paying all the bribes for which Ms Rogers was charged — and for the $2.2m alleged­ fraud.

There’s also the matter of an attempted fraud against Vicinity Centres, owners of the southern hemisphere’s biggest shop­ping mall, at Chadstone in Melbourne. Police have alleged that between January 1 and February 12, 2016, Ms Rosamond created a false email as support for an invoice for $507,884.85. The invoice is understood to relate to events management, including a 2015 Christmas party, for what was then known as Federation Centres.

A spokesman for Vicinity said the company was assisting police with their inquiries.

Those inquiries have extended to 100 witness statements, including from Mr Thorburn, and 10 notices­ to produce that have delivere­d thousands of pages of documents and electronic files.

According to charges presented to the court, the alleged bribes accelerated quickly from a few thousand dollars received by Ms Rogers for airline travel or a weekend at Crown Towers, to much larger sums.

State Crime Commander and Acting Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith said last week that it was clear people in high places had failed to act with integrity: “The corporate corruption squad deals with big numbers but the involvem­ent of CEOs and some senior executives is something we haven’t seen.”