AFR star Joe Aston’s court Street Talk critique
During more than eight hours of cross-examination in his defamation trial, Joe Aston said he didn’t work in The Australian Financial Review’s newsroom — and Margin Call can perhaps see why.
Aston, who is based in Los Angeles, flew to Australia and endured the mandatory two weeks of COVID-19-enforced quarantine to give evidence in the trial and was forthright in his discussion about his AFR colleagues.
He said The Fin’s Street Talk column was “obviously a column where people prospectively assent to generate momentum for IPOs”.
Aston was responding to questions from Sue Chrysanthou SC — who is representing former Blue Sky director Elaine Stead in her defamation case against Aston — about a Street Talk column published earlier this year noting that bankers had been spruiking a potential float for Blue Sky investment Vinomofo.
“Do you remember reading that the sharemarket float could value it at more than $300m?” Chrysanthou asked.
“I did read that,” Aston replied.
Chrysanthou probed further: “Do you remember reading that it’s understood the company has about $80m in annual revenue and 70,000 customers?
“Do you remember reading the numbers have been growing at 20-30 per cent in recent years?”
Aston replied: “I do remember that. I also remember reading an interview with the founder of Vinomofo in 2017 with Michael Bailey from my newspaper in which the founder claimed he had reached $70m of revenue then, and they never had. “Their accounts show in that year that they only had $40m-$45m.”
Chrysanthou asked Aston if he thought Street Talk’s editors Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald and Tim Boyd were “careful journalists”, which Aston agreed they were.
“They wouldn’t put something in an article in the AFR unless they had a proper basis to do so?” she asked.
Aston retorted: “I’m telling you we have a document that lays out their accounts and that is contrary to the information in Street Talk, which obviously is a column through which people prospectively assent to generate momentum for IPOs.
“Well, that article was in August and we are yet to see any prospectus. I think it was an attempt to kick tyres.”
With all the fuss, Margin Call checked out Vinomofo’s latest accounts for the year to June 30, 2019 — it hasn’t lodged its 2020 earnings yet — and can reliably report that the company’s revenue is still just shy of $45m, while it operated at a $198,000 loss.
Mum’s the word
Judge Michael Lee’s Federal Court was virtually empty as cross-examination of Nine Entertainment columnist Joe Aston continued for the second day on Tuesday, save a mature blonde woman sitting diagonally behind and socially distant of venture capitalist Elaine Stead. Turns out the visitor was the 45-year-old Adelaide businesswoman and former Blue Sky director Stead’s dear mum, who sat through all of Aston’s long day of evidence, including some discussion of her time battling brain cancer.
Stead’s sister, Olivia Stead, who has previously given evidence in the defamation matter, only made proceedings via the Microsoft Teams facility provided by Lee in the interests of open court.
Stead, we note, is a client services manager at a South Australia-based outfit called Altitude Advisory, where her bio reveals the following “quote to live by”: “One day your life will flash before your eyes. Make sure it’s worth watching.”
That gem’s from My Chemical Romance lead singer Gerard Way and, in the case of Stead’s higher-profile sister, is somewhat prophetic.
Elsewhere in the virtual courtroom, Dean Paatsch from Ownership Matters, whose organisation had penned reports on governance at Blue Sky, had dialled in, along with a clutch of public relations operatives and journalists keen to catch Aston in the box.
Continuing the Anchorman theme from Monday, several court watchers sought to keep their identities under the radar by adopting pseudonyms that included, I’m Ron Burgundy, Ron Burgundy, Veronica Corningstone and Brick Tamland.
Lee’s description on Monday of Steve Carell’s weatherman Tamland as a “gaping moron” was also given a run as an alias, along with the likes of Not a Cretin, Cretinous Crustacean, Idiot and Mr Loud Noises.
But is this hijinks all acceptable in Lee’s courtroom — virtual or otherwise?
“His Honour takes the view that the remote courtroom is like a normal person in a courtroom, in the sense that any member of the public may attend without the requirement that they identify themselves to the judge, the parties, their practitioners, court staff or any other observer in any way,” Lee’s associate told Margin Call.
Late to the party
You’d think when the boss pulls together the troops for the last time in what has been a year from hell, you’d at least try to be on time.
Not so on Tuesday morning, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison gathered his disciples for a coalition party room meeting in the Great Hall at Parliament House.
ScoMo was on time and rolling at the allotted 9.30am kick-off, with cameras even allowed into the room to capture our leader’s opening remarks and last rally cry of 2020 before the parliament shuts down for the long summer break.
Unfortunately, ScoMo was positioned right in front of and with his back to the double swing doors that coalition parliamentarians were using to enter, with media lenses therefore trained on latecomers as they tried to slip into the room.
Margin Call first spied the PM’s accident-prone Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor making a tardy entrance, followed by his fellow frontbencher and Population Minister Alan Tudge, who in recent weeks has had more than his fair share of bad headlines due to his extramarital affair with former staff member turned Four Corners talent Rachelle Miller.
What a terrible look.
Flying into crisis
The national broadcaster is no stranger to sweeping redundancies, so it’s any wonder chief people officer Rebekah Donaldson has been called in to assist with the “right-sizing” at Qantas.
After cutting almost 30 per cent of its staff so far this year, there’s no doubt Alan Joyce’s airline will be in dire need of a little morale boost.
Donaldson recently announced she would leave the ABC in mid-January to take up the role of executive manager, people at the flying kangaroo, the department led by former Bain partner Rob Marcolina.
And when it comes to experience, she’s well acquainted with a HR crisis.
In the role since 2018, she’s overseen several rounds of job cuts at the broadcaster, as well as the group’s near $23m underpayment blunder in January of last year, when up to 2500 casual staff were underpaid.
That’s not to mention the high-profile exits of former head Michelle Guthrie or reporter Emma Alberici.
ABC managing director David Anderson described Donaldson as an “outstanding executive” who was held “in very high regard” and said a recruitment process for her replacement would begin in the coming weeks.
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