Boston Consulting Group has Australia Post on toast again

Cartoon: Rod Clement.

After a two-and-a-bit-year hiatus, Ahmed Fahour’s old consulting shop BCG once again has its hands on the levers of power at Australia Post.

The return of the handsomely remunerated PowerPoint crew is the result of an intriguing intervention by another former consultant Paul Fletcher, who as Communications Minister is now the portfolio minister for the government-owned enterprise, along with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann.

In a Friday special, Fletcher last week surprised Australia Post with the news that he had hired Boston Consulting Group to conduct a wide-ranging review of Australia Post’s strategic map for the future.

That consulting project is being done on behalf of the Morrison government to “inform the incoming chair and further inform the board and chief executive officer”.

For now the remit for BCG remains vague to Christine Holgate’s Australia Post team beyond the minister’s public statement, which said it would look at the outfit’s “strategy to operate as a sustainable and fit-for-purpose service provider for the longer term”.

Margin Call gathers that, a week on, the newly enlisted BCG army is still to set foot in Australia Post’s Bourke Street headquarters.

Their arrival is expected any day now that Holgate — who as the former boss of pills business Blackmores is one of corporate Australia’s better China hands — has returned from Shanghai where she led Australia Post’s delegation at the International Import Expo.

The latest outsourced thinking for the postie comes after earlier work done by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the shop founded by Holgate’s fellow Collingwood director Mark Korda’s KordaMentha.

Evidently the details fetishist Fletcher thinks more work needs to be done.

The new Fletcher supervised strategy document will provide some clear markers for the new Australia Post chair that he, Cormann and Prime Minister Scott Morrison will shortly reveal as John Stanhope’s replacement.

It seems that will be an external appointment, overlooking deputy chair Holly Kramer and fellow director Michael Ronaldson (a former Abbott minister).

Does Ita Buttrose know anything about parcels?

Guest of honour

As Anthony Albanese’s Labor Party broke out in self-flagellation in Melbourne’s CBD, Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ wife Catherine headed off to Flemington for Oaks Day. Such is the diversity of our federal system.

The Premier’s wife was the star political guest at the Tabcorp marquee on Thursday for the Melbourne Cup Carnival’s Ladies’ Day.

Paula Dwyer with her sisters Megan, Eleanor, Phillipa & Gabrielle at Tabcorp in the Birdcage at Flemington Race Course on Oaks Day. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

Just the sort of person the circa $10bn gaming giant wants to be on good relations with as the Andrews government continues to dominate Victorian state politics with an authority his federal Labor colleagues can only dream of.

Also in the Birdcage were Victorian Racing Minister Martin Pakula and his fellow state Labor pollie Jaala Pulford, who were spotted on the fags. The Andrews government is really doing its bit in the War on the Wowsers.

Tabcorp chair Paula Dwyer brought her sisters along as she backed up after Derby Day and Melbourne Cup, where after a morning in her marquee she headed off for the customary Tuesday lunch in the grandstand with VRC chair Amanda Elliott.

West Indian test legend Brian Lara — who was a Cup day surprise — also made a Birdcage return, to the delight of Dwyer’s CEO David Attenborough and Dwyer’s new boardmate David Gallop, who will shortly follow the Lowy family out of the FFA.

Over in the Herald Sun marquee neither rain nor wind could disrupt Penny Fowler’s hosting duties as she welcomed our parent company News Corp Australia’s $14bn digital jewel REA Group.

David Gallop & Brian Lara at Tabcorp in the Birdcage at Flemington Race Course on Oaks Day. Picture: Stuart McEvoy.

The REA property listings giant’s chair Hamish McLennan, CEO Owen Wilson and 20 of their best-performing agents were along after Wednesday’s well-timed Melbourne strategy day to enjoy the esprit de corps. Keep selling those ads!

And at the Italian-designed, German-constructed, 10-months-in-the-making marquee next door, the racetrack’s new royal couple: jewellery retailer James Kennedy and his artfully coiffured wife Jaimee, whose ritzy Kennedy empire is the Oaks Day sponsor.

Before we met them, the young couple had lunched in the committee room with chair Elliott, an appointment that we reported in our previous column the Kennedys seemed a bit cool on. But as all young royals are taught, sometimes duty calls.