Canberra just can’t seem to quit PwC; Carruthers’ Crowning glory in Melbourne ‘burbs

Linda Burney’s National ­Indigenous Australians Agency last week signed a contract with PwC. Picture: Martin Ollman

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe saw no need to mince words while explaining his ­approach to dealing henceforth with the scandal-riven consulting firm PwC.

At a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday, Lowe spoke of PwC’s appalling behaviour, its rapacity and lust for lucre, saying there would be no contracts awarded until “complete transparency” and “complete accountability” could once again be assured.

Ironically, as repellent as PwC might seem to Lowe, the consulting major is still locked in for an audit of the RBA, meaning they’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, the Albanese government has made very similar noises about barring any new contracts with PwC, but not in so many words. On May 19, it published updated procurement guidelines that said officials would need to consider an applicant’s confidentiality failings, and other conditions, when awarding contracts henceforth. It certainly sounded like a shadow ban of the firm.

Philip Lowe is appalled by PwC’s behaviour but will have to deal with it due to an audit contract. Picture: Martin Ollman

And yet Margin Call has learned of ongoing partnerships being signed with PwC despite those very guidelines and the months of high-profile fiasco threatening to atomise its leadership.

The Department of Finance, the agency that issued those updated procurement guidelines, is among those with a newly inked contract with PwC.

It’s a miniature deal that will run for a fortnight and pay roughly $14,000 for a review of its systems. That may not sound staggering, but Margin Call has located others.

Linda Burney’s National ­Indigenous Australians Agency signed a contract last week to pay PwC around $750,000 for work that will run until mid-next year.

The Australian Criminal ­Intelligence Commission has signed a $345,000 deal for ­“temporary personnel services” that will last until mid-next year. And then there’s Clare O’Neil’s Home Affairs Department, which disclosed a contract with PwC for software maintenance and support.

A case of do as we say, not as we do, eh? Plainly the bureaucracy just can’t live without them.

Carruthers settles in

Looks like Crown Resorts boss Ciaran Carruthers is hunkering down for the long haul with the casino giant.

What alternative conclusion are we to draw when the Irish gaming executive and his wife, Tess Carruthers, have forked out $3.5m for a slice of Melbourne real estate, buying on St Georges road in Toorak.

Their ground-floor apartment, located in a boutique development, puts them within singing distance of the southern capital’s wealthiest folk, or some of them anyway.

Crown door attendant Vincenzo Iaconis with Crown Resorts chief Ciaran Carruthers. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

There’s Humm Group chair Andrew Abercrombie, the millionaire businessman and Liberal Party stalwart – he lives across the street. And not far away is the epic $70m mansion owned by soft drink scion Harry Stamoulis.

Margin Call is also pleased to report that, despite this latest purchase, the Carruthers haven’t yet disposed of their mighty faux medieval castle on the outskirts of Adelaide, for which they paid $2.6m in 2015.

Pictures of the chateau are still available for viewing online. The interiors, with their red carpets, ramparts and arches, are not in the least bit tacky.
  

Craigie disorientation

While we’re on Crown, it would seem Rowen Craigie has kept a relatively low profile since his exit as CEO in 2017, with a golden handshake in the neighbourhood of $9.3m.

But rather than disappear entirely, Craigie was swiftly appointed to the Racing Victoria board on a four-year term.

That stint expired in 2021, and Craigie didn’t seek a reappointment. At the time Racing Victoria said his departure was a result of his relocation to NSW, but it also said he would remain under the RV umbrella as a director of RV’s “Integrated Media Business”, namely Racing.com and its digital assets and partnerships.

Former Crown chief Rowan Craigie. Photo David Caird

What it didn’t say explicitly was that Craigie would be running IMB, a wholly Victorian-based operation, as the executive chairman.

Odd, really, considering that Craigie wasn’t exactly armed with years of media experience coming into that role.

Also strange is that Craigie was considered ineligible to remain on the RV board as a non-executive director, owing to his relocation, but perfectly fine to run IMB from the pristine sands, the day spas and surf breaks of Cabarita Beach.

ANZ’s curiosity

A curious development in the case of former ANZ trader Etienne Alexiou, who’s on his second attempt to sue the bank. His first was in 2015, a case that ventilated spicy allegations of strip-club patronage and cocaine-snorting among ANZ’s hot shot traders. Alexiou dropped that action one year later citing the toll it was taking on his own health.

But now he’s back and seeking vast damages.

Fired by ANZ, he alleges that he was made to be a fall guy over a rate-rigging scandal that was investigated by, and later settled with, the corporate regulator. It seems ANZ’s lawyers are rather eager to force Alexiou to hand over all documents and correspondence with journalists dating as far back as 2014, or so went their attempt in the Federal Court on Tuesday.

Former ANZ trader Etienne Alexiou. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

Justice Nye Perram declined ANZ’s move but didn’t close the door entirely, essentially telling the bank’s lawyers to have another go at amending its defence and, potentially, making a second application.

Keen as ANZ might be to uncover any messaging between Alexiou and the media – and rest assured that ANZ certainly has its well-cultivated sources among the press – it does stand a risk, if the application is granted, of breaching the barrier that allows journalists to conduct their work.