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Christine Lacy

Dissent in the committee over consultancy report; Burrowes’ Singapore sling

Christine Lacy
Senator Richard Colbeck and the committee were reportedly split over the report’s form. Picture: Martin Ollman
Senator Richard Colbeck and the committee were reportedly split over the report’s form. Picture: Martin Ollman

The Senate’s report into the integrity of the consulting profession was more than a year in the making, but manoeuvrings by the myriad committee members towards the report’s final form went right to the wire.

Margin Call is told that even on Wednesday morning committee players, led by Liberal Senator for Tasmania Richard Colbeck, were still meeting trying to find agreement on what form final recommendations would take.

Word is that the Greens and the ALP, formidably represented on the committee by Barbara Pocock and Deborah O’Neill respectively, right up until the 11th hour strongly felt that the draft final report did not go far enough when it came to the wrongdoings associated with the PwC tax scandal.

This followed similar gatherings on Friday, with the Greens and ALP considering that the draft final recommendations by the Colbeck committee lacked heft and seeking to push for the final report to be beefed up.

By Wednesday, what were to become official addendums to the actual final report and its recommendations were being circulated by the feisty senators, stressing their own strident conclusions over the long-running affair.

Green’s Senator for South Australia Pocock titled her extensive additional comments, “A Very Public Swindle”. “The committee’s recommendations do not go far enough,” Pocock declared (in bold). “They do not address the magnitude and scope of problems this inquiry has uncovered.”

Pocock included the Greens’ own 22 recommendations, which were far broader than those of the wider committee.

They addressed the likes of “political donations by big consultants, the revolving door in and out of government, the inadequacy of penalties for PwC, the pressing need for structural reform to cap big partnerships’ size, and to address conflicts of interest and the opaque nature of big partnerships”.

Singapore sling

PwC Australia managing partner Kevin Burrowes hasn’t been in Oz this week in the lead up to release of the Senate’s report into the integrity of consultants.

Despite the central role that the PwC tax scandal has played in the 14-month-long inquiry, Burrowes spent some of last week and this week offshore on business. No hanging around to strategise the embattled PwC’s response to the long-awaited report, to support troops on the ground or just as a show of leadership amid tough times and intense scrutiny.

Rather Burrowes, 62, who came in as new boss mid-last year as the crisis unfolded, we hear, was in Singapore (where he was based for three years as an exec with the firm before being shipped down under) last week for a network meeting.

After that, his trip has taken him to meetings in London, where Burrowes was based as global banking and capital markets leader with PwC before he hit Asia.

Such is the life of an executive at a globally networked firm, but really, the timing and optics are bad.

Team Hamer

Josh Frydenberg has thrown his private support behind anointed candidate Amelia Hamer in the federal electorate of Kooyong.

Hamer and Frydenberg, her high-profile predecessor in the seat, teamed up on Wednesday night for a Kooyong 200 Club campaign event in the Teal-held inner Melbourne electorate.

Amelia Hamer with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Picture Facebook
Amelia Hamer with Opposition Leader Peter Dutton. Picture Facebook

From what we hear, it was a cosy affair, with 31-year-old Hamer engaged in a Q&A session with Frydenberg, who only last week was the subject of intense speculation that he might recontest preselection in the former blue ribbon seat.

This followed an AEC draft redistribution that would likely benefit the Libs in picking off Kooyong from incumbent Monique Ryan.

Topics on the menu for the evening, which was attended by the likes of former Liberal senator Rod Kemp and former Victorian premier Ted Baillieu (apologies were sent by the Lib’s other state premier Jeff Kennett) included the economy, energy and the rise of antisemitism.

A fine show of unity, to be sure.

Gone but not forgotten

The now Catherine West-led board of directors of Nine Entertainment left former chair Peter Costello to his own devices when it came to explaining his interaction last week at Canberra Airport with this newspaper’s reporter Liam Mendes.

Then, on announcing Costello’s resignation on Sunday night, which followed a blizzard of coverage of the unfortunate altercation, there was no mention of the affair. West simply thanked the former federal treasurer for his “dedication and commitment to Nine” and moved on.

Catherine West
Catherine West
Peter Costello
Peter Costello

“As chairman, he has always put the needs of the company first and his decision to stand down and pass on the baton of leading Nine at this time is in line with that approach,” West noted.

But we hear that in the Nine newsroom there was more of an investigation into the conduct of the feisty former pollie, with journos going to some length to try and secure CCTV footage of the incident from the airport.

Reporters were seeking more on Mendes’s footage and to verify Costello’s explanation that the reporter backed into and fell over an advertising awning.

Their efforts came to naught. Still, with the shoulder charge already captured on two cameras and the footage so damning Costello was gone in 72 hours, there was ultimately little need for another angle.

Haunted house

We don’t know whether it’s bad juju associated with a previous tenant, but the luxury home on Sydney’s northern beaches made (in)famous by rapist Bruce Lehrmann can’t secure a new tenant.

The three-bedder in Balgowlah, which is owned by Lady Gaenor Meakes, comes fully-furnished ready for an executive type to move right in and enjoy the stunning views from either of the home’s two balconies across to Manly.

There is no mention of its notoriety in the real estate blurb, but Lehrmann’s tenancy in the tri-level home, now on the market for just under $2000 a week, was part of the former political staffer’s exclusive TV interview deal with billionaire Kerry Stokes’ Seven Network.

Lehrmann, of course, is appealing his Federal Court defamation loss over a TV interview on Network 10’s The Project that aired allegations he raped fellow Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins in Parliament House in March 2019.

As part of his deal with Stokes, Seven paid $100,000 rent for Lehrmann to live in the home, which now is the subject of a dispute in the NSW Civil and Administrative Appeal Tribunal over damage Meakes says Lehrmann did to the home and unpaid rent.

Smudging with sage might do the trick to clear the air.

Christine Lacy
Christine LacyMargin Call Editor

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/margin-call/dissent-in-the-committee-over-consultancy-report-burrowes-singapore-sling/news-story/3f9ce9891ec803d3029b5804621faf4b