It’s only been a couple of weeks since Kelly Bayer Rosmarin left the building as Optus chief following the telco’s cyber attack and then a network outage, leaving her numbers man Michael Venter as interim chief.
Already internally tongues are wagging about who will land the top job on a permanent basis once an international search is undertaken by owner SingTel.
At the end of each week, the No.2 telco holds an all-staff meeting, better known as TGIF (Thank God It’s Friday) where the boss takes the mike and waxes on about telco business.
On the Friday after being named interim boss, Venter hosted proceedings.
Last Friday, however, former NSW premier turned senior Optus exec Gladys Berejiklian took charge in front of workers.
A company source said the hosting duties were regularly rotated around various members of the executive committee, but that didn’t stop the worker bees speculating the former pollie was gunning for the top job. And it’s still only early days.
Meanwhile Venter has been busy talking up how happy Optus customers are, as far as he can see, with all that the telco has been offering to the marketplace in Australia.
In a note to staff, Venter recounted the experience of Nicholas, who is thrilled with the services that Optus has been able to deliver to him since 2006.
“I’ve had no issues with them. The data hack and recent outage are out of their control … and I have no reason to be anything but happy and complimentary,” Nicholas was quoted as feeding back to the group.
Venter lapped it up.
“(Nicholas) clearly demonstrates that our focus on building deep and lasting customer relationship is one that we are rewarded for by our customers at this time,” the boss said.
What planet is the new boss (and Nicholas) living on?
Payout revealed
Try as she might there was no way that alleged Parliament House rape victim Brittany Higgins was going to be able keep secret her $2.3m financial settlement with the Commonwealth of Australia for breach of its “duty of care” to her in her time as a political staffer.
Amid the defamation trial brought by Higgins’ alleged rapist Bruce Lehrmann against Network Ten and journalist Lisa Wilkinson, Lehrmann’s senior counsel Steven Whybrow was not prepared to let the matter of how much Higgins got in her settlement slip through the courtroom cracks.
Despite objections from Wilkinson’s barrister Sue Chrysanthou on the questioning, Higgins was forced to eventually reveal she had got $1.9m from the Commonwealth, with the rest being shared between the tax office and her lawyers.
That payday, she revealed, was enjoyed by personal injury lawyer Noor Blumer from Blumers Personal Injury Lawyers, who represented Higgins in the matter, which was settled via mediation before any legal action was actually taken.
Higgins told the Federal Court her other lawyer, Arnold Bloch Liebler partner Leon Zwier, was present during the negotiation and finalisation of the payout, with Zwier conveniently also being in the court on Tuesday.
This meant that Whybrow was able to immediately seek a copy of the deed of settlement with the Commonwealth, for which Zwier admitted to Justice Michael Lee to being somewhat unprepared.
“Well here you are in the spotlight,” Lee laughed.
No love lost
There’s no love lost between former Liberal parliamentary staffer Brittany Higgins
and her ex-defence minister boss Linda Reynolds. It’s coming up to five years since Higgins worked as an assistant media adviser in the office of Reynolds, who remains a senator for Western Australia, but the animosity and bitterness remain fresh.
On Tuesday as Higgins continued to be cross-examined as a witness in the Lehrmann defamation case, Higgins couldn’t resist a dig at her old boss.
Fat-shaming the pollie, might be a better description.
Reynolds has lamented the loss of her black and white striped Carla Zampatti jacket from her office, which Higgins wore out of Parliament House on the Saturday morning after her alleged rape in March 2019.
Reynolds has said the jacket was in her personal wardrobe and that it was never returned, but Higgins insists she was previously asked to take the jacket, and other items, to a charity bin.
Reynolds, who is suing Higgins’ fiance David Sharaz for defamation, says there was no charity box in her office.
Higgins was at pains to tell the court yesterday that the designer jacket had become “too small” for Reynolds and that she’d been asked to get rid of it.
“It was too small for the minister at that time so (my colleague) Michelle Lewis asked me to throw it out,” Higgins said.
Ouch.
Meantime Federal Court Justice Michael Lee was showing frustration of his own.
“Just answer the question,” Higgins was told by the judge as her answers roamed off topic.
“The period of counsel’s cross-examination will be shorter if you listen to counsel’s question, give a responsive answer and not make speeches,” Lee decreed.
The judge was concerned about just how long a piece of string can be.
By the end of the day Lee seemed happier, declaring that his court would from Wednesday resume sitting regular hours now that Higgins’ time in the box was done.
All that was left was to pre-empt a new day, “same bat time, same bat channel”, Lee declared.
As if anyone needed reminding.
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