Hostility driving the Liberal Party fiasco that ended Richard Shields’ career
At this point, you’d be mad not to put the house on Chris Minns and NSW Labor to win the next state election (and probably the one after that, too) given the unedifying spectacle that’s burnt up the Liberal Party and publicly ended the career of its state director, Richard Shields.
Party hacks, in a paroxysm of madness, decided to terminate Shields’ contract last week on the eve of two crucial by-election contests in the seats of Epping and Hornsby.
This was all kneejerk, a convulsion of lashing and thrashing after the party failed to meet its nomination deadline for the upcoming local government elections. The details themselves aren’t particularly interesting. The endorsement process tarried. The vetting took too long. Nearly 200 candidate forms were dumped at the feet of head office as the deadline loomed.
Shields was banished not for any professional negligence but because of the ongoing personal hostility of party president Don Harwin and his band of flying factional monkeys.
Anyone intimate enough with the management of a political HQ would be familiar with the concept of delegated responsibility. Deputy state director Dorina Illievska and party affairs manager Wilson Chessell were placed in charge of the nominations process. Neither have faced repercussions over the fiasco that ensued on their watch.
As Rome burned last week, Illievska departed on an overseas holiday (albeit one that had been planned months ago). Chessell, meanwhile, has found himself promoted to the very role that Shields vacated, albeit in an acting capacity, but still a very fine example of what it means to, quite literally, “fail up”. The bitter irony in all of this is that Shields was urged to sack both of them months ago but couldn’t bring himself to fit the noose.
Shields had made a personal enemy out of Harwin, who detested the fact that the state director had negotiated a contract full of financial leverage over the party’s state executive. Their tussle was one of power and control. Shields was assured of a substantial cash payout in the event of dismissal during his six-month probationary period, a clause that made him quite expensive to sack. And guess what?
Days before his probationary period expired, party vice-presidents Geoff Pearson and Peter O’Hanlon moved to get rid of him.
Shields kept his job, but only through the personal intervention of Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor, Margin Call has learned.
As for Pearson and O’Hanlon, they allegedly named Harwin as the architect of this plan, and Harwin is said to have reciprocated.
And yet among all this incredible backstabbing, and the petty fumblings for power, and the tactical misstep of terminating a guy who managed to raise nearly half a million dollars for the party warchests, is the lunacy of Mark Speakman.
What’s left to say? The opposition leader, suffering a malfunctioning amygdala, emailed MPs and held a press conference publicly calling for the sacking of his own state director, as though this somehow would improve his standing as a credible prospective premier.
Only someone downright intent on staying out of government would throw their party’s own brand under the bus so flagrantly. He is a gift to his opponents, who need only to sit back and watch him cook.
Busy time for ‘tired’ McGowan
Wanting to spend more time with family has become a go-to leitmotiv for politicians who’ve figured out there’s more money to be made in the private sector. Claiming exhaustion is another one, or so it was with former WA premier Mark McGowan, who was too tired to go on but then picked up work with BHP three months after his retirement.
And then he picked up work with Chris Ellison’s Mineral Resources, and Joe Hockey’s Bondi Partners, and then APM Human Services, although who knows what the future holds for that; the listed job-finder might even hobble its way to an ASX exit courtesy of a lowball takeover from Madison Dearborn.
But back to McGowan. State Daddy was revealed on Monday to be the incoming chair of renewables developer Frontier Energy, his political suction an obvious and enviable advantage, similar to that of former WA treasurer Ben Wyatt with Rio and Woodside.
But Frontier really is pushing the envelope when it comes to political recruitments. The arrival of McGowan means Matador Capital boss Grant Davey and business associate Chris Bath are now outnumbered on the board by those with links to the swamp.
Fellow Frontier director Dixie Marshall was chief spinner to Liberal premier Colin Barnett and helped him to a thumping victory over McGowan in the 2013 election, which was followed up with a humiliating loss – to McGowan – four years later.
There’s former Labor spinner Amanda Reid, who worked for the Gallop government before joining GRA Partners, the go-to lobby shop for Perth blue chips in want of external help. Its current boss? The aforementioned Marshall.
Davey, the executive chair of Frontier, has already had one tilt at cosying up to McGowan, coughing up much dough at Kerry Stokes’ Telethon Ball two years ago to win a private dinner with the former premier – a prize that was nixxed by McGowan’s resignation.
Obviously they found time to catch up after all, with McGowan negotiating a sign-on package to include a million Frontier options exercisable at 20c (but only if he sticks around for a year). Plus half a million 25c options and the same number to be issued at 40c, vesting at two year’s service. All are deeply in the money, with Frontier closing at 50.5c on Monday.
Family values
Political splits are not unheard of in a family, especially when everyone can unite around their common disapproval of an enemy, and especially when that enemy is the Greens.
We speak of LNP candidate Natasha Winters, a former soldier with a job at the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute. She’s hoping to knock off Greens MP Michael Berkman in the Brisbane seat of Maiwar, where Berkman is chasing a third term.
The curiosity with Winters is that she’s with the LNP and not Labor, especially since she’s the daughter of Tracey Winters, the right arm of Santos’s Kevin Gallagher and a former chief of staff to Labor resources minister Martin Ferguson.
The Labor connections run even deeper, with Winters’ partner (by that we mean Tracey) none other than former Labor minister Craig Emerson.
Rytenskild eyes his old Tabcorp job
First Adam Rytenskild was dumped as Tabcorp CEO, now he’s won a Fair Work Commission case against it, so could he be plotting a return to the position since filled by Gillon McLachlan?
MinRes in game of cat and mouse
The Legal Practice Board of Western Australia is looking into MinRes and its lawyers’ conduct, which is interesting timing as its company secretary has just been made legal counsel to the board.