Jab in the arm: The art of the passive aggressive email

Passive aggressive much: “The Committee looks forward to your co-operation.” (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

The art of the passive aggressive email.

We have all sent and received them, but CSL’s director of public policy and government relations gave us a refresher course this week, with emails to the government’s committee on COVID-19.

What started as a polite invitation to attend Thursday’s public hearing from committee secretary Jeanette Radcliffe back in late December, quickly escalated with a series of corporate doublespeak.

In a brief email on Christmas Eve, the director, who’s identity has been redacted, declined the invitation, noting that the first quarter was an “extremely busy period for CSL” and they were “unable to resource participation in this hearing at this time”.

No doubt mass-producing the country’s pandemic remedy takes a fair bit of focus.

Illustration: Rod Clement

Almost a month later, the government agency took their rhetoric up a notch, with the committee’s chair ACT senator Katy Gallagher now penning a strongly worded letter, expressing that she recognised CSL may be busy, but now “formally requesting” the biotech and local market’s largest stock reconsider.

To that, CSL did not budge, employing the phrase “as previously advised”, the closest thing to the middle finger still passable in these types of situations.

“I regret that CSL simply does not have the capacity to resource an appearance before the Committee during this critical time of vaccine manufacture however I would be happy to discuss with you a possible appearance perhaps in mid to late April once (hopefully) we have achieved release of the vaccine to the community and the ongoing rollout is underway,” they wrote.

Katy Gallagher. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

In the fifth and final email, sent on Wednesday and released as the last part of the email chain, the claws really come out from Gallagher, who points out her “disappointment” in their refusal to comply and that both global powerhouses at the heart of the vaccine trials, AstraZeneca and Pfizer, were able to make themselves available despite their own similar taxing schedules.

Even department of health secretary Dr Brendan Murphy, the face of the country’s COVID-19 response, made the call up.

“As a participant in a $1.7 billion deal with the Australian Government, the Committee believes CSL has a duty to be openly accountable and transparent to the Australian community,” Gallagher writes, adding that the committee was flexible with times and attendance via videoconference was also an option.

“Please note that in the interests of transparency the Committee intends to publish all correspondence between CSL and the Committee regarding attendance at a public hearing.”

“The Committee looks forward to your co-operation.”

A standoff indeed, though with neither chief Paul Perreault or chair Brian McNamee nor any of their medical team making any appearance at Parliament House on Thursday it seems they may have won the first round.

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Mystery buyer revealed

The $25.5m sale of Christine and Roger Kimberley’s Sorrento mega-mansion has been the talk of the Mornington Peninsula, but one key question has eluded most circles to date.

Just who has taken up residence in the clifftop mansion?

The Kildrummie Court bolthole on the aptly named Millionaire’s Walk changed hands late last year, Kimberley, brother of Just Jeans founder Craig, cashing in on the booming property market as Melburnians fled the locked-down city.

It hasn’t been until now though that the identity of that buyer has been revealed – this column having it on good authority that none other than Melbourne property developer Michael Gannon is the proud new owner.

No stranger to the rag trade himself, Gannon has a longstanding partnership with womenswear designer Perri Cutten, and was part of the consortium of companies who rescued country style retailer Laura Ashley the first time around, back in the 90s.

Nowadays, he is more concerned with his property interests, and not just his new holiday home.

His Cremorne Group is developing SEEK’s new $150m headquarters in the trendy suburb while he was also an early backer of David Di Pilla’s HomeCo float, alongside other high profile family offices.

That will no doubt be the subject of conversation with new neighbours and fellow Melbourne property royalty, the Deague family.

Gannon’s other position though, his membership of the council of the National Gallery of Australia, could make for some high profile dinner parties at the new pad, with Seven’s Ryan Stokes and veteran politician Richard Alston andformer diplomat Stephen Brady also among the government-appointed crew.

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Taking on the shorts

It took journalist Adele Ferguson 2455 words to spell out how hedge funds were turning the country into a “paradise for a new and aggressive form of short selling” last December.

The economic cost of these “short and distort” attacks? $15.7bn, of which $1.95bn affected individual investors and superannuation funds, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Richard White, Wisetech CEO. Picture: Britta Campion / The Australian

Those figures were provided by analysis “compiled by Sydney University Business School and German-based researcher Breakout Point and obtained by the Herald”.

Then there was the lengthy commentary from WiseTech chief executive Richard White, whose company had come under sustained criticism from short selling hedge funds and research houses. The real victims were the unsuspecting mums and dads, he said

But it later emerged the Sydney University analysis authored by researchers Joakim Westerholm and Vycke Zheng Wu had been sponsored in secret – by whom, the university refused to say. Neither the academics nor the funding organisation had engaged a public relations firm, a university spokeswoman confirmed to the Financial Review on December 14.

Of some note, Margin Call can now reveal the university refused to release the name of the funder because it had signed a non-disclosure agreement with a “research partner”.

That was one reason given by Sydney University’s group secretary Alex Maitland in refusing to disclose the name of the funder in a freedom of information request this week – and the difficulty in attracting and training research partners if the name of this party was made public.

But thankfully – and in serious silence – the Herald already outed them.

On December 16, with no correction or clarification, the Herald amended the piece to note it was Domestique, the corporate communications consultancy run by Solly Lew advisers Ross Thornton and Jim Kelly, that had sponsored the study “for a nominal fee”. The study had been independently reviewed, it added.

The funding organisation hadn’t engaged a public relations firm … because the funding organisation was a public relations firm. Outstanding.

WiseTech, for the record, is still a client of Domestique although all mention of the tech firm has been expunged from the PR outfit’s website.