Michelle Guthrie hangs up on Andy Penn’s Telstra
Michelle Guthrie’s ABC has given Andy Penn’s Telstra the snub.
From next week, the ABC is moving its considerable corporate phone plan from Penn’s Telstra to his “better priced” competitor, Allen Lew’s SingTel-Optus.
That’s not much of a wedding present for the just married Penn. And pity Guthrie’s staff, particularly those in the regions where Optus’s network is patchy at best.
Greg Hywood’s staff at Fairfax — who did the same cost saving switch a few years ago — could tell you that much.
Since moving to Ultimo from Singapore — where her restaurateur husband is still based and, coincidentally, where Optus’s parent company SingTel is headquartered — the cosmopolitan Guthrie has been open about her desire to reduce costs.
Admirably, she wants to move spending from back office functions to journalists and production staff. But the phone crimping was an unhappy surprise to go by the grumbling.
In an email to staff, Aunty admits that Optus’s signal is “sub-optimal” here and there. To bandage that, Aunty is “installing network boosters in those locations”.
Those perhaps lucky few in Optus’s darkest black spots will remain with Telstra — although, we should note Penn’s much better funded mobile network hasn’t covered itself in glory this past year. Looks like Telstra’s outages have started to bite.
BCA role up for grabs
Speaking of Telstra, its former chair and current CBA non-executive director Catherine Livingstone ends her two-year term as the president of the Business Council of Australia in November.
In the current political environment, which corporate sadomasochist would dare replace her?
Victorian Liberal president Michael Kroger and former Labor treasurer Wayne Swan yesterday formed an unlikely unity ticket, calling for the blue-chip business lobby to be shut down.
Meanwhile the BCA board — which numbers Livingstone, BCA chief executive Jennifer Westacott and the bosses of Wesfarmers (Richard Goyder), Qantas (Alan Joyce), CBA (Ian Narev), EnergyAustralia (Catherine Tanna) and Coca-Cola Amatil (Alison Watkins) — is considering a list of presidential candidates, which they will take to their November AGM for a members’ vote.
One plain-talking businessman seems to have put up his hand in a recent interview: the man who replaced Livingstone as Telstra chair, John Mullen.
In a piece published the week after the July 2 federal election, Mullen — the chair of the ASX’s fifth-biggest company by market cap, and the outgoing boss of dismantled freight logistics business Asciano — expressed exhaustion at Australia’s recent corporate tax cut debate.
“The last thing we need now is to divert more money into corporate coffers,” he said, breaking with BCA orthodoxy. “If the tax rate in Australia is 27 per cent or 30 per cent, I don’t think Asciano would do anything different, so all we’re doing is taking tax revenue away from the government.”
And Mullen’s no backer of Kroger’s call for the BCA to become a fundraising arm of the Liberal Party. “We’re getting into ‘them’ and ‘us’ more and more,” Mullen added.
“The Labor Party’s doing a crap job of courting business and the Coalition is doing a very crap job of understanding what the ordinary person wants out of life.”
Wouldn’t he be refreshing?
Ellerston’s new man
There has been something of a happy reunion of late in Sydney’s Elizabeth Street offices of Ashok Jacob’s Ellerston Capital.
The man who was long Kerry Packer’s most trusted numbers man, former Publishing & Broadcasting chief financial officer Geoff Kleemann, has quietly joined the board of one of Ellerston’s new companies.
Ellerston Ventures, which is raising about $30 million to invest in disruptive technologies, has appointed Kleeman as its chairman.
The move reunites Kleeman with Jacob — long one of Kerry Packer’s most trusted advisers — and another former Packer lieutenant, Chris Kourtis, who joined Ellerston from Portfolio Partners more than a decade ago when it was 100 per cent-owned by the Packer family. Another former PBL executive, Anthony Klok, is also an adviser to Ellerston Ventures.
Kerry’s son James Packer now holds a passive 25 per cent interest in Ellerston.
One of Ellerston Ventures’ first investments was a $4m injection into Melbourne video platform start-up Genero, whose clients include the likes of Qantas, Airbnb, eBay and Sony.
And Kleemann will have plenty of time to devote to his new chairmanship — two of his three listed company directorships have just disappeared thanks to takeover bids: Asciano (the one the straight talking John Mullen used to run) and Broadspectrum (nee Transfield Services, now owned by Spaniards).
He remains a director of property group Investa alongside Investec’s Richard Longes and former BHP Billiton executive John Fast.
O’Grumpy leaves
Historic news: the man former prime minister John Howard dubbed “O’Grumpy’’ is leaving Malcolm Turnbull’s PMO.
At the age of 69, veteran Liberal operative Tony O’Leary has called time on his staffing career. O’Leary — who is also the father of Canberra wine master Nick O’Leary — was Howard’s communications director. He returned to prominence after a spectacular falling out with Peta Credlin, followinghis blacklisting at the Sofitel Wentworth on the night of Tony Abbott’s election victory in 2013.
The Liberal greybeard — who in truth is clean-shaven — returned to service after Turnbull’s elevation last September. He finishes at the end of the month.
Sophie’s choice
As reported last week, billionaire Gina Rinehart — “matriarch” of the Australian Olympic team — took a moment’s break from the action in Rio to announce that Sophie Mirabella is the new head of media and government relations at her iron ore company, Hancock Prospecting.
We can now report the exciting new recruit will not be moving from Victoria to Perth, where Hancock is headquartered.
Nothing groundbreaking in that — although it puts to bed a theory that she might be preparing for a tilt at a seat in the Liberals’ West Australian division. Her predecessor in the media role, Jason Morrison — the former radio host, who now runs Seven’s Sydney newsroom — did the Hancock gig from Sydney.
Before him, Ian Smith of Bespoke managed Hancock matters from Adelaide.
Whether based in Wangaratta East, South Melbourne or Carlton — locations at which Mirabella declared she owned property in the then member for Indi’s final register of interests — it will be fascinating to see how she gets on in the idiosyncratic Hancock empire.
Running for offices
Was it anger at his recent pay cut that fuelled shadow frontbencher Andrew Leigh’sCity to Surf run?
Whatever the reason, his time was sensational. The overachieving Harvard PhD clocked in a time of 54 minutes 6 seconds for the 14km race. That was notably quicker than his boss Bill Shorten, who finished in a still brisk 78min 25sec. All up, Team Red smashed Team Blue in the race that threads through Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Sydney eastern suburbs seat of Wentworth
Former PM Tony Abbott — who would be the first to admit he has an unorthodox running style — finished after the Labor leader, with a time of 82min 14sec, and just beat former NSW premier Barry O’Farrell, who posted 83min 40sec.
Backing up after last week’s SocietyOne mini-Olympics was its boss Jason Yetton, who finished in 101min 19sec, just losing to his speedy son David.
Lyn Cobley was the sole running representative from Brian Hartzer’s Westpac, the race’s main sponsor. Unfortunately, the head of Westpac’s Institutional Bank was officially disqualified — although all agree she did a tremendous job firing the starting gun.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout