PwC’s a dirty word; Senator invokes shiraz diplomacy

Amy Auster was listed on screen as a speaker for a Business NSW luncheon but her employer’s name was conspicuously absent.

Wounded consulting major PwC expended weeks of energy fretting over whether it should, or shouldn’t, withdraw its sponsorship of Labor’s budget night dinner, held at the Hotel Realm in Canberra last week.

In the end, they decided against sponsorship, resulting in nary a mention of the firm during dinner and its name thoroughly sanitised from all available signage. The only hint of a PwC presence was a rogue sighting of the firm’s partner and chief economist Amy Auster, who was spotted in the lobby of Realm hugging a pile of budget papers. Even so, she wasn’t an attendee at the $5000-a-ticket function.

All that fuss, and yet we note PwC is still very much committed to sponsoring the CEDA 2023 State of the Nation conference being held in June. Not only are they a sponsor, the invitation trumpets them as a “double major sponsor”, with a PwC spokesman telling us this arrangement would proceed as planned.

PwC Australia partner and chief economist Amy Auster hasn’t been highlighting her employer lately. Picture: Britta Campion

Anthony Albanese is scheduled to give the keynote during the breakfast on June 13 while department secretary Jim Betts will sit on an infrastructure panel. Hopefully he wears a collared shirt for the occasion. On Tuesday Betts gave his own keynote during a 2023 Supply Chain Summit in Brisbane, presenting to the audience in a T-shirt emblazoned with “Notorious RBG”, a reference to former US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her relevance to Australian supply chains is difficult to pinpoint but, then again, Betts doesn’t mind a light spot of social messaging.

Meanwhile, speaking of Auster, the PwC chief economist was back in front of an audience on Tuesday for a federal budget luncheon with Treasurer Jim Chalmers, hosted by Business NSW and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Somewhat farcically, Auster was introduced without any reference to her employer. Her face and title were displayed on a screen but the letters “PwC” were nowhere to be located, causing much chuckling in the audience.

Jim Betts’ T-shirt was in reference to the late US Supreme Court judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Would that have anything to do with PwC having pulled its funding for that event, too? Margin Call hears they were on the books to sponsor the lunch but reneged on the deal not too many days ago.

Unclear whether it was Auster who requested her firm’s title be dropped, but organisers went to some lengths to assure us it wasn’t their idea.

A Business NSW spokesman said: “Amy Auster is one of the country’s most respected economists, with experience across government and the corporate world. Business NSW and ACCI made no conscious decision about the appearance, or otherwise, of her firm’s logo.”

Vintage performance

One could almost hear the cluck of satisfaction given off by Don Farrell at the close of his two-day visit to Beijing. It ended with the Trade Minister giving a bottle of vino to Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao, a drop sourced from Farrell’s vineyard in South Australia – or so the boast went.

Not only did Wang accept the shiraz, he also accepted Farrell’s invitation to visit Australia and stay at the family vineyard in the Clare Valley.

Unmentioned at that point, or perhaps lost in translation, was that Farrell no longer owns the winemaking operations.

He sold all that in September to his former staffer and trusted lieutenant Ben Dineen as a means of complying with the Albanese government’s Ministerial Code of Conduct. Dineen, for those with fantastic recall, was an ALP candidate for the South Australian seat of Bragg during the 2010 state election.

Trade Minister Senator Don Farrell gives Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao a bottle of his Godfather Too Shiraz.

Dineen’s recently created Dineen Wines is what now owns Farrell Wines and Red Bridge Wines, both of which, until last year, had been in the Trade Minister’s possession. What’s left in Farrell’s name is the land itself and the ownership of the family home.

Moreover, Farrell’s office told us that he paid Dineen Wines for the bottle that he then handed over as a personal gift to his Chinese counterpart. Telling him that the wine was sourced from his own vineyard is, well, a slight smearing of the truth.

The Chinese are not the first to be invited to Farrell’s home since his elevation to cabinet last year, with British politician Anne-Marie Trevelyn and Ukrainian ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko both having already descended on the property for a tipple.

Ben Dineen now owns the winemaking operations.

And, yes, one might overlook Farrell’s big-noting to Chinese officials about the shiraz, but what to make of the sale of the winemaking operations to a very close friend, and can this truly be considered arm’s length for the purpose of the ministerial code?

A spokesman for Farrell said he had divested his interest in Farrell Wines “in accordance with the Code of Conduct for Ministers”.

Our only remaining question – apart from the value of the sale – is whether Dineen gets a seat at the table when the Wang delegation turns up, and what views, if any, he might offer to help thaw the frosty relations.