A little-known piece of work conducted by Treasury of late is on the Consumer Data Right, an economy-wide reform that’s supposed to give people some benefits (finally!) from all the data they’ve been supplying to companies for free.
The CDR promises a lot for consumers: more competition, more choice … it’s all there in theory and coming soon to a future near you.
Lesser known, however, is that Treasury has just finished a secret, internal review of the CDR and its prospective costs, the findings of which could be made public fairly soon, from what Margin Call is hearing, but we’ll believe that when we see it.
The two people who led this hushed-up project, commissioned in November 2023, were Treasury assistant secretary Aiden Storer and an independent, external reviewer named Heidi Richards. She’s proving to be the go-to for anything requiring a fine-tooth comb in government at the moment.
Two months ago Richards was appointed to yet another review of the nation’s credit reporting system, a decision announced by Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones.
Both lauded Richards in their press release, calling her a “well-qualified, distinguished individual” with serious chops in the realm of reform.
And to be fair, Richards’ CV really does speak for itself: 15 years with APRA, stints in the private sector, with Afterpay, with the Reserve Bank of Australia, the US Federal Reserve Board and, the US Department of Treasury.
And yet one role unmentioned by the ministers was her very recent and unexpected side-hustle working as a political staffer. Yes, it seems that while Richards was running a high-level internal review for Treasury on the consequential matter of CDR she was simultaneously working in the electorate office of our favourite accident-prone Teal MP, Kylea Tink.
Margin Call has learned that Richards has been a volunteer for Tink since 2022 but her paid role with the MP was doing policy and project management, her job being to lead community forums on housing affordability and housing availability. It was a part-time job, one day of work per week, and it lasted from May 2023 until December 31 that year.
On its face, Richards was seemingly working for Tink while also working for Treasury during an overlapping two month period, starting in November. So, can we still deem her work independent? Obviously not.
This would be the same Kylea Tink, by the way, who memorably bought shares in two listed oil and gas plays to “better understand the entities” and “exert pressure” to drive reform. And this after the North Sydney MP campaigned vociferously against fossil-fuel usage during her campaign for election. There are layers of silliness at play here, but buying a handful of shares to drive reform in a billion-dollar company? It’s like trying to put out a forest fire with a squirting carnation. Useless, but there’s still something funny about it.
Did anyone in Treasury even attempt due diligence while engaging a political staffer to lead an independent review of this consequential issue? Of course not. Remember, it’s Treasury; this is the same mob that’s been futzing about with gender-affirming language and browbeating staff into using pronouns in their signatures, as though they have nothing more pressing to occupy their time.
We did ask Treasury about the DD and all they would say on Richards is that she’d been engaged “because of her background and expertise in market regulation, risk and compliance, including in relation to open banking and regulatory change management”. No response to her paid and volunteer work for a crossbench MP or the small matter of independence, a word mentioned three times in the statement put out by Dreyfus and Jones.
Richards told Margin Call that her work on the CDR lasted six weeks (part-time) and that her work with Tink was “mostly wrapped up” by that point.
“I am a semi-retired, former public servant and I take on projects that I feel are interesting and important, which both housing affordability and the CDR are. I am very attuned to potential conflicts and there were none with these two projects.”
Ha! Sure, perhaps of the projects. But giving paid advice to an MP while working for Treasury doesn’t exactly bode well for independence.
Wonder what Dreyfus and Jones are thinking now?
Airport clean sweep
Sydney Airport’s board meeting last Friday appears to have led to a restructuring of executive staff under recently appointed CEO Scott Charlton, erstwhile of Transurban.
Feet under the desk since December, it looks like Charlton has taken a broom to some of his people, including Rob Wood, the airport’s executive general manager for aviation. No word on why or where he’s going yet. We asked Sydney Airport for a remark and they replied (within four minutes) saying: “We won’t be providing any comment.”
Also going, we hear, is Karen Halbert, the chief corporate affairs officer. She joined the airport from Tourism Australia in 2019, the same time as Wood. And we can only wonder if she’ll wind up at the Business Council of Australia now that Geoff Culbert is running the show as its El Presidente (having succeeded Tim Reed in the role), Culbert and Halbert having worked closely for years.
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