One of the Tabcorp’s longest and most bitter internal feuds is finally over with the departures of Charles Moon and Lydia Deutscher, both of whom have been made redundant, Deutscher walking out last week and Moon leaving in August.
Tabcorp might have wrapped up these departures into its cost-cutting program, named “Genesis” and announced in March, but don’t be fooled by the spin. Margin Call is aware of a great animosity between Moon and Deutscher, both apparently having made a series of allegations against each other earlier this year. These comprised a gamut of workplace claims, with investigations undertaken but nothing substantiated.
All of which has resulted in a nil-all draw between them, given they’re both out of a job, and if nothing else appears to prove the old adage that if you’re seeking revenge, dig two graves. Word about town is that Moon, until recently the chief of staff to Tabcorp CEO Adam Rytenskild, and Deutscher, general manager of government and industry affairs, basically couldn’t stand each other.
The origins of this dispute aren’t clear but are said to lie in some arcane clash, possibly on politics, Moon having been a staffer for Tony Abbott and generally regarded as a blue blood (even though he’s maintained excellent affiliations with the ALP). Deutscher, meanwhile, is well known for her Labor politics, having worked for lobby shop Hawker Britton and staffed for former senator Joe Ludwig, who gave her a shout-out during his valedictory speech.
Tabcorp employees were told of Deutscher’s exit on Monday. It’s a development that instantly pares back the firm’s government relations team from two general managers to just one in Nick Santucci, the last man standing in this pistol shootout, now left solo to manage the great brand shift taking place within.
Another CBA exit
And on the subject of revolving doors, Commonwealth Bank’s Kylie Smith has resigned just 18 months after taking up a position as an executive general manager, continuing a run of exits out of the bank’s corporate affairs team.
CBA confirmed to Margin Call that Smith was leaving for personal reasons and would cease her role at the end of the month. Nothing to do with the 192 job cuts currently taking place at CBA, or the 1000 jobs culled in the past year – this while the bank pulled in $10.2bn in profit.
Smith’s predecessors include Andrew Hall, who left in 2020 to become CEO of Insurance Council of Australia, followed by former Air New Zealand executive Mike Tod, who lasted all of 10 months until taking an appointment as CEO of TAB NZ. That’s a minor trend boding well for Smith.
Who else needs a CEO? The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commissioner?
Not to mention Priscila Brown’s stint as CBA’s group executive for marketing and corporate affairs. She left in 2021 after just two years to take a job with Amalgamated Bank in the US – as its CEO, no less.
Bones of contention
Further developments worth being apprised of in the defamation action brought by Munjed Al Muderis against Nine newspapers and 60 Minutes, which heard from a former Nine television producer Karen Willing on Monday. She gave evidence against the network.
For the unfamiliar, Al Muderis is a world-leading expert in osseointegration surgery who’s suing over reports published last year alleging his use of high-pressure sales tactics on patients. Osseointegration? It’s a surgery that allows amputees to have a prosthetic limb fitted to their body, enabling greater function and mobility.
Margin Call reported last month that Al Muderis’ legal team had obtained footage filmed by Nine in 2015 for a show called Inside Story, hosted by Leila McKinnon. It captured Al Muderis performing surgery in Cambodia on two patients who’ve since been quoted in Nine’s reports.
The media company’s defence is that Al Muderis failed to “adequately advise of the risks associated with the surgery”, except that doesn’t appear to square at all with what the network filmed all those years ago.
Nor does it square with what Willing claims she saw during her filming of the segment. An affidavit filed with the court says that she’s since read the reports about Al Muderis, published by Nine, and that the “allegations made against him particularly in relation to his patients was wholly inconsistent with what I observed”.
She added: “No one from Nine sought to contact me as far as I am aware prior to the publications to seek my perspective of him, particularly in relation to his treatment of patients in Cambodia or his treatment of patients more broadly.”
The case continues.
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