PwC Australia is the latest supporting partner to distance itself from the Adelaide Festival over its platforming of two journalists known for publishing anti-Semitic slurs and hate speech to their online audiences.
The accounting firm’s logo seemingly vanished from the festival’s website over the weekend following a litany of complaints received over the proposed line up of the speakers.
“A wide range of feedback,” is what one official euphemistically called it.
The writers in question, Mohammed El-Kurd and Susan Abulhawa, are each scheduled to appear at a number of events once the programming begins this weekend.
El-Kurd’s remarks have included praise for terrorist attacks being carried out on Israeli civilians, while Abulhawa has described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as a “depraved Zionist” who is “more dangerous than (Russian President Vladimir) Putin”.
Margin Call has learned that PwC will issue an all-staff memo on Tuesday stating that it has formally dissociated from the festival in response to the speakers and their past remarks. The firm didn’t have a direct role in funding the festival but it does provide pro-bono auditing services.
“A number of you have seen recent media surrounding Adelaide Writers’ Week and the inclusion of two speakers who have previously made hateful and anti-Semitic comments,” the note will say.
“We condemn in the strongest terms any anti-Semitic comments and any suggestion of support for Russia‘s war against Ukraine. We stand with the Jewish and Ukrainian communities who have been understandably hurt by this issue.
“In this respect we have asked the chair of the Adelaide Foundation that any association of PwC with this aspect of the festival be removed.“
The company’s decision follows similar action taken by law firm MinterEllison, a major sponsor, whose management requested last week that its branding be removed from the festival website and in-person events. French multinational Capgemini followed soon after by revoking its funding arrangement, while three Ukrainian writers due to participate in the festival have since withdrawn from their speaking engagements.
Jeremy Leibler, a partner at Arnold Bloch Leiber and president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, told Margin Call he believed additional sponsors should take note of PwC’s decision. “I welcome PwC’s principled decision to stand with the Jewish community in the fight against antisemitism. Hate speech and the incitement to violence should have no place at a writers’ festival or anywhere else in Australia in 2023,” he said.
Prominent businesswoman Jillian Segal, president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, similarly backed PWC’s response. “The removal of PwC’s logo from the Festival website sends a strong clear message that the high value which Australians’ rightly place on free speech does not extend to racism and hate propaganda,” she said.
The travails of Ten Sixty Four
Mining company Ten Sixty Four went into a trading halt on Friday ahead of an update on its flagship gold mine in The Philippines. All eyes on that for Tuesday’s trade, of course, but it’s the other untidiness at the company we’re still waiting to formally hear about.
Barely two weeks ago Ten Sixty Four terminated the employment of Raul Villanueva, its president of Philippines operations, one of three locally based shareholders on the mine’s register – together the trio owns 60 per cent of the asset.
Was this departure ever going to be disclosed? One would have thought the sacking of a top official and significant shareholder – the president of the company’s only cash generating asset, no less – might be regarded as a market sensitive piece of information.
For now, Villanueva remains listed on the Ten Sixty Four website as president of Philsaga Mining Corporation – that’s the operating company of the mine in the Philippines – but this column is in no doubt that he’s left the building.
Villanueva appears to have been pushed out by managing director Jeffery McGlinn, survivor of a recent board spill at Ten Sixty Four. This is the same McGlinn who fired the previous managing director, Ryan Welker, over an allegation that he hadn’t disclosed a financial interest in a firm conducting drilling work for the company.
The postscript to that saga ended with Welker regrouping with 20 per cent of the register to try spill the board and install three affiliates: former CBA executive Debra Bakker and US-based Ned Collery and Lazaros Nikeas. No cigar on that attempt, it seems. And Welker, of course, denies the allegation.
If McGlinn’s name rings a bell with some readers it’s probably from his days as the co-founder and former CEO of mining services firm NRW Holdings. That’s where he made his fortune, and he’s not doing too badly these days either.
Since taking over from Welker his package has been revised up from $600,000 to $725,000 and he’s slated to receive $250,000 in short-term incentives, 3.6 million performance rights, a $150,000 director’s fee, and a $60,000 bonus for services to date.
Services to date? Exactly what they are is anyone’s guess, given he’s only just started in the role; surely he didn’t receive $60,000 just for enduring a bruising experience in a boardroom battle with Welker?
Meanwhile, it’s little wonder there was no money left over for a lousy company-funded Christmas party in the Philippines. No cheer at all, with downtrodden staff told in December to rely on donations from suppliers to be raffled off as prizes.
Wedding bells
A farcical statewide search continues for the younger brother of NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and two Liberal Party affiliates, the trio having been summoned to appear before a parliamentary inquiry examining alleged impropriety of one sort or another.
No sign of Jean-Claude Perrottet, Christian Ellis or his mother Virginia Ellis, a Hills Shire councillor. The three allegedly vanished once the inquiry heard that the two men had asked a businessman for $50,000 to “get rid of” federal Liberal MP Alex Hawke.
Margin Call imagines this allegation would have most likely been fulfilled with some run-of-the-mill branch-stacking rather than a horse head in the bed.
Anyway, contractors responsible for serving the trio have been filmed trudging through tall grass and dusty roads across the backblocks of NSW trying to find them. But why bother? In the case of Perrottet they really ought to just wait it out, with the young man due to marry in April and the details published in full for anyone to see online.
The invitation, as expected, lists the date, the time of the ceremony, the location in Sydney’s north, and even the dress code (black tie). “Ceremony starting at 2:30pm sharp and concluding with the flower toss at 3:45pm,” it says.
There’s even parking available for the contractors’ convenience. And if they hang around, canapes and champagne from 5:30pm.
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