Optus boss to make a big call on hack report; Twiggy’s AGM hot mic moment on wasting time

Yes, no, maybe? The question over whether the hack attack report becomes public is up in the air.

There’s no time for new interim Optus boss Michael Venter to get comfortable in disgraced exited chief Kelly Bayer Rosmarin’s hot seat, with the walls rapidly closing in on a decision from the telco on the still-secret Deloitte report into last year’s disastrous cyber attack.

The Federal Court last week rejected Optus’s claim of privilege over the Deloitte report into the catastrophic data breach. The claim was made as part of Optus’s defence against a class action by affected customers (represented by law firm Slater and Gordon) following the attack.

Bayer Rosmarin, in her swan song as boss last Friday, told a Senate hearing that the Deloitte report into the September 2022 hack was a “forensic” investigation into Optus’s “cyber defences” and was “highly sensitive”.

Optus interim CEO Michael Venter.

“It’s contents are so sensitive it could expose us to national security concerns,” she said, adding that the company was considering an appeal against the Federal Court decision by judge Jonathan Beach.

That’s a call that will be now made by Venter, who before he joined Optus as CFO in March 2021 had no telco experience. His decision-making will be supported by Peter Kaliaropoulos, who is joining in the new role of chief operating officer. The mew recruit has been out of the mainstream for some years in favour of private consulting.

With no news of any appeal yet, over the past two days Beach has moved forward with his management of the case, setting the timeline for Optus to release the contents of the Deloitte ­report.

Peter Kaliaropoulos is Optus’ new chief operating officer.

Beach has ordered Optus to liaise with the Australian Federal Police and Australian Information Commissioner over what material will be revealed. If those authorities have an issue with any material being made public, they must let the court know by November 28.

Optus must also by November 28 negotiate a “confidentiality regime” and “information security arrangements” with the lawyers for the class action.

If Optus doesn’t appeal Beach’s order to disclose the Deloitte report, by this Friday it will have two more weeks to hand over the bombshell material to the other side.

For Venter all that means he has no choice but to hit the ground running.

Hot mic moment

When you are a man as self-important as Andrew Forrest – said, following his split with wife Nicola, to be worth something like $13.5bn – the process of shareholder democracy is such a punishment.

“Twiggy” held the annual general meeting of his ASX-listed Fortescue in Crown Perth’s Astral Ballroom on Tuesday. It turned out to be a two-hour affair that the mining magnate would have preferred was much shorter and more efficiently run.

We know this thanks to Twiggy’s very own golden moment at the end of the meeting, when the executive chair thought his mic was switched off, but instead was still “hot” for all to hear.

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Andrew Forrest addresses the Fortescue AGM on Tuesday. Picture: SoCo Studios

Team, we’ve got to do something about this AGM,” the billionaire boss lamented.

“The welcome to country was way too long, the speeches were too long, everything was too long, there’s got to be something we can do.”

So Twiggy wants less time with his shareholders, not more.

One idea might be to self-edit.

For the record, of the 120-minute event, Forrest took up 24 minutes with his main address to the meeting, then another four to five minutes speaking on the subject of his re-election.

Back of the envelope tells us that’s about a quarter of proceedings taken up by Twiggy himself, and the businessman went on to also be rather combative at the press conference after the event.

Faction friction

Former political adviser and Business Council of Australia boss Bran Black must seem to NSW Liberal political power couple Stuart Ayres and Marise Payne as the pesky fly they can’t manage to swat away.

Earlier this year Black, a chief of staff to former premier Dominic Perrottet, outmanoeuvred Ayres, a former NSW sports minister, to be named BCA boss, taking over from Jennifer Westacott.

Ayres had been a short-listed candidate for the high-profile gig, which he was quite keen on. Since then he’s still not found a post-politics role, although he has hung out the shingle for his own consultancy Galleywood Advisory, of which he is sole director, secretary and shareholder.

Now the party in NSW is seeking a new candidate to fill the Senate spot vacated by Payne at the end of September, which again sees her partner Ayres and Black in rival camps.

Payne and Ayres are long-time friends of former NSW minister Andrew Constance, who left state politics for a failed run at the federal lower house seat of Gilmore and is now a front runner for the vacant senate slot.

About 700 Liberal Party members will decide the race, which has something like 10 candidates, on Sunday.

Stuart Ayres, Marise Payne and Gladys Berejiklian share a selfie. Picture: Instagram

Black is sticking his two cents worth in to back his ambitious old colleague Monica Tudehope, who has put her hand up and is running an elaborate campaign for the coveted upper house slot. Tudehope is a former deputy chief of staff to Perrottet, who has endorsed her, with Black also providing a glowing report via a written reference to preselectors.

Tudehope is the daughter of former NSW finance minister Damien Tudehope (he has nine children), who served in both Gladys Berejiklian and Perrottet ministries.

Ayres will be hoping his man Constance prevails at the weekend.

It’s an all-star cast on the ballot, with former ACT senator Zed Seselja also throwing his hat in the ring and indicating he’d move to NSW if he won, as well as former member for Wentworth Dave Sharma.

Former NSW RSL president James Brown is also running. He is the former son-in-law of Malcolm Turnbull, having been married to his schoolteacher daughter Daisy. Small world.