Watch out: the mail on management is that our top postie won’t waste a crisis

Illustration: Rod Clement

With Christine Holgate out of the picture for the next four weeks, Australia Post CFO Rodney Boys is taking the driver’s seat, and our advice is to buckle up.

Boys is relatively green at the national postal service and is set to take on the head honcho duties on top of his CFO workload, which is seemingly already a lot to bear if his evidence this week before the Senate estimates hearing is anything to go by.

Questioned by Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching on the purchase of the watches at the centre of the controversy, Boys couldn’t recall the credit card used, nor where the expenses landed in the Post accounts.

Still, Margin Call hears the former long-serving Wesfarmers exec, who was part of the Perth conglomerate’s failed foray into the British hardware market, doesn’t mind a crisis — of any sort.

At the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, before evidence of the e-commerce boom had emerged, it was Boys who was said to have told staff “don’t waste a good crisis”, using the downturn as a means to cut costs and clean up the organisation with a round of redundancies.

Of course, once the hints of profit and surging demand for Post’s services become evident, those plans were put on ice.

We wonder whether what on Friday evolved to be the $19,950 Cartier watchgate will inspire the same response.

Boys missed out on the watch reward in question, and takes home less than half of Holgate’s bumper salary of $767,000 a year.

His elevation to acting chief comes at the expense of both Nicole Sheffield and watch recipient Gary Starr — both said to be Holgate’s nominated successors — though all are relatively fresh faces after the executive exodus to Ahmed Fahour’s Latitude after his exit in 2017.

Fahour took with him Greg Sutherland, the former business development exec at Post and another of the notorious quad to be gifted a Cartier watch, along with Chris Blake, now Fahour’s corporate services head, and chief operating officer Andrew Walduck.

Word is Fahour and Holgate haven’t spoken since she was announced as his successor, but with both coming under public scrutiny perhaps they finally have something to bond over.

No time to waste

Australia Post chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo may have had the final word on Holgate’s $110,000 enforced break, but with a four-week investigation on foot, there’s sure to be plenty more government intervention.

Terms of reference for the joint finance and communications department investigation will be carved out over the weekend, set for release early next week, but they will no doubt be thorough in their probe of management and the board, including former chair John Stanhope, given the PM Scott Morrison’s blasting of Cartier watchgate at Question Time.

Still, while pollies review the incident, their hands are tied on Holgate’s hefty pay packet — there’s no choice but to dole out $27,000 a week to the Mosman local, with all parties involved not wanting to trigger any legal action on her part.

John Stanhope. Photographer: Adam Yip

With her plum salary, combined with husband Michael Harding’s fees as a director of Downer, Horizon Oil and Cleanaway, it is any wonder she was brandishing her own $48,000 Bvlgari watch at a Senate hearing.

The lavish timepiece, the other watch in the centre of the scandal, is said to be a gift from Harding, whose generosity made headlines last year when he gifted his wife vanity POSTY1 number plates on an electric blue Range Rover.

Regardless, the issue of pay and any potential replacement will be another consideration for Communications Minister Paul Fletcher — in what has arguably been the biggest month since he joined the parliament.

Holgate’s investigation adds to his headache over the Western Sydney Airport land sale debacle, which was part of his former urban infrastructure ministry.

Double trouble

The corporate watchdog’s No 1 and 2 James Shipton and Daniel Crennan getting done for expense-gate. Head postie Christine Holgate tossing Cartier luxury timepieces to her execs on the taxpayer dime.

Two of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s most senior public servants have stood aside in two days amid scandals underpinned by questionable judgment.

On Friday ASIC dropped the bombshell that Shipton, the lawyer turned Goldman Sachs banker who returned to Oz from the US to chair ASIC at the start of 2018, had overspent on his relocation expenses, including almost $120,000 on KPMG tax services.

The firm gave Shipton tax advice on personal investments, how to optimise the Australian taxation of foreign exchange gains or losses in foreign bank accounts, as well as helping the ASIC chief “in respect of resolution of Massachusetts state tax notices and penalties due to late filing of 2017 Massachusetts state tax return”.

We think that means KPMG helped the corporate cop minimise his tax and deal with an overdue tax return.

Like Shipton, deputy chair Crennan has been benched pending an inquiry for spending too much on his shift from Melbourne to head office in Sydney.

Former finance minister Kelly O’Dwyer’s appointment of Shipton had seemed a triumph.

Melbourne University graduate Shipton’s late father Roger was a former Victorian Liberal politician and the new chair was already plugged into the Australian business community.

As a university student Shipton had shared accommodation with now leading private equiteers Ben Gray and Robin Bishop, former head of Credit Suisse in Oz John Knox and now Goldman Sachs Australia chair Christian Johnston.

Chair of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) James Shipton. Picture: AAP

Even better, the Libs were seeing off outgoing Labor-appointed chair Greg Medcraft, with then treasurer ScoMo hailing Shipton as the new “tough cop on the beat”.

Shipton is paid $885,000-a-year for the job of keeping corporate Australia honest. That’s more than $17,000 a week while a full investigation is undertaken into the affair. Crennan gets $675,000 a year, or about $13,000 a week.

Vantage point

The best of the Sunshine State’s business elite is set to descend on the Gabba on Saturday, with one notable exception.

Margin Call hears billionaire politician Clive Palmer and his wife and new Queensland election running mate Anna will be watching the action from his superyacht, the Nancy Jean — named after his late mother — along the waterways of the Gold Coast.

Not a bad vantage point if you can get it. The yacht, on which Palmer splurged $8.4m earlier this year, boasts three decks containing multiple areas for entertaining guests, including lounges and bars, five cabins and a jacuzzi.

After a repaint and refurbishment from the ship’s former life as Vegas in the hands of Melbourne property developer and NBL owner Larry Kestelman, it’s a prime venue for a party of sorts, but the Palmers are said to be keeping things more low key.

The guest list this time is reserved for a close group of 20 family and crew members — the expansive Sunseeker allowing all to keep socially distant.

Clive Palmer. Picture: Shae Beplate.

With just a week till Queenslanders take to the polls, perhaps the Palmers are opting to keep a low profile, not that the patriarch could keep out of the headlines for his claims to have made up the lyrics to a political jingle coincidentally the same as those used by the Twisted Sisters in 1984.

Still, back in Brisvegas, suites at the Gabba have been a sellout with Bank of Queensland boss George Frazis among the corporates hosting for the evening — not the bank’s usual practice but a means to support the state nonetheless.

Corporate Travel head Jamie Pherous has also taken up a suite, to entertain mates rather than schmooze the business types, while businessman Eddy Groves, of ABC Learning notoriety, is expected to host as well.

That’s on top of AFL boss Gillon McLaughlin’s hospitality — albeit without the presence of chair Richard Goyder who will be watching intently while donning his tuxedo for the Perth Telethon — though no doubt the party will include Brisbane Lions chairman and PwC partner Andrew Wellington.