Telco's and Singapore execution policy, McGauchie, Ron Walker, Tattersalls, happy 106th birthday

2. Telstra, Optus and Singapore's execution policy



By Stephen Mayne

The Singapore Government clearly controls Optus, yet their customer service representatives appear to have been told to distance the company from the growing Australian outrage over the scheduled hanging of Van Nguyen at dawn on December 2.

A Crikey subscriber emailed the Optus support desk inquiring about the connection, and received the following reply:

Dear Russ,

Thank you for your email.

Optus appreciates that the case of Van Nguyen is a sensitive community issue and a difficult time for all involved in the case.

Optus however has no comment regarding the issue of Van Nguyen.

Optus has and is of no relationship to the Singapore government.

Kind Regards, Ben,
OptusNet Support Specialist

This is a straight deception. The Singapore Government owns 63% of Singtel, which owns 100% of Optus. The Singapore Government can't have it both ways. If they're going to hang a small-time Australian drug trafficker with no priors, their $20 billion-plus exposure to the Australian economy will suffer, especially with mass-market brands like Optus.

While the government is probably right not to impose trade sanctions, it's a little bit disappointing that they haven't gently encouraged a consumer boycott to crank up the pressure.

John Howard could very easily say: "Look, we're not going to start imposing tariffs on goods imported from Singapore but if individual Australians want to switch their telephone business from Optus to Telstra as a protest then that is a matter for them."

Given that Sol Trujillo and Donald McGauchie are portraying themselves as take-no-prisoners operators, it is surprising Telstra haven't launched a big television advertising campaign. Imagine a script like this:

The Singapore Government owns 63% of Optus
The Singapore Government is about to barbarically hang an Australian citizen
Call 1800 SAVE VAN NGUYEN to dump Optus now and send a strong message to the Singapore Government
Telstra: the Australian owned and controlled carrier which doesn't execute Australian citizens.

Sure it would be controversial, but it would also be very effective and in the interests of Telstra shareholders. Dollars seems to be the only language that the Singapore Government understands, so it's time to start hitting them where it hurts most – in the Sing Inc balance sheet.





4. All eyes on Coonan over McGauchie hatchet job



By Stephen Mayne

It didn't take long for Peter Costello to put out this press release yesterday hosing down this yarn by The Age's Jason Koutsoukis about Donald McGauchie not getting a second five year term on the Reserve Bank board because of his anti-government behaviour as Telstra chairman. The two paragraph statement read as follows:

Donald McGauchie is a valued member of the RBA Board. His value to that Board stands on the strength of his contribution to that Board and is not assessed by reason of other directorships.

The Treasurer has not made any comment about the Directors of Telstra in recent times. He has made comment on the management's attempt to change regulatory policy which is properly the province of Government (refer to transcripts of 17 November ABC interview and 18 November doorstop, available on the website).

Then there was this doorstop press conference in Perth which included the following on McGauchie when asked if he'd been bullying the government:

No. Can I say Mr McGauchie is a member of the Reserve Bank board, he has made a very valuable contribution to the Reserve Bank, his contribution to the Reserve Bank is measured on that position, it is not measured by reference to any other directorships that he holds and we keep these issues quite separate. When his performance as an RBA board member is assessed it is on the basis of what he does in the boardroom at the RBA not what he does as a director of other corporations and I want to make that absolutely clear. Having said that, I have previously said and I will say again, that over the course of this year there will be a lot of Australian mums and dads who have invested in Telstra who will be quite concerned about what has happened to their savings and they are looking to the management of Telstra to look after their savings. And I would urge the management of Telstra to work at increasing value and looking after the company, not work at the regulatory regime or of the governmental rules which will govern competition. The Government will set those rules, Telstra is obliged to compete under those rules with other telecommunications companies and a focus on shareholder wealth rather than lobbying over the regulatory regime may in fact be more successful.

The Age was sticking by its story today, although Stephen Bartholomeusz got it right this morning in pointing out that the incompetent and anonymous attacks all but ensure McGauchie will get a second term on the Reserve Bank board, if he can bothered turning up for just $50,000 a year.

Rather than McGauchie's reputation being destroyed in the business community, the "senior Minister" quoted in The Age must be feeling pretty sheepish today. All eyes have been cast in the direction of Communications Minister Helen Coonan, although her office is denying any involvement and The AFR's John Durie bought the Costello line this morning that it was just some junior idiot staffer mouthing off.

The appearance of this item in The AFR's Rear Window column on 19 September has certainly poisoned relations between Telstra and the Government and shows Coonan has some form when it comes to recklessly sounding off:

Coonan alters amigos to egos

Telstra boss Sol Trujillo may be tired of hearing his American mates referred to as the "three amigos," but it's unlikely the new name going around Canberra will please him any better.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan, celebrating at a Kingston restaurant after the Senate passed the Telstra legislation on Wednesday, was asked by Liberal senator Michael Ronaldson to make a speech.

A former barrister, Coonan couldn't resist calling the Telstra trio (led by Phil Burgess, who'd struggle to find a friend in parliament) the three egos.





25. Ron Walker is far too busy for the Reserve Bank



By Stephen Mayne

Ron Walker's great mate James Packer quoted the Australian Shareholders' Association guidelines when defending his position on four public company boards at the Seek AGM in Melbourne a couple of weeks back. The only problem was that this maximum of four applies to professional non-executive directors, not a full-time executive chairman, which James is at PBL.

As James prepares for eight straight days in the witness box in the One-Tel case next week, it will become pretty clear that the lad has been way too busy for many years and was unable to keep across all of the detail about One-Tel, despite the large flow of information to him and his PBL executives leading up to the collapse of the business.

The same can be said for Ron Walker. Will there be a busier Australian in the coming seven months? As the new hands-on chairman of John Fairfax at a time when it faces key strategic issues and possible merger negotiations, Walker should be clearing the decks to spend as much as half his time getting up to speed on what is a huge brief.

But how on earth will he find the time when he is chairman of Melbourne 2006 and next March will be ultimately responsible for the biggest event in Melbourne since the 1956 Olympics?

In listing Walker's commitments yesterday, I forgot to mention that he is also a Commissioner of the Football Federation of Australia, something he was gloating about at the Fairfax AGM last Friday. Crikey hears that Big Ron has only ever turned up to a couple of FFA board meetings since he joined, although he is big on ringing in, which gets him a tick in the attendance book when it comes to the annual report.

Then you have Ron's commitment as chairman of the Australian Grand Prix Corporation, a body which continually delivers bigger taxpayer funded losses than it promises and only managed to produce its annual report for 2004-05 last week, just as Australia was playing Uruguay. A record $13.6 million loss is nothing for Walker to be proud of and The Age's Alan Attwood produced this strong attack on the Grand Prix on Saturday.

If you added a forthcoming position on the Reserve Bank board to all of this, Ron would be ridiculously over-committed. For instance, check out the 2004-05 Primelife annual report here and you'll note that Ron only managed to attend ten of the 15 board meetings in 2004-05. A deputy chairman should do better, even if it's only over the phone. Hopefully a shareholder will raise Ron's attendance record with him at next Monday's Primelife AGM in Sydney – if he has the time to attend.

Then there's his post on the Buka Minerals boards, where he managed to attend 7 of the 8 board meetings last year. All up, Ron is chairman of three institutions and on three other boards. Surely the government can't add the Reserve Bank to this workload, especially given the political sensitivities.





26. Vertigan and Playoust storm the Tattersall's citadel



By Stephen Mayne, small but disorganised Tattersall's shareholder

An unprecedented palace coup took place at the Tattersall's annual meeting yesterday, but pathetically disorganised yours truly got his times wrong and turned up just as the meeting had finished.

This meant the meeting was quieter than expected with no tough questions for the two successful challengers, former Victorian Treasury Secretary Mike Vertigan and pony-tailed Sydney lawyer and businessman Julien Playoust, who also happens to own about $100 million worth of Tattersall's shares.

PR man Peter Kerr bowed out gracefully after 15 years as a trustee, but we still don't know the size of the defeat he was facing because he fell on his sword on Sunday night. Chairman David Jones, the last greedy trustee standing, was generous in his praise for Kerr, which was not surprising given that Kerr's old man, the late PR kingmaker Laurie Kerr, helped Jones climb the Melbourne establishment.

Four current and former directors suing your own shareholders for $100 million is not a good look and this explained why the challengers had such an emphatic and unprecedented victory yesterday. Check out the Tattersall's ASX announcement here, but the figures are worth examining in detail.

Vertigan received 330.14 million proxies in favour and only 49.85 million against whilst Playoust got 303.75 million in favour and 67.12 million against. New institutional shareholders and old beneficiaries alike have embraced the new broom and dumped the greedy trustee, whose campaign suffered from his lack of credible other board seats around town and an unnecessary attack on Vertigan's credentials. In PR terms, it was a loss for Mike Smith, who used to work with Kerr at IPR, and a big win for Gavin Anderson which acted for the outsiders.

The final votes after the poll saw Vertigan's support rise from 86.88% to 87.47% whilst Playoust's rose from 81.9% to 83.4%. It appears that chairman David Jones did not want to poison the waters with his new directors by voting the open proxies against them, despite saying he would do this in the election literature.

The newcomers refused to be drawn on their plans for Tattersall's but David Jones must be feeling under intense pressure given that Playoust and other old beneficiaries have only offered $8 million to settle the $100 million claim by the former trustees and have launched a blistering attack in the Victorian Supreme Court.

If Jones loses his Tatt's gig, then he might also find it difficult to hang on to his post as chairman of the Melbourne Cricket Club committee. The poor lad has now failed to repel advances at his two most prestigious positions after junior MCC member Will Fowles pulled off a palace coup by getting elected when Steve Vizard bowed out a few months back.

Given his strong Liberal Party connections, Jones is probably not the best person to chair Tattersall's going forward given the importance of dealing with the Bracks government over two expiring gambling licences.

Vertigan is widely respected as the best ever Secretary of the Victorian Treasury and given that the licence negotiations will heavily involve Treasury, it would make sense to have Vertigan leading the charge.





29. Happy 106th to Crikey's grandfather



By Stephen Mayne

Those of you who read Crikey in the early days will remember this piece from the world's oldest columnist, Crikey's then 100-year-old grandpa Philip Mayne, reflecting back on what it was like to live through all of the 20th century. Well, today grandpa turns 106 and he's looking forward to receiving his third letter from the Queen.

"You get a letter from the Queen when you turn 100, then another when you turn 105 and I understand I'll get one every year from now on," grandpa explained during a typically coherent and upbeat 15 minute telephone call to the northern England town of Richmond last night.

And the man who has three children, eight grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren had some big news last night: "It appears that I am the only officer left alive who was in the British Army in World War One," grandpa said.

A British historian who has spent two years researching the subject believes there are now only 10 British Great War survivors in service, but the other nine were all privates.

Grandpa joined the Royal Engineers officer cadet program when he turned 18 in November 1917 and while he didn't see any action in France, he did work on bridge building and the like. He was made an officer before his 19th birthday and was then demobbed on Christmas Eve 1918 before taking up a scholarship at Cambridge University's famous King's College in January 1919.

It seems extreme old age brings with it greater attention with every passing year. Check out this interview with grandpa on page seven of the King's College Spring 2005 newsletter, celebrating the oldest living Kingsman.

Grandpa's collected works in Crikey were turned into a little book for his 105th birhday and you can read some of them here:

How I saw all of the 20th century
Further thoughts on the 20th century
World's oldest columnist is back
Crikey's grandfather on the day President Kennedy was shot

But despite such gentle lobbying, there isn't much prospect of another contribution: "The trouble is that your memory goes to pot," grandpa explained. "It wasn't so bad when I was 100, but when you get to 106 it gets a bit difficult. I think I'm a bit past that sort of thing."

Happy birthday grandpa. To have lived from November 22, 1899, to the present is a truly remarkable effort.

Copyright © 2022 The Mayne Report. All rights reserved

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