Latham, Cossie's budget, The Australian, Grand Final, Gunns, escaped CEO's

1. Australians believe Latham shouldn't have done the dirty



By Stephen Mayne

Roy Morgan Research has conducted this exclusive poll for Crikey on the question of whether Australians believe Mark Latham should have published his explosive diaries and what damage they will cause. The Australia-wide poll of 607 people over the past two days throws up some very interesting results, which might give some comfort to the ALP and Latham's various victims.

Despite the strong argument that the public benefits from knowing all this remarkably inside information about the ALP and the media, the question "should Latham have done it?" produced the following results:

Yes: 40%
No: 49%
Don't Know: 11%

But having done the deed, the public believes it will certainly damage both Labor and Kim Beazley, with the party suffering slightly more:

Will The Latham Diaries damage the ALP?

Yes: 53%
No: 36%
Don't know: 11%

Will The Latham Diaries damage Kim Beazley?

Yes: 48%
No: 36%
Don't know: 16%

Interesting!



2. Churlish newspaper duopoly ignore first post-Latham poll



By Stephen Mayne

We all know that John Fairfax and News Ltd are getting together to try and build their own research house in a futile attempt to put Gary Morgan's independent Roy Morgan Research operation out of business. Why advertisers would ignore independent readership figures and instead rely on "statistics" from a couple of duopolists known for rorting their circulation figures is hard to comprehend.

But the churlishness of the duopolists was on full display today when Morgan released the first major political poll since the furore over The Latham Diaries.

We've been saying from the start that Crikey is the only media outlet able to properly cover this explosive book, but never did we think our exclusives would extend to a dramatic Morgan poll which is now 24 hours old.

While Labor's support was rising amid all the Telstra controversy, the Morgan Poll, taken last weekend, shows it has collapsed in a week as follows:

ALP primary vote down 7% To 34.5%
LNP primary vote up 4.5% To 44%
2PP L-NP vote At 52.5%

That's a dramatic 11.5% turnaround in the respective primary votes of the major parties – and surely that's news. But there wasn't a peep anywhere, perhaps because it doesn't suit the political commentariat who are mostly saying The Latham Diaries won't have much impact. Let's see what Newspoll shows next Tuesday.

Crikey mentioned the dramatic Morgan Poll during Richard Glover's "journo's panel" with Ross Gittins and Jennifer Byrne yesterday afternoon on 702 ABC Sydney to demonstrate the point about the impact Latham is already having. After hearing my prediction that The Latham Diaries would have a profound effect on Labor that would cruel Kim Beazley's prospects of becoming PM, Gittins declared this was garbage and Latham's "500 pages of gossip" would last two weeks.

Interestingly, Jennifer Byrne, who is married to Andrew Denton, said she'd also read the whole book and was on my side, predicting the impact would be still being felt in five years time – another Packerite who disagrees with cranky Laurie Oakes.

But it remains to be seen if the stunned and bruised media establishment is capable of tracking this impact. Incredibly, The Age carried this opinion piece by former Labor senator John Black today, which quoted Murdoch's now dated Newspoll showing Labor in front. Talk about being behind the pace.

Gary Morgan was quoted as follows in his release that The Age had at 2pm yesterday: "The Coalition have benefited greatly from the publicity surrounding the release of the Latham Diaries, with a 4.5% increase in primary support to 44%. For the Labor Party, the timing of the release of Mark Latham's Diaries could not have been worse. The criticisms of the Labor Party and Opposition Leader Kim Beazley have reversed the political advantage the ALP gained from the Government's failure to disclose what it knew about the Telstra profit warning."

Check out the full release here.



4. The crudest thing in The Latham Diaries



By Stephen Mayne

If you thought "quality box for Ross" was the crudest thing in the The Latham Diaries, think again. This anecdote on page 113 is surely the most extraordinary comment that any politician has ever retailed publicly. No other outlet has been game to go near it so far, so if Iron Mark thinks we're a "sh*t sheet" we'd better pass it on to the Crikey army:

Tuesday, 31 August, 1999

But they are not all bad. Give me Senator Rosemary Crowley any day of the week. What a trooper. She told me a story about the American writer Dorothy Parker, who was asked to use the word 'horticulture' in a sentence, and replied: 'You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think'. Years ago, Joel's dad and predecessor in Hunter, Eric Fitzgibbon, told me the story of Rose visiting a colleague's electorate and getting into a discussion with some of the locals about their cars. She floored them by pointing out, 'Listen, you blokes, I have had more rubber up my c*nt than you've got on those tyres'. Rose for PM.

Poor Rosemary Crowley. There are many other anecdotes which fall more into the humour rather than shock crudity category. This one about Craig Knowles's dad Stan on pages 131-2 is a beauty:

Tuesday, 6 April 2000

John Kerin, p*ssed and bitter, gives me a good old bagging while sitting next to Joel at the farewell dinner for Gary Gray at the National Press Club.

But, as Joel reminds me, he's not all p*ss and wind. He also has a biting wit. I still credit Kerin with the best line I have heard in politics. In the late 1980s, Stan Knowles, a State Labor MP in our area, was caught stealing three drill bits from the Casula K-Mart. Stan has still got his first dollar, so it was not that surprising. Politically, however, it was scandalous: he had to leave Parliament (handing over to his son Craig) and was then convicted of theft. When he heard about it, Kerin said, 'Well, we shouldn't be too hard on Stan, at least it shows he's not a two-bit thief'.

Boom, boom. Give the man a little bit of credit. There are laughs aplenty amidst all the vitriol and commentary.



7. Cossie's budget surplus tricks...



By Stephen Mayne

It's AFL grand final eve so stand by for an avalanche of bad news as various cynical media players "take a dump" in the hope that no-one will notice amid footy fever.

Leading the charge is keen Essendon fan Peter Costello who has just dropped the final budget outcome for 2004-05. It's an embarrassment of riches, with the underlying cash surplus coming in at a record $13.6 billion, a whopping $4.4 billion ahead of the forecast just four months ago in the May budget. Who said there's no scope for large scale petrol tax relief?

Check out sheepish Cossie's press release here. The lad locks up hundreds of people for many hours when predicting what will happen, but when it comes to releasing the result, we get four paragraphs half way through the Grand Final Parade, no press conferences and not even a boasting quote from Mr Money Bags. The cash bonanza is explained thus:

The Australian Government general government sector recorded an underlying cash surplus of $13.6 billion (1.6 per cent of GDP) in 2004-05.

The surplus is $4.4 billion higher than expected at the time of the 2005-06 Budget principally because total cash payments were around $3.5 billion (1.8 per cent) lower than expected. This is due mainly to a lower than expected take up of grant and subsidy payments across a range of programmes ($1.3 billion). Also contributing to the underspends were delays in contract negotiations and delivery of goods and services ($0.5 billion), lower wages and salary payments ($0.5 billion), and the rejection by the Tasmanian and South Australian governments of an offer to extinguish state rail superannuation liabilities ($0.4 billion).

Total cash receipts were around $0.9 billion (0.4 per cent) higher than estimated at the 2005-06 Budget. This was predominately due to higher than expected company tax receipts, reflecting stronger company profits flowing from very high commodity prices.

An accrual fiscal surplus of $10.8 billion was recorded for 2004-05. This is $3.8 billion higher than estimated at the time of the 2005 06 Budget.

General government net debt fell by $11.9 billion in 2004-05 to $11.5 billion (1.3 per cent of GDP), the lowest level in 28 years.

It sounds like a failure to fulfil promises and deliver services on a range of fronts, plus the China boom delivering another windfall in company tax. However, how on earth did the government over-estimate salaries by $500 million. Don't they know what their industrial agreements say? Clearly the public sector unions should have pushed for bigger pay rises.

The boffin can go through all the detail of how Treasury explains away the cash deluge here. We shouldn't really be surprised because Cossie and his Treasury have been serially pessimistic over the past decade to the tune of more than $25 billion.

Next time we all gather for the budget, perhaps the media should just increase all the figures by the average over-run from the past few years. This sort of form would not be tolerated on the ASX where companies are required to make accurate assessments, not deliberately pessimistic forecasts that are massaged for political purposes.

The biggest spending government in Australian history is showing no signs of changing its spots.




13. The Australian's brave campaign against the judiciary



By Stephen Mayne

Yesterday we bagged the blatant Murdoch propaganda of The Australian's Media section, yet today we only have bouquets for the paper's brave campaigning on Australia's judicial system.

The saga began last summer when the paper ran a series of stories highlighting how the NSW court system shut down for six weeks over the silly season. NSW Attorney General Bob Debus made a detailed complaint to the Australian Press Council, even though The Australian was at some levels just looking at the efficiency of our courts and whether taxpayers were getting value for money from the judicial system. It was a rare and brave exercise because judges are often considered above media scrutiny.

The Press Council has largely backed the paper, but given them a couple of slaps with their damp lettuce leaf along the way. Check out what The Australian carried of the Press Council's adjudication here. The full version is here.

The Debus complaint was a real omnibus effort that spanned everything from claiming The Australian was unfairly denigrating the courts to the usual Press Council fodder of accuracy and fairness. The paper went down on three counts as follows:

The Council upholds the Attorney's complaint on three issues: the newspaper did not take sufficient steps to check the accuracy of claims by a quoted criminal lawyer; there was a lack of fairness and balance in its treatment of material arising from a Productivity Commission report; and an article misled readers on the basis on which comparative costs between NSW and Queensland courts were assessed.

However, the media usually gets the last word in these exercises and The Australian has certainly fired some shots back today as you can see here. While welcoming the Press Council's support of judicial scrutiny, the paper also quibbled on the three points it went down over as "at least arguable or minor in the overall scheme of things."

Regardless of the detail, our media should be able to critically scrutinise the judicial system and we should all take succour from the Press Council's support of this principle after The Australian's brave campaign.




25. Full list – the CEOs who got away



By Stephen Mayne

The 7.30 Report had an interesting Emma Alberici story last night about Coles Myer, which picked up on this "Bill Eclairs" story pushed strongly on Crikey last year about the way that Coles Myer lost Mark McInnes and Stephen Goddard, the two executives now towelling them at David Jones.

As retail consultant Ross Honeywell explained again last night, McInnes and Goddard did a great job building Officeworks for Coles Myer, but were then allowed to walk in 1997 by a negligent Coles Myer board.

Sure, it's been quite a long-term turnaround program, but Myer actually lost money in the second half whilst DJs is strongly profitable and going from strength to strength.

The most important job of a board is to manage succession planning and appoint the right CEO. Therefore, it is surprising that no-one has ever before attempted to list the "CEOs who got away," but here goes:

John Alexander: Fairfax foolishly sacked him in 1998 after cost blowouts at The SMH when they really should have sacked their dunderhead CEO Bob Muscat and installed JA in the top job. Instead, he was lost to the Packers and is now running the whole of PBL far more effectively than Fred Hilmer ran Fairfax.

Keith Barton: Missed out on the top job at CSR in 1993 when outgoing CEO Ian Burgess and the board backed the wrong man in Geoff Kels. Barton then defected to James Hardie where he did a good job before clearing out as the asbestos shenanigans really started under Peter Macdonald.

Terry Davis: Should have succeeded Ted Kunkel at Foster's but the board stuffed it and Ted's huge ego got in the way, so Davis took the offer from David Gonski and is now doing an excellent job running Coca Cola Amatil.

Gail Kelly: David Murray was allowed to stay on for way too long at the Commonwealth Bank when Gail Kelly would have been an excellent successor if she hadn't been lost to St George.

Grant King: Was running a large part of AGL's gas business but long-serving plumber-turned CEO Len Bleasel was showing no signs of retiring so he defected to Boral and has built Origin Energy into a power house when he would have been a better choice than Greg Martin as the next CEO of AGL.

Paul Little: Was a senior executive at Mayne Nickless in 1986 when he quit to run a private hospital in Geelong and then participated in the management buyout of the little-known Toll Holdings, which is now a $4.5 billion logistics and transport giant. Meanwhile, Mayne is now totally out of logistics and is only capitalised at $3.5 billion. Little would have saved Mayne from itself.

Mark McInnes: After doing a great job launching Officeworks for Coles Myer, he should have been fast-tracked but instead defected to David Jones and is now causing his old employer enormous problems.

John Mulcahy: Same category as Gail Kelly. Would have been a good successor to David Murray at the CBA but instead is now running Suncorp-Metway.




26. Gunns agrees to run Crikey platform



By Stephen Mayne, candidate for the Gunns board

Mark Latham claims that Gunns executive chairman John Gay "runs Tasmania" and also "runs Lennon," so Crikey is delighted that such a powerful man has tolerated some mild criticism by agreeing to run Crikey's platform uncensored in the notice of meeting for the forthcoming AGM.

This is what company secretary Wayne Chapman confirmed would be distributed to shareholders on the notice of meeting in an email to the first ever outside Gunns board candidate this morning:

Stephen Mayne is an Australian journalist and shareholder advocate who believes Gunns Ltd needs an independent non-executive chairman. Mr Mayne also believes that the executive chairman of Gunns Ltd, Mr John Gay, should be subjected to the three-year election cycle like all the other directors are.

John Gay and Rupert Murdoch were the only Australian executive chairmen who refused to offer themselves for re-election every three years but at least Gay isn't as bad as Rupert, who totally censored my platform at the 2002 News Corp AGM.

The next test for Gunns is whether they do the old "sorry, there's no vacancy" rort and whether they'll provide a full copy of the top 200 beneficial shareholders. So far, so good but we're not holding out breath.



32. Crikey's off to the grand final



By Stephen Mayne

Ratting on the world means that corporate freebies don't often come Crikey's way these days, but in a rare development, Mr and Mrs Crikey are heading to tomorrow's Grand Final courtesy of a major corporate. Sadly, the name can't be disclosed. Yeah, yeah, graft and corruption and all that.

I'll be happy not to run for the board of any of the companies involved – this AGM season at least, but the poor sods have still been copping plenty of mentions in Crikey over recent weeks. Check out this list of the 40 companies that wasted the most amount of money on Crikey before we first did did our Lathamesque dummy spit on the world 1999-2000.

It will be Mrs Crikey's first granny and she's very excited. The only other one I've been to was West Coast's flogging of Geelong in 1994, courtesy of Japanese IT giant NEC. It's quite an early start but if any of the Crikey Army are headed in for the big day, let us know where you'll be to smayne@crikey.com.au.

This reminds me of working on The Daily Telegraph in September, 1998. We were half way through news conference at about 3pm on Grand Final Eve and editor Col Allan suddenly stood up and said: "Right, you can all get f*cked, I'm going to Melbourne for the grand final." And out he walked.

Don't expect Mark Latham to cop any corporate invites to the NRL grand final next week, not that he'd want to make small talk with the suits. But Crikey hears that the lad is going to the Tigers/Dragons semi-final with his old rugby mates on Saturday night. The Liverpool rugger boys think he's a legend and larrikin Mark is apparently just loving getting on the turps with lads and swapping yarns about all the stuff that is not in the book or still to come.

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