Christine Holgate not only lost her job but took a severe reputation hit for trying to reward staff for hard work. Her only actual error was buying Cartier watches rather than sending her executive team and partners to a Bledisloe Cup game. She should have known better — we do sports in Australia, not luxury items.
Her $20,000 expenditure for four watches looks trivial compared with the $450,000 retirement scheme the Liberal Party extracts from Australia Post annually. What you say? That’s the equivalent of 90 Cartier watches a year.
The Liberal Party appears to use board positions as a “thank you” for loyal dedication. If you were concerned that government or party officials were poorly paid and not keeping up with the private sector, take some comfort that their post-retirement fun is looked after.
The good old Australia Post with its dedicated posties is not immune to government board stacking. Four of the eight board members are highly linked to the Liberals.
Here’s who they are and what they got:
- Bruce McIver’s board fees in 2020 were $113,464. McIver was president of the Liberal National Party of Queensland from 2008-15
- Tony Nutt earned $111,722 in board fees in 2020. Nutt was principal adviser to former prime minister John Howard and chief of staff to former attorney-general Daryl Williams
- Michael Ronaldson earned $111,722 in board fees in 2020. Ronaldson was a Liberal senator for Victoria from 2004 until 2016 and served in the House of Representatives as the member for Ballarat from 1990 to 2001
- Deidre Willmott earned $113,464 in board fees. Willmott was chief of staff to Liberal Western Australian premiers 1999-01 and 2008-09.
I am not an expert on Holgate-gate, but I know one thing: people in glass houses should not offer up cushy board postings.
To be fair, if the Coalition didn’t have double standards they wouldn’t have any.
Best comment. Thank you.
Sums it up perfectly
On the money.
Nailed it.
This would be a better article if the author mentioned what these board members actually do. I don’t know what board members of big organisations like Australia Post do. Turn up to bi-annual meetings? Regularly receive, commission or write detailed reports into the performance of the organisation? Manage and/or make important decisions? Or basically do nothing? Turn up to prestige events and sound/look important? If there’s a degree of work or responsibility involved then some form of payment seems right. Can you fill us in on this Donald Hellyer?
How about adding the progressing of a secret Boston Consulting Group report to sack thousands of postal workers and privatise the most AP’s most profitable services.Has the fingerprints of old LNP party hacks all over it.
ps why else would the govt stack the board?
Why else indeed. This plot should be sufficient to kick this corrupt mob out of power and straight into the arms of a federal ICAC with big sharp teeth. All the better to gaol them with.
I see what you did there. “Earned” can simply mean “obtained”. While many of us would take earning to mean “worthy of remuneration”, in the dictionary this is curiously a less significant definition. And I think we can safely presume there was no support from these four board members for Christine Holgate after her ambush.
I agree. I have strong doubts that these ex IPA/Liars seat warmers actually earned the 90 Cartier watches they were paid. It’s well past time that they were removed from the public teat and actually earned their seats at various boards. Personally, I’d stick the lot on pre-gears posties push bikes and give them an outback run. Must be well past time they got a bit of physical exercise to work off those watches.
He also forgot Mario D’Orazio who was director channel 7 WA so there anassociation through Kerry Sokes and liberal party.
The whole episode was not really about the watches, they were a convenient novelty, but holgate’s resistance to the privatising of Australia Post which the whole lnp board and Lucio de Bartolomeo agreed with.