Fresh blood includes non-executive directors like State Super’s Carol Austin, Adore Beauty’s Marina Go and Magellan’s Colette Garnsey, who joined other prominent female directors like Aware Super’s Sam Mostyn, CSR’s Penny Winn, and Wesfarmers’ Vanessa Wallace. No word yet on whether recent ASIC proceedings against Star Entertainment’s board has affected the club membership of ex-director Katie Lahey. This is an organisation that prizes capital-G Governance, after all!
These days O’Connell St’s monthly board meetings – by all accounts more strata meeting than strategy session – look a bit less white and male. But the push for more diverse, progressive O’Connell St has gone only so far. The group, after all, still has room for ex-ABC chairman Maurice Newman.
In a piece for The Spectator Australia published, in February, Newman made clear his feelings about the upcoming Voice referendum. He’s opposed, calling the Voice a form of “subsidised apartheid”.
But his piece was actually a personal tirade against ABC presenter Stan Grant. Newman rattled off Grant’s upbringing, university education and rumoured wealth, to use as a contrast against the school truancy, domestic violence and high rates of STIs in Aboriginal communities.
“Rather than celebrate a society which has enabled him and an ever-growing number of indigenous Australians to achieve upward social mobility, self-respect, relative financial independence and improved longevity, Dr Grant seems blinded by a deep-seated sense of resentment,” Newman wrote.
There was no nuance or subtext to Newman’s personal attack. His message to Stan and all prominent indigenous Australians was blunt and clear: “Be grateful we let you into our little club”.
Grant stood down from his ABC’s Q&A post last week, highlighting the racist abuse indigenous journalists receive at the public broadcaster. Aunty’s former chairman has spelled it out in print.
There is plenty of room to disagree on the Voice, which renders much of Australia’s director class distinctly uncomfortable. The Australian Institute of Company Directors nonetheless recently came out in support, telling its members that “boards must decide how to use their position as leaders to strengthen relations between First Nations and non-indigneous people”.
As for O’Connell St Associates, it will not be taking a position. Bradley told this column the group was a “private association” and “‘very broad church’ in that members share a wide range of views on social and political matters”.
But even Voice sceptics would shudder at Newman’s Grant attack, the tenor of which must make for exceedingly awkward hallway gossip around the espresso machine.
And no matter how many female directors its members anoint, with people like Newman on board, O’Connell St’s days of being known as the “Old Farts Club” are far from over.