By Jordan Baker and Patrick Hatch
As the industrial dispute between teachers and the NSW government becomes increasingly bitter, CBD can reveal NSW Teachers Federation president Angelo Gavrielatos, a major power player in education politics at state and federal level for two decades, will not be re-nominating for the top job in the union’s election beginning this month.
He is the last of the old guard, having cut his teeth during intense industrial battles with the Greiner government and sharpened his strategic toolbox during messy salary disputes in the 1990s and the Gonski negotiations of the early 2010s. Few can run an industrial campaign like Gavrielatos.
A deal with the government over teacher pay would have been his parting gift. And the federation understood a deal was locked in, right down to a plan for Education Minister Prue Car to ink it in front of members on the final day of the federation’s annual conference early last month.
But the government says negotiations broke down. The federation says negotiations had finished, and the government walked away from a done deal. The issue is causing a whole set of problems for the government; neither Car nor Treasurer Daniel Mookhey initially disclosed a May 31 meeting with Gavrielatos where the pay deal was ostensibly agreed. Both have corrected the record since, claiming it was an oversight.
Teachers campaigned at more than 230 booths for a change of government at the March election. But there’s no fury like that of an unhappy workforce that feels like it’s been betrayed by its own.
Gavrielatos is warning of the “unleashing of political action” unless teachers get the pay they want. But soon, he won’t be there to orchestrate it. Gavrielatos has anointed deputy president Henry Rajendra as his replacement, and Amber Flohm and Natasha Watt as deputy and senior vice president, but there will be others throwing their hat in the ring, too. The ballot opens on August 16 and closes on September 20.
PwC’s risky business
Australia hasn’t witnessed a corporate bin fire like the one that’s engulfed big-four consulting firm PwC this year since James Packer’s Crown Resorts self-combusted in a blaze of greed, hubris and illegality.
So CBD found it curious to see the PwC partner in charge of “Reputation, Regulation and Risk” at the time it was engaging in highly risky and reputation-trashing behaviour snag a new role at – where else? – Crown.
There’s been no public announcement but corporate documents show Mary Waldron was appointed on June 29 as a director at Crown Melbourne Limited, the entity chaired by former AustralianSuper boss Ian Silk which (only just) holds its Melbourne casino licence.
Waldron worked at PwC Australia under former boss Luke Sayers (who also left before the tax scandal unfolded), as managing partner for the three-Rs from 2012 to 2016 and then as PwC’s global chief risk officer from 2016 until she left in 2021.
PwC has been in crisis mode since January when it emerged that, between 2014 and 2017, its tax partner Peter Collins and up to 30 others were leaking secret information to US tech giants like Uber and Facebook to help them dodge Australia’s new multinational tax avoidance laws.
There is no suggestion Waldron was involved in or knew about any of the wrongdoing.
But she did field questions from the Victorian Gambling and Casino Control Commission. The regulator said it “sought further information from Ms Waldron about her employment at PwC and any involvement in the matter” when considering her appointment and was “satisfied that, based on the information it had available to it at that time, Ms Waldron was a suitable person to be associated with the casino”.
Crown has endured its own years of turmoil since this masthead revealed in 2019 its dealings with organised crime syndicates and money launderers, prompting three public inquiries that ruled it unfit to hold its Melbourne, Sydney and Perth casino licences.
A Crown spokesperson said Waldron, like all of its directors, would “undergo extensive due diligence” and the group was “confident we have the right skills” to lead its reformation.
AFR journalist not guilty of cruelty
The Australian Financial Review journalist Aaron Patrick has been found not guilty of kicking a dog almost two years ago.
Patrick was charged in November 2021 with committing an act of cruelty upon an animal – a Staffordshire Terrier – after police said they responded to reports he had kicked the animal outside a hotel on Oxford Street in Darlinghurst.
Aaron Patrick outside Downing Centre on Monday. Credit: Nick Moir
Police said Patrick – the AFR’s senior correspondent, and the author of three books on Australian politics – was chased into a nearby business by two men, where he was detained.
On Monday, Patrick was found not guilty after a hearing at Downing Centre, and the charges were dismissed.
Patrick told CBD: “Almost two years ago I was attacked without provocation on Oxford Street. I call on the NSW police to charge those who attacked me.”
Australians headline centre-right ‘Olympics’
The Alliance for Responsible Citizenship is a new international conservative Coalition, which aims to create a united front in the battle against so-called progressivism. It’s the brainchild of famous – or infamous? – provocateur and psychologist Jordan Peterson.
Its upcoming conference in London is, as one enthusiast described it, billed among acolytes as the Olympics of centre-right thought.
John Howard.Credit: Illustration: John Shakespeare.
So there was much excitement among its Australian fan base when the “initial speaker slate” was announced and early 2000s power couple John Howard, the former Liberal prime minister, and John Anderson, his Nationals deputy, were on the list.
Anderson is described as the host of “Australia’s pre-eminent politico-cultural video podcast”, and Howard as the architect of the country’s reform in tax, welfare and privatisation.
There’s no sign yet of Australia’s chief conservative agitator Tony Abbott on the speakers’ list, although he is one of six Australian members, which also include Andrew Hastie, the Coalition’s defence spokesman.
Attendance at the conference is by invitation only and the audience will hear from climate sceptic Bjorn Lomborg, colonialism defender Niall Ferguson, and Tory peer Baroness Philippa Stroud.