Crikey slams removal of conflicted FIRB head

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Via Crikey:

One of the more important public sector appointments is just days from expiry, yet there’s a seeming indifference to who is going to be appointed, or reappointed, to fill it. The appointment of the chair of the Foreign Investment Review Board, Brian Wilson, ends on Easter Saturday. So far, however, there hasn’t even been an ill-informed leak as to whether Wilson will be reappointed or there’ll be a new chair. Wilson’s reappointment would be enjoyable mainly because it would send far-right Murdoch hysteric Terry McCrann into a froth-mouthed fury. But Wilson may have blotted his copybook with the Coalition back in 2014 when he publicly acknowledged that Joe Hockey’s veto of the Graincorp acquisition — one of the earliest signs that the new Abbott government was going to be a dud — was a political decision. Word is that confirmation for the appointment has been caught in Rudd-style limbo in the Prime Minister’s Office, along with a few others. But it’s funny how the PMO always gets the blame for such things, no matter who’s in government …

How can this country get ahead when it’s idiotic media – old and new – would rather enjoy each other’s suffering than they would see appropriate public policy?

As readers will know, McCrann picked up the “hysteria” from the MB campaign to have Brian Wilson removed owing to his appalling conflicts of interest:

Recall at The Australian:

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Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has accepted a role as adviser to the $180 billion private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, potentially putting the former investment banker in conflict when it comes to giving the green light or blocking key foreign investment moves.

The US-listed, Washington-based private equity group, which has completed more than $2bn worth of deals in Australia and more than $20bn worth in Asia, yesterday said Mr Wilson would become a senior adviser to its Asian buyout team.

However, Mr Wilson, who plans to remain in his current role at FIRB, has promised to stand aside from any decision involving Carlyle, the private equity fund that has a string of investments in Australia and through Asia.

…The Sydney-based Mr Wilson will be working with Carlyle’s Asian buyout team looking for new investment opportunities in Australia and the region.

…Scott Morrison said FIRB had “strong procedures in place to manage conflict”.

And myself:

For Mr Wilson to have no conflict he will have to stand aside on every single FIRB decision, given all of them will potentially give Carlyle the inside run on what competitors are doing. And what, is he never going to talk to the staff he oversees? I guess they’re in for a long lunch.

There is another potentially even more grave problem here, too. Because FIRB is the pivot point in Australia’s developing debate around what assets Chinese interests should be allowed to acquire, it gains access to the highest levels of Australian intelligence community assessments by both spy agencies and the Department of Defense. It is totally inappropriate for such “five eyes” output to inform business interests in any way.

This is a bald-faced corruption of Australia’s primary foreign investment entity, a body that will come under intense scrutiny in the years ahead as anti-globalisation pressures mount.

This was one of the few occasions when the media actually pulled the plug on a little corner of the Canberra swamp.

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Until today.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.