by Peter Ralph
‘You still have it, don’t you?’
‘Sure,’ he said, looking uncomfortable.
‘What’s wrong? My God, you haven’t spent the five thousand have you?’
‘Not yet, but I’m going to use it tomorrow to buy some essential items.’
‘Essential items?’
‘Yeah, I have to buy a small hand-held methane detector and a camcorder with a telescopic lense.’ His tone told her he would brook no interference.
‘Have to?’ she snapped. The tension in the tiny room increased. ‘We have to eat, we have to clothe our kids and we have to pay our rates. What’s happened to you? Has being a media personality for a few days gone to your head? You’ve had your fifteen minutes of fame but you have to come back to reality and we need that credit card for food.’
‘It’s not about me. Don’t you understand? If we don’t stop the gas companies, we’ll have nothing, our property value will halve and the bank will foreclose on us and here you are worried because we missed one mortgage payment.’ He sighed. ‘Do you know that they have to comply with 1500 state and federal conditions before they can frack a well? What a joke! They tick 1500 boxes and then couldn’t care less about them once they have their precious licence. If I can film them breaching those conditions, I can stop them. I know I can.’
‘You can’t beat them. They’re huge.’
‘I already have. Listen to how muted the compressor noise is tonight. Why do you think that is? It’s because I attacked CEGL on Monday night and they’ve spent the last two days putting buffers around it.’
‘Why does it have to be you who takes them on?’
‘It’s not just me; there are groups all over the valley fighting to stop them. They’re mounting petitions, writing to politicians and the press and even barricading the gates of properties. What I’m going to do is different. I intend to prove that what they’re doing is undeniably dangerous, that it will poison the aquifers and destroy the valley as a place to cultivate food. My boss wants to stop ’em as badly as I do and says that I can work on a casual basis whenever I want, and I’ve got a part-time job at the pub pulling beers three nights a week. I’m not gonna let you down honey, but I really need your help and support on this.’
She knew there was no use arguing, because his mind was made up. ‘How much is this stuff you’re buying going to cost?’
‘About $2500. Maybe a little more. The hard drive will record for sixteen hours but I’ll need backup memory cards and multiple battery packs that I haven’t priced, and I don’t know whether I’ll have to buy anything extra to download onto the computer.’
‘God, you sound like Richard Attenborough. While you’re on this spending binge, can you go to the bank and get five hundred dollars on that credit card as well, because we have to eat?’
‘Sure can.’ He grinned and a little of the tension lifted, ‘You’re a good sort. Thanks.’
She stretched over the table and kissed him goodnight. ‘Don’t stay up too late.’
Chapter 16
Janet Bourne was always busy on the days the board met and her boss invariably made last minute-submissions and today was no exception. The previous night Mr Harbrow had been agitated when preparing a submission about the action that the company should take against the Maddock Group and Aaron James. He had also made a recommendation to the board regarding the takeover of a small company, Hercules Gas. There was a fourteen-seat boardroom table and Mr Harbrow and Mr Llewellyn always took chairs at either end while the other five directors spread themselves out between them. Janet distributed the last-minute board papers accordingly.
Being a non-executive director of a large public company is considered quite an honour. Often committees of directors are formed to ensure that invitations to join the board are only made to those candidates of the highest calibre and integrity. These committees invariably nominate candidates whom they already know, resulting in a relatively small number of directors sitting on numerous boards. These directors are commonly referred to as being members of ‘the old boys club’ - a very lucrative club.
Harold Llewellyn and Sir Richard Crichton-Smythe sat on a multitude of boards. Fees paid to these supposed doyens of the community were extraordinarily generous; purportedly to compensate them for the risk and responsibility they were taking. Harold Llewellyn, as chairman of CEGL, was paid the princely sum of $800,000 per annum while each of the other non-executive directors received $200,000. However, this was only the tip of the iceberg and the huge money was made from participating in generous option and share schemes. Directors are meant to ensure that companies act honestly and ethically and this is usually achieved by ensuring compliance with a cumbersome document known as a corporate governance protocol. It is also critical that directors act independently and be without conflicts of interest.
In the case of CEGL, Spencer Harbrow made all appointments, lip service was paid to corporate governance and all directors were massively conflicted. Harbrow came from the ‘greed is good’ school and those who sat on the CEGL board met this philosophy in spades. Years earlier, the company’s consulting geologists had discovered coal seams in the Margaret Hills region of Western Australia but, to their surprise, Harbrow had shown no interest. A few months later, a private company applied for and was granted licences over huge tracts of land in the area. It was impossible to connect Harbrow with the company, which had two lawyers as directors and another two companies registered in Lichtenstein as its shareholders. The Margaret Hills tenements were Harbrow’s insurance against the unforeseen and it had never entered his mind that he was stealing from CEGL.
Moira Raymond had flown in the night before on a commercial flight and took her seat in the boardroom at 9.30am, thirty minutes early. She had long thought that the company should replace nearly all its non-executive directors with candidates who were genuinely independent. Conflicts of interest abounded and yet she could never remember a director excusing himself from voting on a resolution in which he had an interest. Ironically, she could not make any attempt to remove them until after they had appointed her CEO and, until that occurred, she would have to tread a careful path. Whether her ambition and the sacrifices she had made over twenty years were eventually rewarded, largely depended on Harbrow. With his charisma he had dominated board meetings, using them to inform his co-directors of the deals he had put together since the last meeting and then basking in their praise. There would be no praise at today’s meeting and Moira suspected it would be like no meeting she had attended before.
Phillip Bancroft was the first of the non-executive directors to arrive. He was a weedy little man with receding salt-and-pepper hair, bulbous, green eyes and sunken jowls, who looked older than his forty-eight years. Moira didn’t like him but still greeted him with a pleasant, ‘Good morning, Phil.’
‘The stock price is down fifteen percent, what’s good about it?’
A few minutes later, a grim-faced Sir Richard Crichton-Smythe joined them. For one so old, he glowed with good health and his sparkling blue eyes lit up when he kissed Moira on the cheek. When Sir Richard had phoned her during the week, he had asked if she had had anything to do with the Maddock debacle and whether she thought Harbrow was losing it. She had been diplomatic, saying that she wasn’t totally aware of the circumstances that had led to Aaron James’s savage attack and, until she knew, would prefer not to comment. He had persisted, asking her how an article in the Paisley Chronicle had found its way to national prominence, leaving her in no doubt that he thought she was to blame.
Spencer Harbrow and Harold Llewellyn entered the room together. The tension between them was palpable and it was obvious to the others that they had already met and that whatever they had talked about had been acrimonious. It was only 9.55 but Llewellyn snapped impatiently, ‘Where are Clem and Vic?’ No-one answered. CEGL’s board meetings were normally full of ‘bonhomie’ in anticipation of news that would make those sitting around the table wealthier and more highly thought of, b
ut today they were all worth a lot less than they had been five days ago; and, worse, the company was being torn apart by the media.
Vic Bezzina arrived with a minute to spare and was greeted with cursory nods and a cold greeting from Llewellyn. He had black hair, a slightly bent Roman nose, a strong, protruding jaw and he was wearing a fitted white shirt that showed off his muscular body. As he sat down, he winked at Moira and she returned a fleeting smile. She liked him and valued his work. He was the only director she would retain after she had the top job.
Janet Bourne sat away from the table and to the right of the chairman, with her recorder and notebook in hand.
When, at five minutes past ten, Clem Aspley joined them, Llewellyn growled at him as if addressing a schoolboy. ‘You’re late.’
‘Don’t bloody start, Harold. I’ve been fielding phone calls from the Maddock Group all morning and they’re going to sue my arse off. They’re also talking to my other large clients and suggesting they find another agency if they want continuity. Continuity! Jesus, they’re planting the seeds that I mightn’t be around for much longer. You got me into this Spencer, now you’ve gotta get me out of it.’
‘If you’d been on time, you would’ve been able to read what I have planned for them and that smart-arse, Aaron James.’
‘Let me brief you, Clem,’ Vic Bezzina said, reading from the documents in front of him. ‘Spencer wants to seek injunctions restraining the Maddock Group and James from making further defamatory comments. He then wants so sue them for defamation, libel, slander and anything else he can think of.’
‘We’re going to be in the media for months, maybe years, and the share price is going to hell,’ Bancroft groaned. ‘My clients and I have hundreds of millions of dollars in the company. They’re not happy.’
‘And how did they get those hundreds of millions? Because I increased the share price thirtyfold. They put comparatively little in for huge returns and they’ve little to complain about,’ Harbrow sneered, refraining with great difficulty from adding, and you put nothing in, Phil, so what’ve you got to complain about?
Moira had never been to a board meeting that was even remotely like this. Insults and accusations were flying around the table, and Harbrow, who was normally never questioned, was under severe attack; and the chairman had completely lost control.
Sir Richard thumped the table and demanded order. He asked directors if they would like to dispense with the agenda and move to the matters that had been widely canvassed in the media over the past four days. There was unanimous agreement and he asked Harbrow to explain the background of his proposed legal action. The explanation went back to the defamatory nature of the original articles by the National Advocate and the discussions with Llewellyn that had resulted in the issuing of a writ.
‘I knew that we had little chance of winning in court, but Harold told me that the bluff would curtail the Advocate from publishing further derogatory articles. He also said that, if the Maddock Group challenged the action, his firm would bury their lawyers in a mass of paperwork. Clearly I was misadvised.’
Llewellyn’s normally red face turned purple. ‘You never said that you were going to cancel millions of dollars of advertising contracts as well. I was trying to win a small battle and, if you’d told me you were going to declare war, I would’ve advised against the legal action. You backed them into a corner and they have nothing to lose by retaliating.’
‘Crap,’ Harbrow responded.
‘Don’t talk to me th …’
‘Order,’ Sir Richard growled. ‘Order.’
‘You never said anything about suing for defamation when you ordered me to cancel those advertising contracts,’ Aspley moaned. ‘Harold’s right. You declared war on them and no-one stands over the Maddock Group without getting hurt.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘It’s not rubbish, Spencer,’ Llewellyn said.
‘And don’t forget you promised that CEGL would indemnify me for legal costs and damages,’ Aspley said. ‘And while we didn’t talk about it, I expect to be compensated for any clients I lose.’
‘Did you promise that?’ Sir Richard asked, with an expression that said ‘how dare you?’
Harbrow was seething; after all he had done for them. How quickly they had forgotten that he was the only reason they were even sitting at the table.
‘Yes, he did,’ Aspley responded. Then, looking over at Janet, ‘I want that minuted.’
‘So the reason you took your actions was to deter the Advocate from publishing any more articles about the company and coal seam gas?’ Bezzina asked.
Harbrow thought what a stupid question, wasn’t it obvious? but he controlled himself. ‘Yes, Vic.’
‘I’m not criticising your motive, but the mainstream media, with incessant pressure from the Greens, is gradually waking up to the coal seam gas story. I’ve heard that Your Nation is producing a documentary that will paint certain gas companies, including us, and the Queensland Government, in a very bad light. It’s going to air in four weeks.’
‘What story?’ Bancroft asked.
‘Air pollution, water pollution, sickness, death and land rights for starters, and that guy the media’s calling the gas-man is getting huge coverage. I also read an article that came out of Paisley, that the national newspapers picked up about land rights.’
‘None of it’s true,’ Harbrow said, ‘and that thug they call the gas-man will soon be yesterday’s news.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Sir Richard added.
‘So, Sir Richard, you wouldn’t mind if one of the gas companies started sinking gas wells on your Tamworth farm,’ Bezzina asked.
‘Ah … ah, that’s different.’
‘Really?’
‘Harold,’ Sir Richard asked, anxious to change the subject, ‘what are the chances of success with the litigation that Spencer is proposing?’
‘That big-mouth, Aaron James, defamed CEGL, my firm and me.’ Llewellyn leaned back and tweaked his moustache to conceal his anxiety. ‘And the transcript of his program proves it. It’s open and shut.’
‘Sorry, I didn’t hear what he said and I haven’t read the transcript,’ Bezzina lied, tapping Moira’s ankle with his foot. ‘What did he say about you, Harold?’
‘He called me one of the worst-ever leaders of the National Party and dishonourable.’
‘And “Sir Lunchalot”.’ Bancroft smirked.
A little of the tension lifted, and some of the directors smiled while others looked down at the floor.
‘Yes.’ Llewellyn glared.
‘If you want to avoid publicity, you’ll drop all thoughts of litigation,’ Aspley said. ‘When the McLachlan Bank took on Aaron James, he read out their letters and those of their lawyers on the air and mocked them. The more threatening the letters, the more he sent them up, and in the end the bank dropped the action and begged him to stop trashing them. Spencer, if I’d known about the initial litigation, I would’ve implored you not to go ahead with it. This might go away if you turn the other cheek but, I warn you, don’t give Aaron James a reason to attack you.’
‘I don’t listen to popular radio,’ Harbrow responded with disdain, ‘but I’m not going to stand by and let some loud-mouth talkback presenter defame the company.’ As an afterthought he added, ‘Or Harold.’
‘Oh, he’s far more than that,’ Bezzina said. ‘He’s got more than two million listeners in Sydney alone who love him, and his program goes into every state and hundreds of country towns. He’s the king of national radio and there’s not a politician in the country, from the PM down, who wouldn’t jump if he asked them to appear on his program. Harold, you’re connected with those in the corridors of power, but James actually tells them what to do and, if you’re unwise enough to pick a fight with him, by the time he gets through with you, you’ll be lucky if your next door neighbour’s still talking to you.’
‘He defamed me,’ Llewellyn said defensively. He knew how powerful James was – everyone did, with t
he exception of Harbrow - and, while not relishing the fight, his pride would not let him back down.
‘The longer this stays in the public eye, the more the share price will fall,’ Bancroft said. ‘I’m with Clem and Vic and definitely not in favour of litigating.’
‘Well I am,’ Sir Richard said. ‘Why should we turn a blind eye to the defamation of the company and its chairman? This James fellow may be very powerful in his own medium but that won’t help him in court.’ He glanced over at Moira. ‘By my count that makes three in favour of litigation and three against.’
Moira had purposely not participated in the debate, because she knew that whatever she said would alienate someone, but she had not anticipated being left with the deciding vote. Some of them blamed her for Steve Forrest’s article reaching national prominence, but no-one had suggested how she could have stopped it. For a split second, abstaining went through her mind, but she knew this was something leaders never did. Her two greatest supporters were Llewellyn and Sir Richard and they both supported litigation, so the wise move would be to vote with them, but she sensed the former wasn’t as ‘gung ho’ as he made himself out to be. There was no doubt that Harbrow wanted his day in court and she felt him staring at her; she pondered what those around the table would think if she supported him. Would they see it as acquiescence and weakness? However, if she voted against him, would they see it as bloody-mindedness and vindictiveness? She wasn’t scared of Aaron James but nor was she scared of a lion, provided it was securely leashed, and that thought helped make her mind up - why would she want to unleash James so that he could vent his vitriol about CEGL and the coal seam gas industry to his massive audience, unrelentingly as he surely would, morning after morning?
‘If we withdrew the current legal action and didn’t issue writs in respect of James’s comments, we still couldn’t be certain that he would stop his tirade against the company, and against Harold and his firm.’