Like I posted a while back, this guy would barely have the time to pick up his NTC pay cheque....
ABC chairman Justin Milne has defended his workload and the number of boards he sits on after the Australian Shareholders Association said he was overstretched.
In addition to his ABC chairmanship, Mr Milne is chairman of two ASX-listed companies, accounting software firm MYOB and communications equipment group NetComm Wireless.
He is also a non-executive director of ASX-listed gaming giant Tabcorp and NBN Co, which is responsible for the national broadband network.
ASA chief executive Judith Fox said Mr Milne’s workload was excessive. “The fact that he’s chairman of three and then also a non-executive director of two, we think the workload is not manageable because we worry he won’t be able to devote sufficient time to a company, particularly, for example, when it’s in crisis,” she said.
Mr Milne hit back at the criticism and revealed he was scaling back his corporate commitments. “I have just dropped one board not announced yet and one not-for-profit. But in any case I disagree with the ASA and their metrics,” he told The Australian.
“The companies whose boards I’m on seem happy to have me. I attend all meetings, read my papers and the boards I serve seem to feel my contribution is very valuable. Ask them what they think.”
The ASA looks at the workload of directors of ASX-listed and private companies as well as not-for-profit and government organisations, Ms Fox said.
Mr Milne is facing increasing calls to resign from the ABC board, which he joined last year in April, following reports that he demanded former managing director Michelle Guthrie sack economics correspondent Emma Alberici after complaints from his friend Malcolm Turnbull, then prime minister.
Alberici has said the revelations may represent a conflict of interest because Mr Milne chairs MYOB, which was named in a widely discredited corporate tax article that Alberici wrote earlier this year.
An internal ABC review found the article had significant problems, including that it didn’t mention that all the largest five and most of the top-10 companies by value pay corporate tax.
A spokeswoman for MYOB said: “We don’t have anything to add at this point.”
Prior to the board roles, Mr Milne was in charge of Telstra’s media and broadband operations before quitting in 2010 to pursue other opportunities. He has also been chief executive of OzEmail — where he worked with Mr Turnbull, who sold his stake for $57 million — and the Microsoft Network, president of the Internet Industry Association of Australia, and a board member of the SA Economic Development Board, Quickflix, Pie Networks and several Chinese media companies, according to the ABC website.
Mr Milne has also had to deal with perceived conflict of interest issues with his position at NetComm as well as his hefty stake in Telstra at the time of his appointment to NBN Co’s board.
Mr Milne joined NBN Co in November 2013, soon after the Coalition came to power and immediately ran into trouble because of the 305,000 Telstra shares, worth about $1.5m, he held at the time of his appointment.
The decision to insert Mr Milne into the NBN Co board was seen as the then communications minister Mr Turnbull’s strategy to have allies inside the organisation as the NBN strategy was overhauled.
While Mr Milne subsequently sold his Telstra stake, his involvement at NetComm, which supplies equipment to NBN Co for the rollout of the National Broadband Network, also raised eyebrows.
NBN Co disclosed its position on the matter in its 2016-17 annual report, saying Mr Milne was not involved in the process of awarding any contracts to NetComm.
Before moving to Sydney in the 1980s, Mr Milne was a film producer in Adelaide.
NTC Price at posting:
73.0¢ Sentiment: Buy Disclosure: Held
