2009 Transurban AGM ABC Learning transcript
August 12, 2010
Stephen Mayne: You mentioned in your formal comments about the board being sensitive to last year's protest vote on the remuneration report - where I think it was 58% in the poll went against the remuneration report.
The other most noteworthy aspect of last year's AGM was the 34% protest against your re-election Mr chairman. A 66% endorsement for a chairman of an ASX 50 company is unprecedented - its never been so low.
There was obviously a reason for that and I think most people in the room would recognise that that was your previous chairmanship of ABC Learning and your chairmanship of the ABC Learning audit committee, all the way through from 2003 until the collapse.
So my opening question to you is, has the collapse of ABC Learning in any way interfered with your ability to continue on as the chaiman of Transurban from a working point of view. Have you been caught up in all sorts of implications in the collapse. Has it upset you; has it distracted you, how has it impacted on your ability to do the job here at Transurban.
Chairman: I will respond by commenting about how I work generally Stephen, but thank you for your question it's quite a reasonable one.
I have had no problem in finding the time to discharge my obligations to the Transurban board and the Transurban management. The CEO and I would speak regularly each week - if not, once, twice a week. I'm down here regularly. I've attended every board meeting, every committee meeting. I think there were something in the order of 27 board and committee meetings in aggregate in the last year. So that's fulfilling my obligation.
Apart from that, I actually enjoy my engagement with this company. It is a fine company, it has a fine board, it has a wonderful executive team, so it is actually a pleasure to find the time, and I don't have trouble finding the time, to discharge what is a very pleasant job for me.
Stephen Mayne: A quick follow up question. I would have thought that the board's interpretation of last year's vote would have been that a change was appropriate.
At last year's annual meeting, chairman, you declined to comment on ABC Learning because at the time it was just suspended. I think its reasonable for the shareholders to now hear from you for the first time, I don't believe you've ever publicly explained what happened.
When $3B gets lost, and at the end of the day, its the vast pool of superannuation money which is invested in most of our top 100 companies. Clearly the people responsible for one of the biggest debacles in Australian history, ordinarily I would have thought would have their card marked, and not be entrusted to run another, or lead another, multi-billion dollar company.
So could you put forward the arguments, as to what happened at ABC Learning that qualifies you to continue on as the chairman of this company. My personal opinion is I don't think it is appropriate. I don't think such a large loss can be explained in any way, and I've never heard you even try to explain it.
So today, could you please excuse what happened, and provide reasons why people shouldn't say, because of that unbelievable debacle you shouldn't be leading our company any more?
Chairman: The outworkings of what happened at ABC will be dealt with in the appropriate arenas at the appropriate times. This is a Transurban annual general meeting. It's not a court of law or any sort of public examination.
I welcome the opportunity in the future to discuss in the appropriate forum, what happened in that case. I think I said to you last year that at the core of my personal beliefs is integrity. I feel in no way did I compromise my integrity at that place, and I would now like to move on with the business of the Transurban meeting.
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