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Cousins hits out at Telstra Board


PM - Tuesday, 26 September , 2006  18:10:00

Reporter: Stephen Long

MARK COLVIN: The man at the centre of Telstra's stand-off with the Government, Geoff Cousins, has spoken for the first time about the row.

Mr Cousins denies that he's John Howard's man, or that he's being placed on the Telstra Board to do the Government's bidding.

And he isn't endorsing today's criticisms by the Treasurer Peter Costello of the big bonuses paid to Telstra's bosses.

But Geoff Cousins has hit out at the Telstra Board.

He says he's not convinced by its claim that it hasn't had sufficient time to carry out "due diligence" on his nomination. Mr Cousins says the board hasn't even bothered to contact him.

Stephen Long asked Geoff Cousins this afternoon why he thought that the board was opposing his appointment.

GEOFFREY COUSINS: Well I don't know that they are opposing the appointment. I don't think they've made any negative comment about me. They've simply said they haven't had time to do due diligence.

STEPHEN LONG: Does that strike you as plausible?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: It's a little surprising in the sense that they've actually got until the middle of November, which would be an extraordinarily long amount of time in my experience to do due diligence on any director, but also because nobody's contacted me.

So if they were trying to do the due diligence, I would have thought they'd be asking me some questions and asking for references and so on.

STEPHEN LONG: So not one phone call?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: Not a single one, no. Not related to that. I had one conversation with the Chairman a few weeks ago, but nothing since then.

STEPHEN LONG: Well what do you suspect then is the real reason why they don't want you on the board, which is what it looks like?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: I have no idea. That's a matter for the board of Telstra.

STEPHEN LONG: Well there is a view that your John Howard's man, that you're being put on the Telstra Board to keep a watch on them for the Prime Minister.

How would you respond to that?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: I'm not anyone's man except my own and I think if you have a good look at my record as a public company director, that's been demonstrated pretty clearly.

STEPHEN LONG: Do you want to spell that out?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: Oh yeah, there've been some major confrontations with all sorts of people from Rupert Murdoch to Kerry Packer and others, and on matters of substance and I've stood up when I've had to stand up.

STEPHEN LONG: Well obviously you have been asked to join the board for a reason. What do you think that Telstra needs to do to have a successful float and become a successful company in coming years, hopefully boost its share price?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: I'm not on the board yet, and I think it would be very inappropriate to make comments on the activities of the company, except to say I very much look forward to making a contribution on behalf of all shareholders.

STEPHEN LONG: But you made the point that you've got a lot of relevant experience so you must have some ideas about what needs to be done to boost the company's performance?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: Well, what you need to do in any circumstance like this is to communicate a clear, consistent strategy and I've had a lot of experience in not only doing that, but helping other people to do it.

And I would hope I would be able to help Telstra do that.

STEPHEN LONG: Well do you think that Telstra has done that?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: I don't want to make a comment on that. I'm just an average citizen reading the newspaper, so I don't even know exactly what the Telstra strategy is.

STEPHEN LONG: Well, even as someone who's followed it through the newspapers, you must have formed some views on Sol Trujillo's performance.

GEOFFREY COUSINS: If I have formed any views, I'll keep them to myself.

STEPHEN LONG: What do you think of Telstra's battle with the regulator?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: Again, I won't make comment on that, except to say I had a lot of experience when I was at Optus in dealing with the regulator, a lot of experience because we were there just about every week.

During my time we had all sorts of issues and we very successfully managed to get some of those issues through the regulator and that's a tricky thing to do.

STEPHEN LONG: Well why do you think you didn't get into the kind of stoush, the public stoush that Telstra is in with Graeme Samuel and the ACCC at the moment?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: We got into public stoushes with a lot of other people so I can't put myself forward as somebody who doesn't do that from time to time.

STEPHEN LONG: Well, the Treasurer has said today that he thinks the board has to explain and justify why it's paying such big management bonuses after significant falls in the Telstra share price.

What's your view on that?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: All boards have to do that all the time, you know, and sometimes shareholders, particularly small shareholders are a bit unreasonable about the salaries of senior executives, but nevertheless it is up to all boards to justify these things very clearly.

STEPHEN LONG: Do you think that Sol Trujillo does deserve to be getting bonuses at the level that he has when we've seen the share price fall from more than $5 when he took over, to hitting a low of $3.45, hovering around the $3.50 mark?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: I have no basis on which to make any judgment but again, you know, a simple share price adjustments are the basis any longer of the way CEOs are paid because if they were, obviously the market could just go up 50 per cent and the remuneration of the CEO would go up 50 per cent for no particular reason.

STEPHEN LONG: Will you be attempting to make contact with Donald McGauchie, the Chairman, in advance of your appointment to seek an explanation for why the board's taken the position it has?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: I've called him already, not to seek any explanation incidentally. He doesn't owe me any explanations, but simply to say that I am available for whatever due diligence anyone wants to make and very happy to sit down with people, answer any questions, provide any references.

STEPHEN LONG: What would you say if the board was to say to you they don't think that they can work with you, or the Chairman was to say that?

GEOFFREY COUSINS: I would be very surprised and I don't think that anyone could possibly say that, until such time as you'd spent some time on the board.

MARK COLVIN: Geoff Cousins, the man who the Government wants to put onto the Telstra Board, talking to Stephen Long.