After nine years on the ASX board, former treasury secretary Ken Henry bowed out yesterday with a final public company annual general meeting (AGM) contribution that demonstrated he is yet to learn the humility so famously missing when he fronted the Kenneth Hayne banking royal commission.
I lodged 14 written questions during the 135-minute ASX AGM, and the very last was directed at Henry, asking for his reflections on the massive time and money blowout on the group’s $216 million replacement IT platform for its creaking CHESS settlement system.
After chairman Damian Roche made a few comments, he passed the call to Henry whose deep insights went so far as to say: “My personal reflections are very similar to yours, Mr Chair, and I have nothing further to add.”
The ASX is a lucrative, government-backed monopoly, having posted a $509 million net profit in 2021-22 on revenues a touch above $1 billion.
The board suffered the ignominy of its first-ever strike yesterday when more than 30% of the voted stock was cast against the remuneration report, mainly because of anger that former CEO Dominic Stevens only had his short-term bonus clipped by 40% despite the massive CHESS problems.
Henry certainly didn’t have his pay cut last year, enjoying a modest increase to $258,517. Back in his first full year on the board in 2013-14, he pocketed $203,463 — and the total haul over more than nine years on the board was almost $2.2 million.
That’s a similar figure to what ASX gave the two major political parties during Henry’s time on the board, as in 2021-22 they once again shelled out $120,000 to “subscribe” to each of the Labor and Liberal business partners program.
New CEO Helen Lofthouse was asked if she supported continuing with these cash-for-access arrangements, and she waffled on about ASX’s pivotal role in the economy and the importance of being able to deal with key government stakeholders. Why pay for that privilege?
It’s hard to see these sorts of blatant cash-for-access arrangements continuing for much longer. It’s just a shame Henry failed to stop the practice during his entire nine years on the board.
