Grant King BHP

Outgoing BCA chair Grant King

The credibility of the Business Council of Australia is in tatters following the departure of BCA chair Grant King from the BHP board in the face of a shareholder revolt.

King left the board, according to media reports, after widespread shareholder and investor anger over his record at Origin Energy. As Crikey reported at the time of King’s appointment to head the BCA last November, Origin under King had posted massive losses and presided over a huge reduction in the company’s value.

King’s appointment to the BHP board was announced on February 16, amid commentary that it was odd that the head of the BCA didn’t have a top-tier board position in Australia. A day after that, Origin revealed $1.9 billion in write-downs in the value of its Queensland export LNG plant (King had sold half of the project to Conoco Phillips in the US in 2008, and then sold down its 50% stake to 37.5% by selling holdings to Sinopec of China). The timing was awful — it reminded BHP shareholders of the $20 billion-plus investment BHP had made in onshore shale gas and then oil in the United States, which has led to to write-downs totalling US$10 billion at the big Brit-Australian.

Also on the council board is the outgoing Commonwealth Bank CEO Ian Narev, who has been badly tarnished by the money laundering scandal that has engulfed the bank and may yet lead to a massive class action in addition to continuing court action by regulator AUSTRAC.

Former BCA chair Catherine Livingstone is now chair of the Commonwealth and has come under fire for keeping regulators in the dark about the bank’s long-running problems with its “intelligent ATM” systems that saw drug syndicates allegedly launder money through the bank and raids of the bank by the Australian Federal Police. Council CEO Jennifer Westacott is also regarded as damaged goods after Liberal Party powerbroker Michael Kroger savaged her performance in 2016. 

It’s just weeks since King issued yet another lecture about the need to cut company tax rates despite BHP’s shocking record of avoiding tax, claiming it was the only way businesses would be encouraged to invest. No mention of the billions in write-downs and trashing of shareholder wealth that we’ve witnessed from major companies in recent years.