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ASHLYNNE:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ashlynne McGhee. This is 7am.

Peter Costello’s legacy was set. The longest serving treasurer in Australian history and under John Howard he transformed the Australian economy into what it is today.

That was until he pushed into a journalist asking pesky questions at Canberra airport, all of it caught on camera.

Three days later, he resigned as chair of Nine, amid a storm of scrutiny about its workplace culture.

Today, national correspondent for The Saturday Paper Mike Seccombe, on Peter Costello’s reign at Nine and the enemies he made along the way.

It’s Tuesday June 18.

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ASHLYNNE:

Mike, Peter Costello resigned last week as the chair of Australia's biggest media company. Is he going to be missed?

MIKE:

Frankly, I don't think so, not very much. I mean, to be honest, you know, he's 66 so on his way out, he reckoned that he was planning to go anyway. And I don't think he was planning to go anywhere near as quickly as he did but, you know, his time was pretty much up, frankly. And even if it hadn't been, it was after the, the events of a week or so back, where he appeared to shoulder charge a pesky reporter who was asking him questions about the goings on at Channel Nine.

Audio Excerpt - Liam Mendes:

“Mr Costello, my name is Liam Mendes from The Australian, do you support…”

MIKE:

He was walking through Canberra Airport. A reporter from The Australian approached him.

Audio Excerpt - Liam Mendes:

“Were you aware of the allegations against Mr Wick before he left Nine?”

MIKE:

He followed him more or less from the gate to the car which is a little more aggressive than even is done by most journalists at the airport. You know, sometimes a scrum develops out in the public section of the airport, but he pursued him along the entire concourse.

Audio Excerpt - Liam Mendes:

“Well, you’ve got to answer the questions, Mr Costello…”

MIKE:

Next thing we know, the reporter’s on his back on the ground.

Audio Excerpt - Liam Mendes:

“You’ve just assaulted me.”

Audio Excerpt - Peter Costello:

“You walked in front of me.”

Audio Excerpt - Liam Mendes:

“You’ve just pushed me. It’s all on camera…”

MIKE:

One interesting thing about this is that even Costello's political opponents kind of sympathised with his agitation at this Australian reporter, Liam Mendes. I have to say, he's widely disliked by politicians of all stripes and a number that I've spoken to said, well, it was a really bad look for Costello but, you know, gee whiz it was nice to see that guy hit the deck.

That video was published in The Australian while Costello was in the car from the airport to Parliament House to attend a Nine News function. By the time he gets to the function, he's faced with the ignominy of being questioned by his own journalists, that is Nine journalists not just News Corp ones, about whether he would now survive as chair.

Audio Excerpt - Journalist 1:

“There’s already speculation that this could put your chairmanship at risk. What is your response to that?”

Audio Excerpt - Peter Costello:

“Rubbish.”

MIKE:

He tried to laugh it off. He tried to say that, you know, that the reporter just fallen down. Gee, that was bad luck.

Audio Excerpt - Peter Costello:

“As I walked past him, he walked back into an advertising placard and he fell over. I did not strike him. If he’s upset about that, I’m sorry.”

MIKE:

But, you know, by Friday morning, he was attending an emergency board meeting explaining himself to the other directors. Then we had a couple of days of silence while speculation mounted and then on Sunday afternoon, you know, in the sort of dead spot at the end of the news week, three days after the incident at the airport, Nine announced that Costello was gone. And his departure, I might say, wasn't much mourned at Nine. The Sydney Morning Herald, on Monday, ran an editorial under the headline Peter Costello had to go and thank goodness he has. And it said his presence on the Nine board was also a source of concern for loyal subscribers suspicious of the influence of a former Liberal treasurer over the company's mastheads, and a source of frustration for editorial staff who had to frequently reassure readers and stakeholders that our independence remained a guiding principle of how we operate. So, in other words, they thought he was always a bit of an impediment to their reputation for being independent. And of course there was, you know, already speculation about Costello losing his job even before all of this because Nine and, and particularly the TV division of Nine, had been engulfed in turmoil for a couple of weeks preceding that.

ASHLYNNE:

Yeah, it hasn't been a great time for Nine Entertainment, to say the least. Tell me a bit more about what's happened over the past month or so.

MIKE:

All right, well, it all started with the allegations about the behaviour of Channel Nine's former Head of News and Current Affairs, a man named Darren Wick. And the first allegations came out in the News Corp press alleging that he had made unwanted advances, groped and harassed several women at Nine. It included one anonymous on-air person who spoke to News Corp’s Sherry Markson.

Audio Excerpt - Sharri Markson:

“Tonight, the scandal surrounding Channel Nine deepens, with shocking allegations that the company betrayed the confidence of a high profile female presenter when she raised concerns about sacked news boss Darren Wick.”

MIKE:

And footage was revealed of Wick allegedly making advances on the dance floor at a Logies afterparty, and Wick had already resigned from Nine, which is kind of interesting. But he went out with what was reportedly $1 million payout, and a warm send-off.

Audio Excerpt - Sharri Markson:

“Wick was given a warm send-off, and there was no public mention of any complaint against him. Nine's Director of Television Michael Healy, praised Wick's enormous impact at Nine, including his...”

MIKE:

So the scandal escalated anyway, and it kind of implicated the broader culture at Nine, because there were allegations that Nine’s own communications team had leaked against on-air talent that the on-air presenter had told a director on the board about, what she called, the toxic culture at Nine and had been assured that something would be done, but nothing was done.

Audio Excerpt - Sharri Markson:

“The presenter's most damning remarks were for the board member who ignored her concerns about the toxic culture at Nine. She said there was no assistance provided by the network to source the leaks, stamp out the toxic behaviour, or change the culture.”

MIKE:

The questions started being asked, you know, who knew about all this stuff? How well was the board across it? If they were across it, why had nothing been done? And why was Wick allowed to exit the premises with a million bucks in his kick?

ASHLYNNE:

And so Costello's resignation follows all of this, but his resignation wasn’t explicitly tied to it, so a lot of it is still unresolved. What state is he leaving Nine in?

MIKE:

Well, you're quite right. The situation at the TV, you know, News and Current Affairs Division would look pretty culturally precarious, I would say, at the moment. But, you know, that's not really his fault. That is not a matter specifically for the board, I have to say, that's more an issue for management. But, you know, like I said, how much did the board know? But, what's interesting here is we have a cultural division here, right? Because we have what's clearly a very blokey culture at the Nine TV part of the business. But the Nine newspapers, the mastheads, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Financial Review, have been very strong on pursuing the Wick stuff, and have gone in very hard on Costello. So, there's an interesting cultural schism, I think, within Nine as well.

But measured otherwise, the Costello era at Nine has been hugely significant. You know, not just for the company itself, but for the news business and the media landscape as a whole. If you have a look back under him, Nine took over the former Fairfax newspapers, and created the biggest locally owned media company in the country. And as I reported this story last week, it appeared that Costello had put quite a few noses out of joint along the way. You know, people have pointed to his relationships as a problem for the broader Nine culture, and many might have thought that his legacy was set as John Howard's former treasurer, but his time at Nine and his downfall might start to loom now for how we think about Peter Costello and, I would suggest, might well be the end of Costello's public life.

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ASHLYNNE:

Mike, help us understand more about the Costello era and how Nine changed with him at the helm?

MIKE:

Well, by the time Costello became chair in early 2016, he'd been on the board for a couple of years before that, Nine was a bit past, you know, the heyday of the Kerry Packer year when the family owned it. It was still a TV business, it was no longer as dominant there as it had been. But the problems were bigger than that and they were industry wide, if you like. You know, you had pay TV, you had streaming services, you had the internet, all competing for eyeballs, all taking away advertising revenue. So things were pretty dire for, you know, the legacy media in general, and free to air TV in particular. So, under Costello, some big things happened to try and sure up the business. He was on the board when Nine did a joint deal with Fairfax to set up Stan, the streaming service, which people who watch these things described to me as a, you know, pretty inspired move actually. Then after he became chair, Nine made the biggest deal in its history, taking over Fairfax Media. I mean, it was sold as a merger, but it was really a takeover.

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 1:

“In the biggest media deal in Australian history, the owner of the Nine television network is taking over newspaper publisher Fairfax Media.”

Audio Excerpt - News Reporter 2:

“Under the plan, Nine will merge with Fairfax Media, publisher of the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian Financial Review and WA Today.”

MIKE:

So that gave it three very big quality newspapers and crucially also a string of talkback radio stations like 2GB in Sydney and 3AW in Melbourne. So, that deal made them the biggest locally owned Australian media company. But more interestingly, in my view, it also made them the most diverse in, sort of, ideology and audience range. You know, they it catered for all kinds of demographics. Whether you wanted to hear, you know, the talkback shouters like Ray Hadley.

Audio Excerpt - Ray Hadley:

“You haven't answered the question. How long are you going to put up with Bridgette Archer? She's previously crossed the floor to support Labor on housing, emissions reduction and censure motions against the former Prime Minister and now, embarrassingly...”

MIKE:

Or watch the tabloid TV of A Current Affair.

Audio Excerpt - A Current Affair Interviewee Grandmother:

“I've got an AVO out against me. And I’m Australia’s grumpiest grandmother.”

Audio Excerpt - A Current Affair reporter:

“Why take out an AVO against an 86 year old woman?”

Audio Excerpt - A Current Affair Interviewee Woman:

“Because she's a bitch.”

MIKE:

Or if you wanted serious journalism, you know, slightly progressive bent in The Sydney Morning Herald, in The Age, or whether you wanted specialist financial journalism in The Australian Financial Review, the Nine Network now had all bases covered. So it became a very, very powerful political force as well as a much stronger commercial one. Through all of this of course, you know, Costello is on the board. Apparently a very dominant figure on the board. As one person I spoke to said, he would be the worst person to have on a board, any board, unless he was the chairman, because he would have to be the dominant figure in the room. And that's, you know, absolutely accords with what we already knew from his time as treasurer. You know, he's a very dominant, very forceful personality, I guess you would say, to put the best spin on it. Some would call him a bit bumptious, I think. He did rub people the wrong way quite often.

ASHLYNNE:

Yeah, tell me more about that, because you mentioned before the editorial, from the editor of the SMH, Bevan Shields, essentially saying that they were constantly battling against Costello's reputation. So, how much did his role as a Liberal Party elder affect his role as chair?

MIKE:

Well, having spoken to a number of former senior executives, a number of former editors, and you know, also Stephen Mayne the sort of shareholder activist who is apt to bob up at Nine AGM's and things and ask hard questions, they suggest to me that Costello was actually not very interventionist at all when it came to individual stories. To that extent, he was probably, in actuality, impartial. But, the perception lingered. And, you know, as a former editor of a Nine newspaper told me, you know, Costello was sufficiently arrogant never to seek to kind of downplay his partisanship. And that infected the public perceptions even if it didn't affect the reality of how particularly the former Fairfax papers reported things. So, remember a few examples, you know, at the last election Costello turned up at a polling booth to support the, you know, foundering campaign of his fellow Liberal treasurer, Josh Frydenberg. You know, and they had a happy snap taken, of the two of them smiling together, and that went up on Frydenberg’s social media. There'd been a number of incidents like that. I think you would say most concerning of all was an incident back in 2019 when Nine actually hosted a $10,000 a head fundraiser for the Liberal Party, attended by Scott Morrison and other senior members, and hosted by the then CEO of Nine, Hugh Marks. And that created enormous outrage among the journalists at the Nine papers in particular and among the media union, and eventually the Nine newspapers acknowledged that it was a quote unquote mistake. And emails were sent out to all staff saying it would not happen again and apologising for these errors of judgement and so on. So, you know, these kinds of incidents, according to the former editors that I spoke to, were indicators that Costello just couldn't keep his mouth shut in public. And as one told me, I'm quoting here, it just made it impossible for us, you know, to convince readers and subscribers that there wasn't bias in the reporting, you know. Even when there was none, the perception persisted, and that was a big problem. So I think, to emphasise the point, we have a dichotomy here of perception and reality. And so the perception hurt the journalism and it upset the journalists and people won't be lining up to employ him for other corporate gigs because as another former Nine editor pointed out, you know, once you go out like this, as he did, you know, it's pretty hard to get another public company gig. So one of them actually said, you know, Costello would never get another public gig unless and until the Liberals got back into power and maybe that would make him Ambassador to Tonga, or something. So that's the way he was perceived there.

ASHLYNNE:

Not the worst gig in the world, I think, Mike.

MIKE:

It would be a nice gig. He could work on his suntan, you know.

ASHLYNNE:

Well look on that reputation issue, Peter Costello's legacy seemed like it was set in stone. He was John Howard's treasurer, the man who oversaw this huge transformation of the Australian economy. But now with this one little video of an airport altercation, how much will his legacy instead be about the culture and what he oversaw at Nine?

MIKE:

Well, you know, it reminds me of a very rude joke about a goat, you know, suddenly people don't remember all the good things you did. And he actually did. You know, he was a very successful treasurer. He delivered a string of surpluses. I mean, admittedly, they were easy economic times to do it, but still, you know, he did deliver a string of surpluses. He, to some extent, resisted John Howard's inclination to just spray the money around buying votes. You know, instead of that, he set up the future fund. Essentially, you know, an investment vehicle to provide for Australia's future. He then ran the future fund, and under him it significantly outperformed the market in general. And at Nine, he oversaw these changes that made it far more secure than its legacy TV competitors. So, you know, he did a lot of good things. Unfortunately, his achievements were kind of overshadowed, to some extent, by his personality. So sadly, in the end, he's gone in very inglorious circumstances. It's, you know, it's all a bit Shakespearean, really.

ASHLYNNE:

Mike, thanks so much for your time.

MIKE:

Thank you for having me.

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ASHLYNNE:

Also in the news today...

Opposing groups of protestors yesterday confronted each other outside a lunch where Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed Chinese premier Li Qiang.

Angry confrontations broke out between supporters of the Chinese Communist Party, and supporters of causes such as Tibetan independence and Hong Kong independence, with one alleging that at least one punch was thrown, although no arrests were made.

And,

102 people who had an annual income of more than 1 million dollars paid no net tax in the financial year 2021-22, according to information released by the Tax Office yesterday.

It was an increase in the number of millionaires paying no net tax, with only 66 in the last year figures were released.

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