New AusPost CEO named, as Holgate fronts Senate

By Wayne Robinson | 14 April 2021

Australia Post has appointed former Woolworths supply chain head, Paul Graham, as its new CEO, just as his predecessor fronts a senate enquiry, and makes explosive claims over her dismissal.

Graham will not take up his position until September. He will be on a minimum base salary of $1.46m, and has the potential to double that with bonuses. He will be Australia’s highest paid public servant.

Stating his priorities he said, "We can capitalise on the extraordinary growth in e-commerce experienced in the past year, and continue developing our retail and digital offerings, while keeping letter deliveries strong".

Graham has vast experience in parcels, he was a senior exec at Deutsche Post DHL, working as CEO Asia Pacific for 20 years. He also has printing experience, he was chairman of Williams Lea, a global business process outsourcing business, which began operations as a UK printer.

His 4 September starting date means the country's mail monopoly will have been without a CEO for a virtually year, as former incumbent Christine Holgate stepped aside in October. CFO Rodney Boys is acting CEO.

AusPost has had a strategy of continually downgrading its loss-making mailing services over recent years, while increasing charges, as it focused on the booming parcels business. Mail is now only delievered on alternate days in metro areas, and less in the regions.

Graham's appointment was announced by the government 24 hours before his sacked predecessor Holgate fronted a senate enquiry into the circumstances surrounding her departure, and laid into the AusPost chairman and the prime minister.

Holgate left AusPost when it was revealed she had sanctioned $20,000 worth of luxury Cartier watches as a bonus to senior execs, who were responsible for creating a successful programme that Post Office franchisees credited with saving their businesses. They want her reinstated as CEO.

She is now in a she-said-he-said war of words with AusPost chairman Lucio Di Bartolomeo over the manner of her departure, which also saw her publicly lambasted at the time by prime minster Scott Morrison. Accusing Di Bartolomeo of lying, and fabrication, over the sacking, Holgate told Parliament that, “The simple truth is I was bullied out of my job".

She told the senate, “I was humiliated and driven to despair. I was thrown under the bus of the chairman of Australia Post, to carry favour with his political masters". She also accused the prime minster of treating her differently to his male cabinet colleagues accused of misconduct, because she is a woman. She labelled the prime minister's actions "an utter disgrace", and said the affair left her "suicidal".

She told the senate committee, "This is a day the chairman of Australia Post and the other men involved in what happened to me will be held to account".

Holgate came into the role three years previously, when then CEO Ahmed Fahour - who led the Auspost charge away from mail - was forced to go, after MPs were finally able to see the astronomic $6.8m annual salary he was trousering. Fahour is now managing director of afterpay enterprise Latitude, and has been unsuccessfully trying to get it to an IPO.

Holgate joined from "wellness" pill business Blackmores, and in the year before she was forced out earned $2.65m at AusPost.

Graham's $1.46m base plus $1.46m in bonuses remuneration is five times that of the prime minister, who is on $550,000, and treble that of the head of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, who is on $1m. ABC head, David Anderson, is on $1.4m, while the country's top soldier, chief of defence Angus Campbell, is also on $1m.