Australia Post boss Christine Holgate’s lawyers have said she has not received any notification about being “stood down” from her role, claiming she was “humiliated” in Parliament.
The questions are just one line of inquiry into the spending of the organisation, which is a government-owned business with the Australian Government as the only shareholder.
Despite this, Australia Post is a self-funding business that does not receive taxpayer funding and is run by the board of the organisation, not the government.
Today, Ms Holgate’s laywer Bryan Belling of Kingston Reid released a statement saying the embattled CEO would “fully support a fair investigation”.
“However, it is now exactly seven days since Ms Holgate was the subject of a humiliating answer during Question Time,” Mr Belling said.
“In that time Ms Holgate has not had any proper notification that she has been stood down from her role, nor has she been informed as to why she should be stood down, nor has she had any communication regarding the investigation into Australia Post from either the board or the government.”
Mr Belling said the board was required to formally notify Ms Holgate if she was being stood down, and why.
“Legally, in my opinion there are no grounds for Ms Holgate to be stood down, and ‘optics’ is not a legally-valid defence,” he said.
“I have taken the step of releasing this statement because within the past week I have written to the board and again separately to the Chairman of Australia Post and have not received a response in terms.”
Ms Holgate said the watches were bought for senior executives who deserved to be rewarded, and that they weren’t paid for with taxpayer funds.
Australia Post chair Lucio Di Bartolomeo last week contradicted Ms Holgate’s claim that the board knew of the spending, saying they were unaware.
“The Board was advised at today’s meeting that a check of Board papers and minutes from this period show the then Board was not asked to approve or note the purchase of those Cartier watches,” he said last week.
