Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

Last Wednesday, 10 June, I spoke here in the Senate about the Australian construction giant Lendlease and, in particular, about the fact that, although the company has generated tens of billions of dollars in revenue and profit before tax, has raked in a billion dollars of federal government construction contracts and is now dipping into the JobKeeper wage subsidy, it hasn't paid any corporate tax for years—not a brass razoo.

I had some strong things to say about the chair of the Lendlease board, Michael Ullmer, who has, quite wrongly, been honoured with an AO for a long career in corporate number-crunching and the pursuit of profit without social conscience. Predictably, this didn't go down well with Lendlease. These corporate executives rarely like to have the spotlight turned on them—at least, not unless it's been directed at them by their own team of PR flunkies.

Last Thursday, the day after that speech, I received a letter from Mr Ullmer and the Lendlease group CEO and managing director, Steve McCann. I hadn't mentioned Mr McCann in my speech last week, and it was remiss of me not to do so. So I shall fill in some details about him now. Steve McCann has been with Lendlease for 15 years, and CEO since 2009. Prior to his appointment as chief executive officer, he was Lendlease Group's finance director and the chief executive for Lendlease's investment management business. McCann, like his boss, Mr Ullmer, is a lifelong corporate number-cruncher. Prior to joining Lendlease he had 15 years experience in property funds management and investment banking. With degrees in finance and law from Monash University, he's a member of the Business Council of Australia and the Property Council of Australia. McCann appears to lack the social pretensions of his boss. He's not on the board of any symphony orchestra or art gallery. He doesn't feel the need to cloak his corporate wheeling and dealing in some engagement with high culture. Instead, he enjoys the country air at his sprawling mansion, once used on The Biggest Loser TV series, in the exclusive Sydney suburb of Duffys Forest. And if you've done as well as McCann has as a corporate account and lawyer you can certainly indulge in your hobbies, which in his case are racehorses and punting.

Although he has been described by other investment bankers as one of the finest leaders in business, it's hard to see McCann as any sort of corporate exemplar. After all, his single achievement has been to radically minimise Lendlease's corporate tax liabilities to the point of not paying corporate tax for the last five years. Just to recap, and this is according to the tax office's tax transparency data: over the last five years, from 2013-14 to 2017-18, Lendlease generated $43 billion in revenue and they didn't pay a cent in corporate tax. There is lots of greyness—