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Board must go: ex-Hardie boss
Ean Higgins
October 01, 2004
MOST board members of James Hardie Industries, including chairman Meredith Hellicar, should resign if chief executive Peter Macdonald is forced to go, a former managing director of the company said yesterday.
David Say, who ran the building products company from 1990 to 1993, said Ms Hellicar bore as much responsibility as Mr Macdonald in the company's asbestos disease funding scandal.
He said others who had sat on the board over the past five years would also have been fully aware of the key events leading up to the underfunding of the trust by up to $2 billion and Hardie's separation from its former asbestos subsidiaries.
The NSW Jackson report last week found evidence that Mr Macdonald had broken criminal law in making public statements, which he allegedly knew to be untrue, claiming the trust would be adequately funded with $293million.
He has officially stepped aside from his post as CEO pending further investigations, but is still running the business.
"If he should go, then the others should," Mr Say, who is now chairman of HSBC Australia, told The Australian.
Regardless of the legal position, he said, the company now had an ethical obligation to meet the claims of future victims of its asbestos products.
Mr Say's remarks came on the eve of the first meeting in Sydney today between Hardie and unions and asbestos disease support groups to try to strike a deal for future funding of the shortfall.
Ms Hellicar is head of the board's subcommittee that is dealing with the asbestos issue.
NSW Premier Bob Carr said this week it would be better to negotiate with a new board and a new chairman.
Ms Hellicar has been on the board for 12 years.
Mr Carr, who has already threatened government boycotts of Hardie products, warned yesterday that if the company failed to provide a concrete offer at today's meeting, it would face even more intense pressure.
The meeting will pit asbestos disease sufferer and campaigner Bernie Banton directly against company negotiators for the first time.
"I hope I can contain my rage," he said last night.
Company spokesman John Noble said it was expected that Ms Hellicar -- who was dodging media yesterday -- would attend today's meeting, but the composition of Hardie's negotiating team had not been confirmed.
Mr Say said the company had failed on the public relations front. "In the past few months they have got themselves into considerable trouble, and they haven't dealt with it well."
Mr Macdonald has said he will defend himself against the findings and Mr Say did not wish to pass judgment on whether he should be sacked.
But he said: "Peter Macdonald and the board were almost as one, as far as I can see, in this."
"I suppose the key mistake is that they thought they could cap the liability, and having it capped for whatever reason at an amount that was far too low."
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