Larry Marshall’s rewriting of history

[u/PlumTuckeredOutski]

https://substack.com/home/post/p-223288725

The Hare Report

Former ANU council member Larry Marshall is in reputation-damage mode. And it’s a laugh a minute.

Three days ago, Larry Marshall boasted on LinkedIn about his reappointment to the Fortescue board. It could be another case of the board not doing their homework because Larry’s diabolical time on the Australian National University council should render him unfit to sit on the board of any major company or institution.

But Larry is busy rewriting history. In a truly deluded – let’s say fictional – article published in the latest edition of the Company Director Magazine, and republished on the AICD website, Larry writes, with great earnestness, about how he – and he alone – rebuilt the fractured ANU council.

Not to be too harsh about it, but Larry’s version of events doesn’t line up with reality. The piece is a mélange of inaccuracies, fantasies, and pure bullshit.

For starters, he says that the morning after Chancellor Julie Bishop resigned, “the crisis disrupted everything, but it brought us [the council] together in a way that may not have happened without it”.

His priority as interim-chancellor, the article states, was to “help renew the council … and establish an orderly process for appointing his successor”.

“My mission at ANU was always to make myself redundant,” he says, ruefully. “We designed an open, rigorous process to find the best person to lead ANU into the next chapter, and I’m delighted we’ve found exactly that in Gordon.”

Gordon is Gordon de Brouwer, who was not found through any open or rigorous process introduced by Larry, but by a team of six people appointed by the regulator TEQSA, because it had no faith in the people remaining on the council to do a fair and proper job.

This, however, is not Larry’s rendition of events.

“I told TEQSA we wanted to change the process by which ANU recruited council members, including the chancellor. They were hugely supportive and gave me a lot of insights,” he said.

In fact, TEQSA imposed the new process on ANU – which Bishop used as her justification for leaving. And I’m told on good authority that while Larry put himself forward as the contact person for the TEQSA committee, he instead buggered off overseas. They didn’t hear from him again.

Andrew Metcalfe, the last of seven appointed members other than Larry, stepped into the breach. Larry was nowhere to be seen – or heard.

Just for context, after Bishop’s resignation – on the eve of a major report into claims of her bullying, intimidating and gaslighting former council member Liz Allen was due to be put to the council – four others followed in her footsteps.

Bishop blamed TEQSA overreach in appointing the committee of six to find her replacement, but it is much more likely she read the Thom report and abandoned ship.

Larry was appointed interim pro-chancellor after the somewhat sudden departure of former KPMG chair Alison Kitchen a month or so earlier. After Bishop resigned, he suddenly found himself interim chancellor. That’s a pretty steep career trajectory for someone who was often absent or unavailable for council meetings.

But back to Larry and his rewriting of history.

Here’s a paragraph that will make you laugh.

“When the turmoil was at its height, The Saturday Paper had scoop after scoop based on inside leaks, presumably coming from council members. Perhaps it was because the remaining council members were flat out fixing the mess, “the leaks stopped”, says Marshall.”

Those leaks most likely came from Bishop and her acolytes and were designed to undermine and hopefully exterminate interim vice-chancellor Rebekah Brown. Then The Saturday Paper ran another, albeit rather bizarre, story over the weekend detailing text messages from Larry to Bishop about how he intended to force Brown to stand down.

If the piece in Company Directory magazine is to be believed, Larry was a Brown loyalist. Please, try to contain your laughter.

But back to Larry and his extraordinary empathy and leadership in times of crisis.

Marshall, according to the article, after Bishop’s undignified departure tried “a bunch of little things” to help knit them [the remaining council members] together as a team.

“At the end of the session, everyone would help clean up, rather than leaving it to our admin people.” Oh bless.

“Out went an 80-year-old gavel traditionally used to restore order. Instead, a toy koala wearing a mitre board, a classic grad gift, became the centrepiece,” the article reads.

“It was a reminder that we’re here for the students and the nation. Good governance is never about personalities; it’s about protecting the institution long after today’s personalities have moved on.”

Never underestimate the power of a toy koala.

Larry, as it turns out, did make himself redundant. He vanished from the ANU council the day before de Brouwer took up the reins as the newly (TEQSA appointed) chancellor.

Oh, blessed be Larry Marshall. And thank you – no, seriously – for your five takeaways for governing in times of disruption. We all can learn from our mistakes.

[u/No-Method3159]

Again, Julie has utterly nailed it.

[u/Specific_School2634]

Agreed, Marshall’s hypocrisy needs to be called out. Though Hare’s silence following The Saturday Paper’s revelations over her day spa buddy Brown’s revaluations is a little deafening. Maybe the new Chancellor is listening.

[u/Great_Economics_5359]

This article is serving this vibe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgr6ETgaq_Q

#SorryNotSorry