Monte board returns amid renewal calls

MONTEFIORE Home CEO Robert Orie has defended the organisation’s board election process following last Sunday’s Annual General Meeting, which saw the incumbent board returned.

In the only change, board-endorsed candidate Trevor Pogroske was elected to replace the retiring Lewis Levi, while the high-profile ticket of Greg Shand, Craig Shapiro, David Lubowski and Alex Abulafia, as well as independent candidate George Fishman, failed to garner the votes needed.

A debate preceded the tallying of the votes, with renewal and succession planning – the main platform of the four aligned candidates – one of the prominent themes discussed.

The group’s stance on renewal did receive an important endorsement from former Australian Solicitor-General David Bennett, a life governor of the home.

“I am not making any personal criticisms … It’s just that the terms are too long and we need to consider much more seriously the possibility of renewal,” he said.

“What I suggest is that the board in its next term brings to the meeting next year or to an earlier meeting proposed changes to the rules which impose limits on the length of time which members of the board can serve, and which permit proxy or postal voting at elections of directors.”

However, ballot forms and board-endorsed how-to-vote cards were handed out, and as The AJN understands – some votes cast – prior to Shapiro presenting his group’s case to members. There was also some confusion regarding the name of one of the board-endorsed candidates, Renee Symonds, being missing from documentation sent to members, on which the retiring Levi was included.

But Orie told The AJN the election process was scrupulous. “The ballot paper was reviewed and accepted by the independent auditors who oversaw the election process, including the lodgement of votes,” he said.

“The board was well within its rights to hand out how-to-vote cards in support of the board-endorsed candidates, as was it the right of the other group to do so.

“The outcome of the vote was so overwhelmingly in favour of the board-endorsed candidates that in the event of any members voting prior to the end of the discussion, which is not prohibited under the Act under which the home is constituted, in my opinion made no difference to the election result.”

Speaking at the AGM, Montefiore president David Freeman reiterated that the insistence of Shand, Shapiro, Lubowski and Abulafia to be endorsed as a group had led to the board’s rejection. He did not mention, as The AJN reported last week, that the group would accept a lesser number being elected.

Freeman did concede that there was “obviously some communal concern about succession planning of the home”.

“But in my opinion it certainly does not constitute anything like the crisis that is being portrayed,” he said.

He said longevity was a major advantage, “because it enabled the members of the community to know and trust who was running the organisation” but did accept that “clearly there are arguments for both sides of the debate”.

“There will be discussion in the forthcoming year about these issues and we will report back to the community,” he said.

Businesswoman and philanthropist Millie Phillips, who has waged a public campaign against the governance of the board, was not at the meeting.

GARETH NARUNSKY

Montefiore Home president David Freeman (right).

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