Joe Aston’s war with Alex Malley is a triumph for campaigning journalism
Campaigning by the AFR's Rear Window has triggered major changes for the CPA and forced it to reveal the sizeable salary of its fame-hungry CEO. Mumbrella's Tim Burrowes argues that the saga demonstrates that the role of a newspaper diarist is often underrated.
The Australian Financial Review has a good scoop on its front page today.
But the credit for much of the campaigning work that got it there belongs on the back page.
In recent months, the place to start The Australian Financial Review every day has been Joe Aston’s Rear Window column – to find out the latest on his war of attrition with the CPA.
For months, Aston has been battling for the boss of the accountancy industry body to reveal his salary.
The boss in question is Alex Malley, who may be familiar to you even if you’re not an accountant, as the CPA has been spending millions of dollars a year in making him famous.
They’ve paid for him to have his own TV show on Nine – “In Conversation with Alex Malley” – in which he interviews actors and astronauts and the like.
They’ve helped him publish a book.
They’ve built up a social media following for him.
They’ve paid for him to front a careers advice website in which he tells students about what he gets up to.
Malley’s careers advice website
It turns out that money can buy fame.
Or as many a desperate agency boss trying to hold on to a piece of business knows, when in doubt, put the client in the ad.
The Naked CEO even won the CPA a silver in Mumbrella’s BEfest Branded Entertainment Awards in 2015. The justification being that Malley humanises the face of accountancy and provides a role model for future members to aspire to.
But then Aston began to question whether the expenditure by the CPA was actually benefiting its CEO more than it was the membership of the organisation. He was first to point out that the content marketing emperor was wearing no clothes.
Aston’s column last year questioned CPA expenditure on making Malley famous
And as Aston began to point out hypocrisies, with Malley writing columns about big business transparency without telling members what he was being paid to run the industry body, the pressure on the CPA began to mount.
Wider questions about governance, disclosure and its board members began to come to the fore.
AFR colleagues also began to join the battle, with stories and revelations moving to the rest of the paper.
But still, details weren’t revealed to members about what Malley is being paid.
Meanwhile, the CPA swiped back, hinting to members Aston was motivated by jealousy of Malley because he lost his own Sunday morning TV slot.
Aston had his own slot on the AFR’s short-lived Sunday morning business show
But today, came a key moment. The CPA finally revealed to the AFR’s Patrick Durkin that Malley is being paid $1.8m a year – a lot for the boss of an organisation with lots of small-end-of-town members, and more than the bosses of many ASX companies. Durkin also revealed that chairman Tyrone Carlin, who has only been in the role for a few months, is stepping down “in the spirt of renewal”.
And of course, that’s not quite the end of the story. It’s hard to see how Malley will retain the moral authority to continue to lead the organisation in the future. Every time members see his face on an airport billboard they’ll be reminded of how much they’re paying him.
Nonetheless, it’s already a victory for the Rear Window campaign.
And it demonstrates the role a good diarist can play. The job of mixing humour, with campaigning reporting and a willingness to be unpopular isn’t for everybody.
Aston also made enemies when he was among the first to deride the decision to make Deborah Thomas the boss of Ardent Leisure. Some accused him of sexism in questioning why a former magazine editor was ideally qualified to run a leisure parks group, but Thomas’ inept handling of the Dreamworld disaster proved him right.
And as I’ve said, he made enemies of the CPA leadership too.
But the secret to winning a journalism campaign is to keep going. And he kept going.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
Linkedin
well said Sir!
User ID not verified.
I agree completely Tim. Aston’s campaign was brilliant. Funny, acerbic, entertaining, well-written and aimed at a perfect target.
User ID not verified.
I have enjoyed following Joe Aston’s diary and it has been written with quite some humour but as a CPA member it is somewhat depressing that our member funds have been frittered away and that has taken so long for CPA to take action.
User ID not verified.
question is: how come no-one within CPA leadership (or membership) hasn’t raised the same questions Aston has. Its not like it hasn’t been glaringly obvious how much of CPA’s marketing effort and $ have been thrown at building Alex Malley’s profile. The books, the billboards, the TV shows, the websites…..all of them all about Alex Malley, not about CPA. And that’s all before his massive salary is taken into consideration. Extraordinary.
User ID not verified.
From what I gather, plenty of CPA members have taken issue with it, but until Aston began to really bang the drum there was no mechanisms for oversight or real change.
User ID not verified.
@minnie – because up until now no one has had a clue how much the CEO has been paid… and we still dont know the full cost of advertising for Alex Malley vs CPA Brand. The salary has only just come out because of the relentless push by one journo. So please dont blame the poor CPA members for not knowing what they weren’t told!
Now that we know, believe me there will be massive uproar.. most CPAs are small end of town people, not big business, and our $700/year membership fee isnt taken lightly. Paying our CEO $1.8m is far too much for a member-based organisation. I wouldnt even dare to guess what all the advertising costs.. and i’d love to see teh split of how much has been spent on ads featuring Alex Malley vs ads just on the CPA brand
User ID not verified.
If Aston was consistent he’d be asking a lot of questions about others. But he’s not. Malley was a fat target and a fairly easy mark.
(Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy)
User ID not verified.
you could have mentioned the ABC TV investigation, no doubt triggered by the AFR . http://www.abc.net.au/news/201.....ks/8521882
User ID not verified.
Good one Dr Mumbo. Malley’s first interview was a bit of a scoop – Neil Armstrong, who I believe did not grant interviews but whose father (IIRC) was an accountant. Could not figure how the CPA would actually pay for a show until Aston mentioned in one of his many that watching this show contributed to hours accrued for yearly professional training under the CPA banner. Now that takes vision. $1.8m. Not quite Fahoud.
User ID not verified.
Yes – perfectly aimed at such a self promoting gentleman, a man who places his monster ego way in front of any benefit to his customers.
User ID not verified.
Hi Minnie, many cpa members have been raising these matters for some period of time. A group of us back in early 2016 had the “pleasure” of chairman Graeme wade and coo jeff Hughes front us to explain. Their answers were an insult to our intelligence and yes they were shouted Down. The end result is I was banned from postings on cpa Facebook and received implied threats of being sued for defamation. CPA hired a lawyer Mark O,Brian to look into these matters
The bottom line is they simply ignore critics and changes made to cpa voting rules effectively killed members right to vote….they appointed each other. It became a macquarie uni old boys club and they all collectively rorted the system
User ID not verified.
While it’s impossible to sympathise with Malley I do find it difficult to associate Aston’s work with “campaigning journalism”. More in the style of WRHearst.
User ID not verified.
Campaigns especially political campaigns are not journalism so I wouldn’t be waving the flags too hard. The Aston campaign against Malley has more spin than truth and is filled with cheap shots of a personal nature. What about Grey Hywood’s remuneration from Fairfax? He refused to answer questions about his remuneration at a Senate hearing. What about the remuneration of directors in billion dollar multinational companies operating in Australia- why isn’t that published? The real issues in remuneration disclosures have not been ventilated because a witch hunt against one man makes for better drama and click bait. When will we get the low down about Hywood’s family’s property portfolio?
User ID not verified.
Joe has done a fantastic job ripping open the stomach-churning back scratching that’s been going on at the CPA Board, with a wonderful sense of humor thrown in too. Unacceptable, they all need to go.
User ID not verified.
This is very inspiring, keep up the great work Joe. The governing laws of all professional bodies should be reviewed to for the better.
User ID not verified.
Really enjoy reading Joe Aston and Rear Window – I turn to the back first. Also think he has relentlessly pursued a worthy story. I think however there is a question to be asked about the point to which persistence and focus crosses the line and becomes bullying and intimidation. The relentless nature of it all and some of the personal commentary did cross the line, perhaps?
User ID not verified.
Great article Tim, and totally agree, good on Joe Aston, and what a disaster for CPA members. What’s sad is that prior to this cargo-cult type of behaviour, CPA had actually done an amazing job building their brand, in an environment where they are always considered the poor cousin to the CA (Chartered Accountants) juggernaut.
User ID not verified.
Did you know the CPA used loads of their budget to promote this guys book at the airport. Complete waste of money and really self serving. Sad.
User ID not verified.
Hmmm.. agree with this article but isn’t it a pre-emptive defence against raised eyebrows in the future? Ie when people eventually doubled back to question mumbrella’s bestowal of an award on Alex malley’s for advertising himself. At the time blind Freddy could tell you that it was in his interests, not the organisations! It didn’t need a joe Aston campaign to figure that out.
User ID not verified.
Aston was lucky. Malley is a sitting duck. In fact it is astonishing that his members haven’t strung him up some time back.
Aston’s day to day work is much less worthy and often unattractive. He’s usually either sucking up to his suppliers of freebies or sucking up to various big shots. He is always sucking up to his patron, Mr Maserati.
But Aston really pisses me off when he takes cheap shots at people, often people who have somehow offended him or his mates.
User ID not verified.
There is a certain English snarkiness in transplanted journalists from the UK. They seem to hate everything and everybody. So is that journalism, or just meanness?
User ID not verified.
I dunno, “Aston a pom”, but as (his Linkedin profile tells me) he went to University in Sydney, and has spent virtually all his career in Australia, I think you might be barking up the wrong tree.
Don’t you just hate the meanness of anonymous posters? They seem to hate everything and everybody…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
Ordinary fee paying members don’t get a vote for the board thanks to some crafty consitution amendments a decade ago
User ID not verified.
@ Tim Burrowes.
Ok that clears up one theory. So he is just a snarky journo.
As for anonymous commenters…well sorry Tim…you created and profit from this type of environment…so why is that even an issue for you? I wasn’t being mean or hateful. I was commenting.
User ID not verified.
Hi “Aston a pom”,
I think you may have missed the joke. I was repeating your own words.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I resigned my membership of cpa the day Alex Malley was appointed ceo. I have waited 20 years for this shonky behaviour to come to light . Intimidation forces me to remain anonymous. So pleased his behaviour at Macquarie university is now exposed. I still have “receipt” for dodgy text book sales.
User ID not verified.
A disgraceful waste of people’s hard earned cash….
User ID not verified.