As Dennis Leary would say, I’m just a regular Joe, with a regular job - I like football (all four types, but some more than others). A few things annoy me, like typos on restaurant menus, discourteous (Sydney) drivers and conceited, egotistical, arrogant sycophants who so brazenly flout the common decency (pub) test, that my BS meter breaks through the 180 degree display. Just wanted to put that out there.
Now, as you may or may not be aware, Chris Smith is a highly successful broadcaster on 2GB. He pretty much owns the afternoon timeslot and his success cannot be just brushed aside because you may take issue with some of his positions. So kudos and respect, Chris. Chris has regular guests appearing on certain days in a segment called “Smithy’s Deplorables” and it is during these segments that he and his guests bring in a certain degree of candour and levity. Alex Malley is Chris’s Friday afternoon “Deplorable”. It is my personal belief that the name is justifiably earned and should not be considered in its unstated ironic perspective.
In any event, following the disintegration of my BS meter after listening to one particular podcast which was choked full of fawning and kowtowing, I decided to write to Chris kindly informing him of Alex Malley’s public record. Okay, so maybe I did get a bit technical in my 757 word diatribe, but it’s not as though the subject wasn’t deserving. A week later, I received a jovial response (34 words including greeting and sign-off) which told me to “let it go” and stop being “jealous”, otherwise it would “eat me up”. [Red flag to a bull, anyone??]
So I took the bait and here is my response:
Come on Chris, you can do better than that!
There’s no jealousy directed at Alex – just anger that under his watch, CPA Australia has been reduced to a laughing stock.
I (respectfully) stand by the points made in my earlier letter to you:
- A majority of directors resigned. [Never happened before].
- An unprecedented independent review of CPA’s operations. [Never happened before].
- CPA members to lose legal protection as CPA went into competition against its own members - ie, it breached its role as a regulator of accountants. [Never happened before].
- This subsidiary (ie, CPA Advice) made $47,000 in revenue………but lost $7.4 million.
- This subsidiary has 26 clients (yay, it just signed up 2 more; an 8% increase).
- This subsidiary’s average revenue per client is about $2,000. Average cost per client is about $300,000. That makes even the NBN look like a terrific investment!!!
I know that you can’t publicly show disrespect to a guest, but seriously, have another read of the above 6 points when no one is around……
It’ll eat you up that you would normally tear into such an individual’s record.
On no, the numbers need balancing…….gotta get back to my accounting!!!!
Cheers
Jeremy
I want Alex Malley to talk to the members, not at them.
I want Alex Malley to be held accountable.
I want Alex Malley to be naked with the truth.
I want the hard questions to be asked by Chris. One in particular - “So Alex, if Doc Brown turned up in a DeLorean with a full Flux Capacitor with the ability to go back in time, would you do anything different in your stewardship of CPA Australia?”
Still waiting…..