McGorry ‘taken out of context’ by CAANZ chief van Onselen
Edmund Tadros and Myriam Robin
27 Aug 2024
Leading mental health
expert Patrick McGorry says he was taken out of context in an opinion article
by Chartered Accountants ANZ chief executive Ainslie van Onselen about proposed
new laws to rein in rogue tax agents.
The article, published in The
Australian Financial Review, argued that new laws for
tax agents would deter accountants from seeking mental health help because they
would be obliged to disclose this to prospective and existing clients.
CA
ANZ chief executive Ainslie van Onselen, Daily Mail Australia political editor
Peter van Onselen and mental health expert Patrick McGorry.
In making her point, Ms
van Onselen said she had spoken to Professor McGorry, a former Australian of
the Year, and that he “supported our call for clarification in the
determination that tax agents should not be required to disclose their mental
health status”.
But Professor McGorry
says that while he may have approved that specific wording, he had also told Ms
van Onselen he did not believe the proposed laws would force tax agents to make
disclosures about their mental health.
“I was talking in general that you should not have to disclose your mental health history,” Professor McGorry said. “I’ve been taken out of context. I’m quite unhappy about this.”
Professor
McGorry said he did not have a specific view about the proposed changes to
rules governing tax agents.
‘Only a
possibility’
“I had something proposed
to me and I had replied that people should not have to talk about their mental
health history. I wasn’t commenting on the proposed rules,” he said.
“I did make the point to
Ainslie that the government is not requiring disclosure and it was only a
possibility [they were speculating upon], so I restricted my comments to the
general rather than the specific.”
In response, Ms van
Onselen said she had run the wording of the paraphrased quote by Professor
McGorry before sending her opinion piece to the Financial Review.
“I have deep respect for
Professor Patrick McGorry and the work he does,” she said.
“On 5 August, I had a
detailed conversation with Professor McGorry and our concerns about the Tax
Agent Services (Code of Professional Conduct) Determination, in particular
unclear wording that could require our members to disclose their mental health
to clients ...following these conversations, I sent Professor McGorry a text
message with his quote to approve for use in our communications materials
supporting our advocacy.”
Ms van Onselen said she
provided the quote used in the opinion piece to Professor McGorry and that he
had “replied with approval”.
She thanked Professor
McGorry for his “support on this matter” but said that “if he has changed his
view on this, we are of course happy to withdraw his name from our advocacy”.
Assistant Treasurer Stephen
Jones says the new rules will prevent a repeat of the PwC tax leaks scandal,
where former partner Peter Collins shared confidential government information,
and tighten up self-regulation of the sector that has been found to be
“insufficient”.
‘I did
not condemn the government’
Professor McGorry also
objected to views attributed to him in a separate opinion piece about the new
rules by Ms van Onselen’s husband, Daily
Mail Australia political
editor Peter van Onselen.
In his article, Mr van
Onselen wrote that Professor McGorry had condemned the proposed law changes and
was “calling on the government to reverse its decision”.
Professor McGorry said he
had never condemned the government over the proposed changes to rules governing
tax agents.
“I’m really disappointed
about being quoted in this way ... He [Mr van Onselen] never spoke to me about
this. However, I’ve known Peter for a long time and we have talked about mental
health [before],” Professor McGorry said.
Mr van Onselen declined to comment.
The Mail and the accountants: a Peter van Onselen story
Myriam RobinRear Window editor
Updated Aug 27, 2024
The inimitable Peter van Onselen –
academic, rabble-rouser, journalist – was never going to spend long on the sidelines.
Earlier this year, he
triumphantly returned to journalism as the political editor of the
ever-salacious Daily Mail
Australia. And in that role, which wedges his political insights
between pap shots of Jesinta Franklin and recaps
of Married at First Sight,
he’s covered all manner of punter-friendly political topics.
Early splashes have
covered the price of the dress worn by the Treasurer’s wife; the nerve of lazy
public servants and; ugh, the shifting regulations covering accountants.
One struggles to think
the last is racing up the charts. And yet to this topic van Onselen continues
to return, including on August 13, August 15, August 22, and August 23.
It must be all he talks
about at home. While it isn’t made explicit to readers, everyone in political
circles knows van Onselen’s wife is Ainslie
van Onselen. That is, the head of Chartered Accountants
Australia and New Zealand and an equally outraged campaigner against the new
disclosure rules.
Both argue that these regulations will force
accountants to disclose things such as mental health conditions to their
clients.
Peter
van Onselen is bringing the politics of accounting regulations to a rather
unlikely audience. Alex Ellinghausen
Raging against this kind
of thing is her job. For her members, amplification in the Daily Mail is just a
bonus.
As AvO told Accountant’s Daily on
August 8: “I have spoken with Professor Patrick McGorry AO … and he supports CA
ANZ’s call for clarification in the determination that tax agents should not be
required to disclose their mental health status.”
It’s a line regurgitated
by PvO in the Mail on
August 13: “Professor McGorry ‘supports clarification in the determination that
tax agents should not be required to disclose their mental health history or
status’.”
In the above, PvO is not
actually quoting McGorry, but quoting his wife’s paraphrasing of a discussion
she had with McGorry (that she says McGorry approved). We know this because
McGorry says PvO never called him to check or verify his “exclusive”.
McGorry says he was
speaking only generally about the undesirability of unnecessary mental health
disclosures, and didn’t mean to attack the government, despite PvO writing that
the former Australian of the Year had “weighed in, condemning the changes and calling
on the government to reverse its decision”.
“I did not condemn the
government about the changes,” McGorry said. “I’m really disappointed about
being quoted in this way.”
Van Onselen declined to
comment.
No one wants to have to
check up on their own spouse, which is why most would run a mile from this sort
of thing. But that’s never been van Onselen’s style.
Ainslie used to be a senior Westpac executive. Shortly after her departure, her husband filed an exclusive story about how just departed CEO Brian Hartzer had sensationally claimed the bank was “no Enron” in a meeting with staff.
All around the Westpac
water coolers that morning, staff must have wondered at the political writer’s
impeccable banking sources. It couldn’t have been his wife, who was three
months out the door.