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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

McGorry ‘taken out of context’ by CA ANZ chief van Onselen - The Mail and the accountants: a Peter van Onselen story

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.