Post by Peter Lyndon-James GAICD, CitWA, QBE

Names. You wanted to know who sold Canberra’s trust to a foreign consultancy. Here they are. The buyer: Accenture. American-listed, Dublin-based. Local boss Peter Burns announced the CyberCX deal. Back in 2020 it was chairman Bob Easton announcing the AlphaBeta one. Global CEO Julie Sweet runs the machine. The sellers: Andrew Charlton — former economic adviser to the PM. Sold AlphaBeta to Accenture for a reported $35 million, stayed on as their managing director, now sits at Labor’s Cabinet table writing digital economy policy. Alastair MacGibbon, the government’s former cyber security tsar. Co-founded CyberCX with ex-Optus boss John Paitaridis. Built it on $140 million of federal contracts, Defence, Foreign Affairs, Home Affairs. Sold to Accenture for a reported $1 billion. Private equity outfit BGH Capital, which owned it, took the lion’s share. The approver: a foreign takeover like this needs sign-off through the Foreign Investment Review Board and that decision sits in one office. The Treasurer’s. Jim Chalmers. Has a single journalist asked him why “Sovereign Secure Cloud” is now foreign-owned? The silent: Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, seven years at McKinsey. His finance spokeswoman Claire Chandler, five years at Deloitte. Richard Marles, Penny Wong and Tony Burke run the three departments whose cyber protection just changed owners. All quiet Nobody on this list broke a single rule. That’s not a defence of them. That’s an indictment of the rules. None of it is illegal. That’s the problem. What’s your Thoughts…? Peter Lyndon-James 🇦🇺 Sources: - Accenture Newsroom (AlphaBeta, 2020); The Mandarin & ACS Information Age/AFR (CyberCX $1bn); Silicon UK ($140m contracts); Startup Daily (Burns quotes); Consultancy.com.au (Charlton, Taylor); FIRB framework — foreign acquisition decisions rest with the Treasurer.