Following outcry over the Liberals’ decision to bypass shortlisting in favor of PwC consultant Alex Dore at Hughes’ NSW seat, the Labor Party followed suit with its own consultant candidate.
Evidently inspired by the ongoing schmozzle created by the Federal Liberals’ attempt to parachute PwC consultant and Manly resident Alex Dore into Hughes’ working-class NSW electorate, Labor has now done the same thing with the Accenture chief executive Andrew Charlton at Western Sydney’s headquarters in Parramatta, one of the world’s most diverse countries – with, predictably, the same result; outrage among local union members.
Amid infighting between liberal factions in NSW over pre-selections, the party’s federal executive tried in January to use its powers of intervention to place its preferred candidates, or “captain’s choice”, in eight seats primaries, including the transmission of Dore – a former president of the Young Liberals. and the Australian editor’s nephew – in Hughes.
The whole saga is now set to play out in the NSW Supreme Court following backlash within the local party.
Currently an associate director, Dore has been with PwC’s management consulting division since 2015, after a stint as a ministerial policy adviser to the New South Wales Premier and Cabinet Department. According to his professional biography, Dore focuses on advising the skills and healthcare sectors, with functional experience in strategy, business case development, public policy analysis, project management and, ironically, lending. process improvement.
Now, the federal Labor branch has launched a similar stench just days before an election campaign, by proposing to plant Accenture chief executive and former adviser Rudd Andrew Charlton in the multicultural seat of Parramatta, a potential local candidate and lawyer. union Abha Devasia described as tone deaf and willfully disrespectful to the community because Charlton was a “millionaire white man from the eastern suburbs”.
Charlton, a regular columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald, joined Accenture in 2020 in the acquisition of his co-founded economic strategy consultancy AlphaBeta, part of the proceeds of which were reportedly earmarked soon after for a $16 million property in the affluent port suburb of Bellevue Hill. Last year, he was promoted to head of sustainability services for Accenture’s growth markets division.
While denying reports that she was interested in contesting the seat herself, former Labor candidate Charishma Kaliyanda told the ABC it was important to consider whether the eventual choice reflected the diversity of the region, with Chinese, Indians and Lebanese. a third of the electorate alone.
“What Accenture’s conference rooms need may be different from what the Parramatta community needs,” Kaliyanda argued.
