When you wish upon a Tarr

Tony Tarr's long and bumpy ride through academe and business ... Gravitating from one ivory tower to another ... Bridging the gap between money and scholarship ... From the Queensland Law Society to a global recognition ... Sir Terence O'Rort reports on a remarkable career 

The good burghers of Brisvegas are still reeling from the enrolment scandal that has enveloped the University of Queensland and claimed the scalps of two of UQ's top administrators.

Readers may have noticed the awful confusion that recently erupted when a relative of vice-chancellor Prof Paul Greenfield apparently received preferential enrolment treatment as a result of an "administrative error".

Greenfield and Professor Michael Keniger fell on their swords (see announcement). 

It is not the first time that one of UQ's favourite sons has attracted the attention of Brisvegan media reptiles.

Let's not forget former UQ law school supremo Professor Anthony (Tony) Tarr, widely known throughout the Pacific rim since the early 1990s.

Tarr was a specialist in insurance law and had authored a number of articles and texts in the area. He first came to prominence in 1988 as foundation dean of the Bond University Law School, named after one of Australia's well-known convicts, Alan (Chesty) Bond.

Queensland Law Society

About four years after the Surfers Paradise appointment Tarr migrated to Brisvegas in 1992 as CEO of the creaky old Queensland Law Society.

Along with the job as head honcho at the QLS came a swag of directorships of law society corporate entities, including QLS Superannuation Pty Ltd, which administered compulsory superannuation contributions from Queensland lawyers on behalf of their employees.

More about that in a minute.

Tarr's time at the QLS was notable for his blood feud with the society's long time in-house lawyer, Scott (Carving Knife) Carter, who outstayed Tarr at the society, but later bailed with a redundancy package.

APPIIL

Tarr: visionaryIn February 1996 Tarr spread his corporate wings and jumped from the QLS to take up the job as CEO of its insurance business, Australasian Pacific Professional Indemnity Insurance Limited (APPIIL).

APPIIL was formed in early 1996 to be the QLS's insurance arm. The rules were changed to make it compulsory for all Queensland solicitors to insure through APPIIL. 

Prior to that solicitor's negligence claims had been handled by Law Claims, an internal department of the Law Society.

By 1996 Law Claims had cash assets of $7.3 million, due to the good claims record of Queensland lawyers.

Although APPIIL had only one client, the solicitor punters of Queensland, and although the solicitors had no choice but to insure with APPIIL, it was decided by the company's board (which included Tarr) that suitably schmick corporate premises were needed to accomodate APPIIL's 17 employees. 

With Tarr at the helm there followed an impressive spending spree, with more than $1 million lavished on the insurer's premises, an average of $66,000 per employee. 

CEO Tarr's office was outfitted with a French mahogany desk and bookcase and other reproductions costing almost $12,000.

There was another $2,500 worth of decorative vases and paintings outside the prof's office.

The APPIIL boardroom cost around $20,000, money well spent considering the tense negotiations that directors would be expected to undertake with their one captive customer. 

The workers had a "lunch room/bar area" that cost $11,000 to fit out.

And in case APPIIL executives were working so hard that they didn't have time to pop home to do the washing, the office facilities included a clothes dryer, washing machine and dishwasher. 

The jarrah boardroom table added another $16,000 to the bill. 

A corporate icemaker was wheeled-in for $4,066 and a water pump and filter for the ice machine was a snip at $1,435.

Whittaker: investigative reptile at The BugleClink, clink. Remember, these are 1996 dollars.

This office re-fit was subjected to spiteful populist sensationalism by the Bowen Hills Bugle and its then chief investigative reptile, Paul Whittaker. 

How typical of the small-mindedness of these provincial types, employed by that old miser Murdoch, that they would try to knock down a captain of industry serving his community.  

Despite the carping of the reptiles TT soldiered on at APPIIL collecting a belt-tightening $350,000-360,000, plus bonuses, for the 1997-1998 year.

It was a complete shock when, after only 18 months, APPIIL needed more working capital and it sold shares to AON Group Australia Ltd and St Paul Fire & Marine Company Ltd to get some badly needed cash.

The problem was that the share sales were tied to other agreements that required APPIIL to pay AON $650,000 a year and allowed St Paul Fire & Marine to sell APPIIL reinsurance.

In 1997-1998 APPIIL paid St Paul $3,254,927 for reinsurance but St Paul had paid out only $184,761 in claims. 

The 1997-1998 financial statements disclosed a profit of $273,110 - but the auditor said this profit was only produced by using a higher discount rate on outstanding claims.

Without this bit of tinkering the APPIIL profit would have been a measly $17,110. 

As the press reptiles reported, things went from bad to worse at APPIIL. Eventually the show was sold at the knacker's yard in order to prop-up other QLS related entities.

UQ Law School 

Despite the ice machine the temperature was rising at APPIIL. The sylvan halls of academe beckoned and in December 1998 Tarr accepted an appointment as head of the TC Beirne School of Law at the University of Queensland.

In October of that year the APPIIL board not only waived the required six months notice under his contract, but agreed to pay TT six months salary, even though he was starting at the UQ law school on December 1. 

Some might have interpreted that as an encouragement for the CEO to depart as promptly as possible. 

Unfortunately reptile Whittaker got wind of certain irregularities in Tarr's CV and published the details in the Bowen Hills Bugle under the delicious title "Law Prof admits a degree of error". 

Tarr claimed that he had been awarded the degree of Bachelor of Laws with honours from the University of Natal. The problem seemed to be that the University of Natal did not award law degrees with honours.

There was more confusion with TT's LLM (with first class honours) from Cambridge.

Maybe it was a problem with the way it expressed. All graduate degrees from Cambridge come with honours, it's just part of the style of the place.

Further, after a brief hiatus, batchelor degrees are upgraded to Masters degrees. LLB(Hons) automatically becomes LLM. However, the LLM is not usually regarded as a substantive qualification. 

All of this controversy outraged then UQ vice chancellor and Tarr patron John Hay who penned a stinging letter to the editor of the Bugle defending TT.

Is it any wonder Prof Tarr later packed his swag and hitch a ride to the US of A? The pettiness and provincialism of Brisvegas and its press was beyond the pale.

ASIC sues TT

Jealous people often target others who are more successful and prominent and this applies to public servants of all varieties

There was confusion in 2001 when the plod from ASIC decided to sue Tarr and some of his colleagues over simple misunderstandings that had occurred when TT was at the helm of QLS Superannuation.

Tarr was a director of QLS super, along with his friend Gerald Parker. ASIC sought from the former CEO and other directors compensation for losses chalked-up by the company. 

All the directors had insurance and the action against Tarr was settled with the insurer agreeing to pay the compensation sought by ASIC in exchange for discontinuance of the action.

However, ASIC elected to pursue disqualification proceedings against Parker and the trial was conducted in the Federal Court, Brisbane.

Justice Doug (Bulldog) Drummond took a dim view of TT's standards of corporate governance. He was also distressed that Tarr was not around to give evidence.

According to Bulldog, Tarr and the other directors ... 

"committed QLSS to commercial lending of LES Fund's moneys, when the board lacked expertise in that area, without putting in place prudential controls; they approved the loan to Perdriau, though that meant that, with the earlier two loans, over a quarter of the Fund's entire assets had been lent out in this new area of business, without taking the trouble to look closely at the proposal and, in particular, they approved this loan at about the same time the second of the loans made by the board on behalf of the LES Fund had gone into default."

A counsel of perfection from HH.

By this stage Tarr had moved to Indiana, where he took up the position of Dean of the University of Indiana-Indianapolis Law School from July 1, 2002. 

Indiana University

His arrival at Indiana was proudly trumpeted (see announcement). 

Unfortunately, TT's skills attracted attention.

Susanah Mead, who succeeded TT as dean, reported to a campus planning committee meeting in 2005-2006:

"The whole meeting was focused on the School of Law recovery of financial distress. At one point the fund deficit reached $2.1 million. Last year half this deficit was eliminated. The cause [of the] deficit was placed mostly on the previous Dean Tony Tarr. He mismanaged hiring (excessive) and used soft money and encumbered funds for operating expenditures."

Again, the merits of a risk-taker with corporate flair were insufficiently acknowledged. 

University of South Pacific

Tarr: signing-on at USPPalm-fringed Pacific atolls beckoned and TT accepted appointment as vice-chancellor of the University of the South Pacific (USP) from January 1, 2005.

USP is a regional university funded by struggling dots in the ocean - such as Fiji, Cook Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Naru, Niue, Samoa, Solomon Islands. It has multiple campuses in the region.

Tarr wasted no time in getting the ball rolling, after all he was being paid a handsome salary - FJD$500,000 a year (in today's money about AUD$266,393). The Fijian press reported: 

"Secret negotiations

'At around the time that Tarr came in, the university had started restructuring so he was making some very important appointments,' explained Tuimaleali'ifano.

'He appointed four deans to the faculties as well as a new team in his administration. The team comprised a deputy vice chancellor, three pro vice chancellors, a registrar who was already there and a director of finance who was also already there.

'So in addition to that management team were the four deans and Tarr secretly negotiated packages for all of them which no one, not even the council, knew about until the salary slips were leaked to the media last year.

The salary slips revealed they were receiving exorbitant packages; on average, around FJD$250,000 each. The vice chancellor was getting almost FJD$500,000, the deputy was getting around FJD$400,000 and everybody else was on around FJD$300,000 down to FJD$200,000 each'." (see report). 

TT helped establish a joint venture with a US-based software development company, Stepstone Technologies Inc, which had relocated to Fiji. It promised to employ 75 scientists within three years.

USP owned 30.8 percent of the joint venture with the balance being held by "husband and wife team Darryl and Kate Duke" and Tapei Enterprises Pty Ltd.

According to a USP press release Stepstone Pacific's ambition was to create a ...

"world-class software development capacity, provide training to local software developers directly and through accelerated learning programmes, to be developed jointly with USP." 

Things didn't quite work out that way. Stepstone Pacific obtained loans of FJD$700,000 from USP and sought further financial assistance, at which point USP ended the venture writing-off its entire investment in Stepstone (see report). 

Zero-Gen Limited

Faced with this upset the vice chancellor paddled his canoe back to familiar shores and arrived in Oz to become managing director of Zero-Gen Limited.

Zero-Gen was established to develop clean coal technology with the emphasis on carbon capture. There were expectations that the new technology would capture 90 percent of coal emissions.

Captain Bligh announced that it was intended to establish a "world-first" clean coalpower station in central Queensland.

In order to get the show off the ground the Queensland government contributed $116 million, the Ruddstar $43 million and the coal industry $50 million.

Imagine the distress when Zero-Gen was wound-up in October 2011 with no power station, no clean coal technology and no money.

Captain Bligh insisted that everything was OK and money had not been wasted and that the company's technology would be given to the Australian Coal Association to ensure that the knowledge gained by Zero-Gen was not lost.

However, the Chairman of the Coal Association rather spoiled things, saying that he knew nothing about this plan.

Tarr: fact finding for Zero-GenQueensland's Treasurer, Andrew Fraser, claimed that the Commonwealth government was an "equity partner" and was actively involved in the winding-up of Zero-Gen, but this was contradicted by Federal Resources Minister Marn Ferguson, who said that the Feds only found out in early October that the company would be liquidated (see report). 

With pollies running in all directions is it any wonder that the media reptiles then turned their attention to Prof Tarr. He suffered the indignity of being labelled a "kimono-wearing carbon expert", while on a fact-finding mission to Japan. 

By now it seems clear that indolent pollies, media reptiles and other jealous and unsuccessful people have it in for Prof Tarr. 

Xstrata Coal Limited

TT's latest incarnation is as group manager commercial business development with Xstrata Limited, a global mining conglomerate trying to merge with the world's larest commodity trader Glencore.

Tarr's job is to spruik the benefits of developing both coal and coal shale gas simultaneously.

It's been a fascinating trip from insurance law expert, to the management of ivy-clad halls of learing to entrepreneur and captain of industry. 

As Deep Throat advised Bob Woodward in All the President's Men: "Follow the money." 

Sir Terence O'Rort reporting