Robert Deards

Robert ('Bob') Deards was the National Marketing Manager of Telecom Australia at the time of its part-privatization by the Howard Liberal government.

In 1999 he suddenly transfered over to run the Tobacco Document Centre in Australia -- for unknown reasons.

He was replaced in Telecom by Andrew Whist who had been seconded to Telecom by Geoff Bible, the CEO of Philip Morris, in a rapidly concocted "executive exchange" deal between the two companies. Bible had arranged it with his old friend David Hoare, the Chairman of the then Telecom Australia (also a stock-broker, and old board member of Philip Morris Australia).

Bible needed to get Whist out of America following his deposition in the Oklahoma vs US tobacco companies case. There was also a serious investigation by the New York Ethics and Lobbying Commission into the operations of Whist though his fake front organisations and think-tanks.

See Mike Nahan at the Institute of Public Affairs dealings with Bob Deards. {Nahan later became Treasurer, then leader of the Liberal Coalition opposition in Western Australia.)