Tom Harley
Tom Harley is President Corporate Development at BHP Billiton and is active at the top levels of the Liberal Party of Australia. He is a key facilitator of a "1996 wheat "donation" to Iraq and the illegal recouping of an associated "debt" six years later by a mysterious BHP-linked company". [1]
History
Tom Harley is a great grandson of Alfred Deakin. In the 1970s, Harley attended RMIT, receiving a Bachelor of Business (Economics) from RMIT before going on to a Master of Letters (Politics) at the University of Oxford. He was prominent in the Young Liberals during the 1970s with fellow liberals Michael Kroger and Peter Costello.
In 1984, he joined BHP Billiton, and rose to the executive level. He was appointed President Corporate Development in January 2004.
Tom Harley (Joint Managing Director of Dragoman Consulting) "is a political scientist with an economics and finance background. In 2008, Tom was appointed non-executive Chairman of Dow Chemical (Australia) and Senior Advisor to The Dow Chemical Company’s Executive Leadership Team (Globally). Tom was President of Corporate Development at BHPB, where he designed and implemented BHPB’s worldwide political risk analysis methodology and developed strategies in jurisdictions where BHPB had actual or prospective businesses – including some very challenging African and Asian countries. Together with John, he worked on global comparative fiscal regimes across the resources sector. He was previously head of Mergers and Acquisitions for BHPB’s Petroleum Group. Prior to his work in Petroleum, Tom was involved in BHP’s financial restructuring and funding in BHP’s Corporate Treasury. Tom is President of the Victorian Arts Centre Trust, a member of the Advisory Board of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, Chairman of the Menzies Research Centre and Chairman of the Australia Saudi Business Council." [1]
Roles
Harley is Chairman of the Menzies Research Centre, a think tank run by the Liberal Party which also receives a federal government subsidy.
He has been appointed by the Howard government to a number of paid government positions, including Chairman of the Australian Heritage Council – the Australian Government's policy advisory body on natural, indigenous and built heritage - since January 2004, and member of the Council for Australian-Arab Relations.
Harley is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Australian National University's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, was a Director of UNICEF Australia from 1998 until 2005 and was President between 1997 and 2001.
Controversy
In 2005, Harley became embroiled in the AWB Limited scandal, when it emerged that he was a key facilitator of a "donation" of wheat to Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, which he descibed at as "being akin to some form of bribe … (and) opening the company to the allegation that it is aiding an international pariah." [2]
Other Sourcewatch Resources
External Resources
- Jamie Freed, "A desert storm threatens BHP", The Age, Feb 11, 2006.
- Dan Silkstone, "What eggs have to do with price of wheat", The Age, March 10, 2006.
