The Battle for the Board

The proposed changes to the constitutions of both Penrith District Rugby League Football Club (PDRLFC, the district club) and Penrith Rugby League Club Ltd (PRLC, the licensed club) were put to the Penrith members on 15 September, approved, and implemented. The sitting Board was in the box seat to be re-elected. Traditionally, sitting directors were all returned in a Panthers’ election. The system of placing an asterisk beside the name of each current director, and the apathy with which board elections were viewed by members, had seen few incumbents removed over the years.

The Five needed to retain at least five positions to maintain their majority on the nine-person Penrith Football Club Board. Those directors would then automatically take positions on the newly constituted Group Board.

But five seats would no longer constitute a majority at Group level. On the 14-person Board, additional support would be needed to command a majority.

They needed more than five on their team.

In changing the constitution, Brett Boon and the Board appeared to have missed one vital point.

Boon told the Inquiry that if persons who were members of the football club voted, there would be no breach of either the letter or the spirit of the Act. But, he said, he had no idea that hundreds of club employees were members of the Club.¹

During September, another unexpected element came into play. It arrived in the form of Greg Alexander.

Alexander was one of Penrith’s most prominent rugby league figures. In an exemplary career, he captained the Club’s 1991 premiership-winning side and represented Australia on numerous occasions. He was also a good friend of Glenn Matthews, who for the previous couple of years had been encouraging him to stand for the Board.

When it became known that he intended to stand, those close to the situation said that the Five felt confident of building a good relationship with him.

Alexander announced his candidature in the Penrith Press on Tuesday 24 September. In the accompanying interview he referred to the vote of no confidence in Cowan and said the CEO had his support.

That was a blow to the Footy Five.

Their preferred election ticket would have almost certainly included Alexander, the Five and two associates of Greg Evans. Had Alexander supported them — and had they secured the votes — it would have given them eight of the nine seats on the Penrith Board and eight on the 14-person group board.  But now, Alexander had come out publicly with a statement of support for Cowan.

It was on the night of 24–25 September — immediately after the Alexander story appeared in the Penrith Press — that the mysterious envelope described at the beginning of this chapter (Part 61) was reportedly delivered to the Western Weekender.

The battle lines were now drawn.

Despite Alexander’s profile and popularity, his name was not among the eight candidates identified on the Weekender’s election ticket. Candidates numbered one to eight were listed, while beside number nine appeared the words ‘YOUR CHOICE’.²

It was another mistake. The ‘YOUR CHOICE’ instruction left “Footy Five” supporters following the ticket to select a ninth candidate for themselves — the option to vote for some of the people the Footy Five wanted to defeat.

Only six months earlier, some members of the Five had complained that the distribution of how-to-vote tickets in Port Macquarie and Newcastle breached the Club’s constitution. By September 2002, how-to-vote material was being used by them in support of candidates in the Penrith election.

In the two weeks leading up to the election, Weekender readers were bombarded with headlines, articles and photos relating to the election, along with advertisements and letters endorsed by Ron Mulock and Merv Cartwright. Many stories featured allegations and insinuations against other directors and Cowan.

Their supporters were handing out voting advice at many locations including the railway stations and the traffic lights outside the Penrith club.

The Footy Five’s election strategy was obvious — discredit Cowan and make it appear it was them, and only them, who had the Club’s interest at heart. Cowan and the four other directors — Cowan’s Four Kinsmen, as they were called in Mulock’s advertisement — were thwarting the Five in their effort to do the best for Panthers.

The Weekender continued to carry extensive election material through the end of the election. The result, however, was precisely the opposite to what it was pushing — perhaps sending an unfavourable signal to potential advertisers.

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1. At the time of the Panthers constitutional amendment, s 30(1)(h) of the Registered Clubs Act 1976 provided: An employee of the club shall not vote at any meeting of the club or of the governing body of the club, or at any election of the governing body of the club or hold office as a member of the governing body of the club. In November 2006, the section was amended to add a further restriction: An employee of the club must not vote at any election of the governing body of another club or association if any member of that governing body would, as the result of that election, be entitled or qualified to be appointed (or be nominated for appointment) to the governing body of the registered club. The later amendment therefore expressly extended the prohibition to the type of indirect election arrangement created by the remodelled Panthers constitution.
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2. The ticket needed to provide for a ninth preference because voters were required to number all nine boxes. A ballot numbered only from 1 to 8 would have been informal. ↩︎

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