TELSTRA chief mouthpiece Phil Burgess has made plenty of noise since he blew into the country a little over three years ago, so it was hardly surprising that he is departing amid much fanfare from the nation's dominant telco.
More than 150 movers and shakers from government, the corporate world and the media gathered in the Heritage Ballroom of Sydney's Westin Hotel on Sunday to farewell the man dubbed by colleagues as "the unquiet American".
Burgess will give a final address to the Lowy Institute in Sydney today before flying home to Annapolis with his wife, Mary Sue.
"I had to beg him to come out here for 30 days and he ended up staying 38 months," quipped Telstra chief executive Sol Trujillo. "Not a bad stint, but I'll miss him. Not just at work, but also his company. We have been friends for 20 years."
Burgess, who has delivered some remarkable sprays to the government and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, showed remarkable magnanimity by adding a few names from both to the guest list and giving them a final right of reply before he flies out.
Certainly ACCC boss Graeme Samuel — Burgess's chief adversary over that past three years — seized the opportunity to talk abut the American's colourful vocabulary.
"I would like to thank whatever insane person thought it would be a good idea to add me to the guest list," began Samuel when given a chance to speak.
"There are a few things I'll miss about Phil. I'll miss being called a rogue regulator. I'll miss being called a car bomber and, more recently, I'll miss being called a maggot."
It was all in good fun, as Samuel admitted he admired his main antagonist from the past three years. But Samuel added: "When I was a merchant banker we had a briefing from an anger management consultant who advised us what to do if confronted by a person who rants and raves," Samuel told the room.
"The advice was to let them go and not engage or respond and eventually they will run out of steam. Phil, you are proof she was wrong."
The speech from Stephen Conroy was in a similar vein. The minister with the longest portfolio title in Canberra — broadband, communications and the digital economy — noted that he had achieved the first of his key performance indicators: outlasting Dr Phil.
"Helen Coonan can't boast that," Conroy said of his Liberal predecessor, who enjoyed a notoriously fractious relationship with Telstra.
The senator also revealed that his first face-to-face meeting with Burgess was at the aptly named Machiavelli restaurant in Sydney, while he was in opposition.
The soccer tragic then dashed off yesterday to watch his beloved Chelsea play Manchester United, but not before embracing his now former sparring partner at Telstra. "I'd been banging on about broadband for two years," Conroy said. "It was Phil's arrival that put the subject firmly on the nation's agenda."
Burgess will spend his final day tomorrow cleaning out his desk before departing the country on Thursday. Anyone who has seen his desk believes he may be around for a day or two more.
But Phil won't be away for too long.
"Phil and Mary Sue have both had an affair," Trujillo said, prompting curious glances from guests before elaborating. "It's with Australia. They have fallen in love with the place."
Burgess, for once, was short with his words, simply quoting "another famous American", the World War II General Douglas MacArthur. "I shall return."
Pearls of Dr Phil
On whether he would invest his own money in Telstra shares:
"I'll keep that to myself, but I sure wouldn't recommend it to my mother."
On attacking federal politicians:
"The reason you kick pollies around is so you can be nice to dogs."
On the National Broadband Network tender:
"It's like watching a B-grade slasher movie but, in this film, the knives are out for Telstra customers and shareholders."
On deposed Opposition leader Brendan Nelson:
"What's-his-face, the guy with the funny hair."
On the mooted structural separation of Telstra:
"In the US we call it economic moonshine: you know, that kind of bogus whisky that the hillbillies drink. I mean, it makes you crazy."
On his views about the ACCC:
"The ACCC has a dagger at the throat of productivity in this economy, and nobody is doing anything about it yet."
And again: "It is a rogue regulator that is drunk with power, abusing its power and needs to be reined in."
