Steve Vizard

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Stephen William Vizard, born 6 March 1956 in Richmond, Victoria, is an Australian media personality and (disgraced) businessman.

He was educated at Carey Baptist Grammar School and then studied law at the University of Melbourne. He worked briefly as a corporate lawyer before branching out into show business. He produced and performed in hit sketch comedy show The Eleventh Hour, and then became a household name for his work in Fast Forward. He was awarded the 1991 Gold Logie award.

Vizard has also worked as a comedian and public speaker.

He is the founder of Vizard House, a refuge for people in need, and has contributed to the University of Melbourne's Art collection.

During February of 1998 Vizard was an elected delegate at the 1998 Australian Constitutional Convention in Canberra, representing the Australian Republican Movement.

He is married with five children. He won the 2002 Australian Father Of The Year award. He has also been awarded an Order of Australia, the highest Australian civilian honour.

1 Television
2 Insider trading
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Television

Steve Vizard is best known for playing character roles on Fast Forward, as Brent Smyth, Darryl (Stewards), 'Fakari' rug salesman Roger Ramshett, and Newsreaders Dirk Hartog. He also performed myriad impersonations, most notably of Derryn Hinch, Richard Carleton, Don Lane and Ian Turpie. He also scripted and acted in Fast Forward's memorable send-ups of popular TV shows such as The Cosby Show, Kung Fu and The Munsters.

Vizard went on to host a popular late-night talk show, Tonight Live With Steve Vizard, which borrowed heavily from Late Night with David Letterman. Paul Grabowski was Vizard's band leader.

Peter Moon often played characters who were assistants to Vizard's characters.

[edit] Insider trading

Since his retirement from the entertainment industry, Vizard focussed on his business interests. He became a director of Australia's largest telecommunications company, Telstra.

In 2000, he traded in shares of Sausage Software, Keycorp and Computershare using inside information that he obtained using his position at Telstra, about deals between those companies and Telstra. His trading actually lost him around $335,000.

In 2005 Vizard was convicted of abusing his position as a company director, fined a total of $390,000 and disqualified from being a company director for 10 years.^[1]

His reputation took a hammering due to his insider trading and, as such, Vizard is regularly described in newspapers as 'Disgraced businessman Steve Vizard'.

Allegations of insider trading were first made by Vizard's former bookkeeper Roy Hilliard. Hilliard and Vizard had parted on good terms in about 2000, but Vizard later accused him of having stolen as much as $3 million. At a committal hearing in 2002, Hilliard accused Vizard of insider trading and of using his charities to avoid tax.^[2]

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) followed-up the alleged trading, including searching Vizard's home and office in December 2003. The theft charges against Hilliard were dismissed in 2005 when Vizard chose not to give evidence, but Hilliard pled guilty to false accounting charges and received a 2 year suspended sentence. In another action against Hilliard brought by the Westpac Bank for allegedly stealing the $3 million from Vizard's accounts between 1991 and 2000 Vizard's lawyers advised the Victorian Supreme Court of their concern that Vizard's testimony could be used by Federal Police and ASIC to pursue perjury charges. ^[3]

The penalties imposed on Vizard were part of a settlement agreed between him and ASIC. That settlement took the form of an "agreed statement of facts" jointly presented to the Federal Court by Vizard's and ASIC's lawyers, and Vizard agreeing the court should impose penalties for a breach of his duties as a director.

ASIC proposed $130,000 fine per offence and 5 years disqualification. Justice Finkelstein ordered a disqualification of 10 years, on the grounds that 5 was insufficient. He said "a message must be sent to the business community" about such conduct. The judge did take into account Vizard's remorse, communicated to the court by his barrister. Vizard also resigned his positions on various government boards and Melbourne sporting events.

ASIC made a press release on 4 July 2005 announcing the commencement of the proceedings.^[4] They no doubt hoped the reports that followed would be about wrongdoing detected and court action instituted. Instead they were about what hadn't happened, namely that Vizard hadn't been charged with the criminal offence of insider trading, and instead was just facing civil penalties for breach of director's duties.

Media comparison between Vizard's treatment and that of Rene Rivkin (recently convicted of insider trading) was inevitable. It seemed Vizard had done essentially the same thing, but gotten civil penalties, not jail. Business commentator Terry McCrann for instance was highly critical saying on the ABC 7:30 Report 5 July 2005 "you can interpret that as a message which says you can buy your way out of jail".^[5] Some reports noted Vizard's prominent position in the Melbourne business community, with the unsubtle implication that this helped get him more lenient treatment.

Evidence in court is however very different from facts, even those one may be nearly certain of, and the burden of proof for a criminal charge would have been much greater. The Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had concluded they didn't have a reasonable prospect of a conviction, leaving just civil action available to ASIC. The problem of perception for ASIC was that the facts had been laid bare in court, letting everyone see what potentially might have been brought.

DPP Damian Bugg explained his decision in a press statement on 28 July 2005 (after the court case had concluded).^[6] The trades in question had not been made by Vizard, but instead by a company called CTI of which Vizard's accountant Gregory Lay was the sole shareholder and director. A Vizard family company lent CTI money to invest and had an agreement to receive back proceeds (less a management fee). This structure meant a criminal prosecution would have required evidence from Lay to connect Vizard to the trades. Lay declined to make a statement, or not without a full indemnity for himself and his firm. The DPP could not (under the Director of Public Prosecutions Act 1983) give an indemnity without first knowing what it would be indemnifying him against.

Bugg also explained that, contrary to speculation, as a matter of policy the DPP would not bring a prosecution and just subpoena witnesses (such as Lay) in the hope of what they might say; it would undermine confidence in the justice system to start a prosecution merely hoping that critical evidence would become available.

At the 2006 Logie Awards, Vizard appeared with long-time collaborator Michael Veitch in a sketch that reprised one of their most famous roles, that of two camp, bitchy flight attendants. Veitch's character lampooned Vizard's recent legal troubles.

In November 2006, Vizard's scorched reputation took a further pounding at the hands of Supreme Court judge Harley Hansen who went in hammer and tongs. As for Vizard, Justice Hansen said "the consistent strand is a lack of candour".

"He impressed me as a person alert to the main chance," the judge said, adding Vizard was "firm and certain when it suited the case … (but) defensive and forgetful and even engaged in false denial when it did not suit the case".

At other times, his performance ranged "from false denial to obfuscation and feigned forgetfulness".