The dumping this week of the Liberal Party in Western Australia led by WA Premier Colin Barnett the father of Daniel Barnett the CEO of online business WORKetc, came as no surprise, as like John Howard and Bob Hawke Barnett stayed too long in the top job.
What is not known at this stage is whether Barnett will try and reconcile in retirement, with his son Daniel, who labels himself an Internet Entrepreneur despite a questionable past and a stint in 2009, when he exited one of his online ventures leaving behind debts of over $400,000.
At the time his father refused to get involved in his son’s business ventures, he also refused to stand up for his son who went into hiding to avoid being served with legal paperwork.
Shortly after the collapse of the Daniel Barnett run business in 2009, which was built around an online shop selling consumer electronics and PC related goods Barnett moved to set up an online Finance business in partnership with another finance industry executive, despite telling ChannelNews at the time that “He had no money to pay out debts to distributors such as Ingram Micro, Synnex or Syntec”.
Today Barnett runs a business management software platform with all-in-one CRM, Projects, Billing, Social and Collaboration tools.
Daniel Barnett, son of WA Premier Colin Barnett who in 2009 was CEO of a failed online shop operation.
His partner in the online shop that was eventually sold described Daniel Barnett as a person who could not be trusted.
He claimed that Barnett took money out of the online business despite an agreement that no personal expenses would be drawn on the online business.
Weeks out from the business closing down Barnett produced a financial report that showed that the business was profitable and after the 2008/2009 Xmas trading period the online business would have cash reserves.
At the time the business was set up based on consumers placing orders and the business in turn placing an order on a distributor who in turn delivered the goods to consumers.
A later investigation revealed that Barnett who was responsible for the day to day operations of the business had moved to forward buying stock in an effort to get additional discounts. He had also moved to buying goods in Hong Kong and having them shipped overnight to Australia.
At one stage Barnett tried to get his share in the business moved into a trust claiming that he was doing this “for his mother” and in the future interests of his mother”.
It was later determined that the move to place his shares in the business was a ruse by Barnett to avoid having to personally take responsibility for the debts of the business or potentially being declared bankrupt.
When Colin Barnett was contacted at the time he said that Daniel was responsible for his “Own business dealings”.
