CHAPTER TEN
TOWARDS THE NEXT CENTURY The 1980’s ended with a substantial boost to the non-WA clientele; the Morton and Parker Canberra practice merging in July, 1989 and the Bird Cameron Melbourne practice in December, 1989. When interstate expansion from Western Australia began with the opening of the Adelaide office in 1973 the policy adopted was to move into other appropriate cities and towns as and when opportunities presented themselves but within the constraints of conserving capital and consolidating one acquisition before the next was made. By 1989 the firm had been operating interstate for over sixteen years and was well established in South Australia, New South Wales and Australian 84 | RSM
Capital Territory and with federation colleagues in various cities and towns throughout Australia. The withdrawal of the Sydney firm from the federation in 1989 to merge with Horwath & Horwath left the Bird Cameron federation with no Sydney CBD office and this led the firm to pursue as an objective a national partnership rather than a national federation. A number of steps were taken to achieve this objective. The first was a merger with the Melbourne firm on 1st December, 1989. The next step was the acquisition of the Sydney practice of Berg Partners on 1st July, 1990 (Geoff Forder and Don Orrock admitted as partners) followed by the practice of M.J. Green on 1st February, 1991 (Martin Green admitted as a partner). Another step was
