Miranda Devine is on a roll. An extract from her column in today’s Telegraph.
“..Now that we’ve seen the unethical, irresponsible, and the downright dishonest behaviour in banks and other financial institutions exposed at the royal commission we see exactly how empty their so-called “corporate social responsibility” rhetoric is.
Instead of executives at Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank, and AMP creating a corporate culture of ethical and honourable behaviour, they focused outside their field of expertise on fashionable issues such as “climate responsibility” and gender diversity.
They authorised human resources departments to run rampant on “diversity and inclusion”, rather than on fostering prudence and integrity in organisations entrusted with other people’s money.
While CEOs were posing as moral arbiters, writing open letters demanding the government legislate same-sex marriage, their companies were ripping people off.
The financial misconduct revealed so far is astonishing for banks whose risk is underwritten by the taxpayer by as much as $4 billion per year.
Australian banking executives are among the highest paid in the world, with annual salaries between $5 million and $12 million.
Maybe they virtue signal because they feel guilty about being paid so much. Is the work done by Westpac CEO Brian Hartzer’s really 110 times more valuable than the work of a nurse humiliated by his bank?
There is nothing wrong with making lots of money. That’s the capitalist system. What’s wrong is pretending that you’re not in the business of making lots of money but in the business of being a social engineer.
Our diversity and inclusion approach is underpinned by a strong suite of people systems, processes and policies, and we have a range of initiatives to support diversity. These include targets for women in management, people with self-disclosed disabilities and traineeships for indigenous Australians … We are the principal partner of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, a founding member of the Diversity Council of Australia, a member of Pride in Diversity and the Australian Network on Disability.”
Of course, the big four banks and AMP, which have been shamed at the royal commission, are all signed up members of the Diversity Council, the outfit that tried to ban words like guys, and mum and dad.
And they all have been named “an employer of choice for gender equality” by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
Corporate virtue-signalling is what they do best. But the problem is that it’s inherently fraudulent. No one believes in it. It doesn’t make the world a better place. It’s a waste of resources. It empowers busybody radicals, and ultimately it diverts the organisation from doing a good and honourable job of its core business.
The best outcome of the royal commission would be for these big companies to axe their HR departments and give the money they save to the victims of their malfeasance. That would be real corporate social responsibility..” Corporate Virtue Won’t Save The Banks Now