The Beagle Editor,
In the last couple of days we've heard of two CEO's being given their marching orders by their boards following pressure from the government.
Whether these two people were performing their roles well or not otherwise was not apparently the issue in these two cases - the ABC boss refused to sack a journalist for doing her job and putting too much heat on the politicians and the AGL bloke's refusal to agree to Canberra's wish to extend a coal burning generator's life contrary to his company's financial objectives and shareholder obligations.
Both instances of undue influence are contrary to the supposedly long-held principles of the governing parties to allow market forces to prevail without big government, let alone its interference - so much for consistency!
Then, of course, following other recent well publicised shenanigans in government circles and the subsequent fake news delivered to us, it would be easy to draw the conclusion that there is indeed a group within our senior elected representatives to whom bullying seems to come naturally.
We could also conclude that there are some board members out there who are also without the intestinal fortitude or even morals to withstand undue external political - bullying - pressure but strangely we know of other instances where board members have presided over criminal activity as being surfaced in the Banking Royal Commission which according to the politicians was not needed.
It is said that in democracies voters get the governments they deserve but surely we can't be so bad as to deserve this sort of behaviour!
Bring on the federal anti-corruption agency, eh? It’s time alright!
Jeff de Jager
Coila
