VOTE NO Business should keep right out of the divisive Voice...

VOTE NO
Business should keep right out of the divisive Voice

Managers backing the Yes side ought to reflect on how they would feel if the board insisted the company go out and advocate a No vote.

We used to despise the self-righteous. There was nothing more irritating than a self-righteous prig who lectured us about how naughty we were. Okay, so we have abandoned self-righteousness, but we have replaced it with a new doctrine called virtue signalling.
Virtue signalling is a little less aggressive than the preaching of the self-righteous, but its cynicism and hollowness is irritating all the same. And as with the self-righteous, virtue signallers often get trapped by the contradictions of their own positions.
We’ve seen plenty of that in the UK in the past couple of weeks. Virtue signalling has come up against the reality of public behaviour and attitudes, and as with the self-righteous, it is coming off second best.

Corporate leaders would be best advised to listen to common sense rather than a few “virtuous” HR managers and political consultants.
First, there was the ultra-low emissions zone issue, known as ULEZ. This is a scheme being implemented by the Labour-led local government in London to charge people with older cars £12.50 ($A24) a day to drive them. If you have a late-model Porsche Taycan or Bentley Flying Spur you will be exempt from the charge, but if you are a low-income person with an old banger because it’s all you can afford, then you pay the charge.
The virtuous idea is that if people are made to pay more to use their old cars that will reduce pollution and CO₂ emissions.


I have no doubt the public favours reducing pollution and CO₂ emissions. But the thing is, they’re not so keen on paying for it and in a regressive way. A recent by-election held in London for Boris Johnson’s old seat was won by the Conservative party which campaigned against Labour’s ULEZ. This at a time when the Conservative government at Westminster is deeply unpopular.
Employees of major corporations will also be divided on this matter.
On the back of this by-election the former and most successful Labour leader, Tony Blair, came out swinging against the public being made to bear a “huge burden” addressing climate change. He made the very obvious point that the UK’s emissions have been steadily declining for many years, while emissions in developing countries are increasing.
Britain contributes just 1 per cent of total global emissions, so imposing a “huge burden” on the British public will have no impact at all on the global climate. It’s just hugely expensive virtue signalling.
It may sound virtuous to push up energy prices, ban the use of petrol and diesel cars, force people to use heat pumps rather than gas to keep their houses warm in winter, and build thousands of windmills, but if it is expensive then people will just vote for somebody who doesn’t impose these costs on them.
In other words, people will pay a price if the benefits of it can be specifically identified, but inevitably, if they are being asked to pay a price for sounding virtuous but without any real benefit, they will wise up to that and revolt.


There is a message on this for Australia. We produce 1.3 per cent of global emissions. We need to make our contribution to reducing global emissions, and we are doing that. Our emissions have fallen by around 25 per cent since 2005. But we have to be realistic.
Imposing still harsher penalties on the public to reduce our emissions further will not make one jot of difference to the climate. That is a global issue and in particular needs to be addressed in those countries that are seeing emissions increase substantially, such as India and China.
Cynical public

Likewise, polling shows the public is very cynical about corporates who decide to weigh into politics with virtuous sounding messages.
In the UK the bank that holds the accounts of the royal family – Coutts – has been pushing a hard line ESG message for quite some time. Political consultants and HR managers have been encouraging many corporations to do the same thing. They think it is virtuous to promote gay pride events, climate change initiatives and “diversity” – diversity is code for affirmative action programs.
Coutts took one step too far. It cancelled the personal account of a controversial conservative public figure, Nigel Farage, because his support for Brexit, his admiration of Margaret Thatcher, his views on LGBTQ+ rights and so on, were not consistent with “the values of the bank”.

Suffice it to say, this has caused outrage and led to the resignation of the chief executive of Coutts – who as it happens comes from Adelaide.
Coutts prides itself in being a B Corporation certified institution – which means it meets certain standards on “sustainability, inclusiveness and diversity”, and the bank’s governance prioritises stakeholders, not shareholders. How nice: it’s just that most customers want the bank to serve their financial interests, not bow to Guardian readers whose values come from the liberal arts faculties of second-tier American universities.
I would always advise corporations to keep out of public commentary on contentious political issues. Not only does weighing into political debates offend many customers and some of their own employees, but it can damage the standing of the company in the broader public space.
I’ve noticed a number of Australian companies advocating a Yes vote for the Voice. I don’t know how their employees who wish to vote No feel about their management promoting something they disagree with, but it must make them feel very uncomfortable. Perhaps the managers who make these decisions might like to reflect on how they themselves would feel if, for example, the board of the company insisted the company go out and advocate a No vote.
The Voice referendum is a deeply divisive political issue. Passionate views are held by both sides of the argument, and if opinion polls are to be believed the country is almost equally divided on this matter.
That means the employees of major corporations will also be divided on this matter, and it might be best for a company to keep right out of it.

After all, if the company is B Corp certified, management might think about the divisions on the Voice among their stakeholders and show common-sense courtesy and tolerance.
After all, it’s not very “inclusive” for companies and firms to be partisan on contentious political issues!
The moral of this is: there is as much danger in being a virtue signaller as being self-righteous. Corporate leaders would be best advised to listen to common sense rather than a few “virtuous” HR managers and political consultants.