That’s a good question, which I for one haven’t thought about....

That’s a good question, which I for one haven’t thought about. There’s little doubt that there’d be a good deal of ‘cleaning out’ that could usefully be done from BHP’s former ranks (the diversity and inclusion officers, for starters) but a prior question (to which I don’t know the answer) is what legal responsibility, if any, WHC has to take on former staff of BHP in these circumstances.

If there were no such legal requirement there could be major productivity gains to WHC from a rigorous selection process, I agree — sufficient, perhaps, to offset the clearly negative consequences of the new union-driven IR laws pushed through by Tony Burke (with the help of some weak, woke cross-benchers in the Senate).