Ken does a Gerry at the royal

YOU can debate the quality of Gerry Harvey’s governance at Harvey Norman, but the one thing you cannot deny is that his controlling stake makes him a chairman prepared to honestly and openly speak his mind and not engage in virtuesignalling and utterly vapid, ‘corporate speak’.

This was best on view not at the AGM, but a few weeks back talking to his ‘old mate’ Graham Richardson on Sky News.

You got direct and substantive comments about retail in general, and HN in particular, and a wide variety of issues more broadly.

You didn’t have to accept them as gospel, far less agree with them, but you certainly got clear, unfiltered Harvey.

That’s one reason why I for one found NAB chairman Ken Henry’s appearance before the banking royal commission a refreshing surprise – and the almost universal media criticism of him unfair and indeed bizarre. And also a telling exercise in the media ‘group-think’ fawning over the RC.

These media critics were essentially damning Henry for not playing by the ritualistic abasement script – of both the individual and the institution they represent – demanded in those appearing.

They were also effectively demanding that he lie to the RC; that it was completely unacceptable that he answered questions with what he believed rather than what he was required to say he believed.

Assertions that “tone deaf Henry had set the NAB back”, that he’d “lost the plot”, and “how much longer could he last at NAB” managed to be unaware and offensive at the same time, as well as just being utterly silly.

My only criticism would be that he didn’t kick back more strongly.