Friday, March 29, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: Bank behaviour inquiry needed

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HYPOCRISY: The practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case. Jane will occasionally cruelly label me a hypocrite. 
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I’ll concede that at times she might have a point. I doubt there are few reading this who haven’t dabbled in a little hypocrisy themselves at the odd stage through their lives.

It is the one true thing that both those on the left of the political spectrum have in common with those on the right.

And don’t we all love it when a high-profile miscreant is unmasked for all to see? Even though there is some hypocrisy in enjoying someone exposed for a sin most of us have committed.

Last week’s case in point was David Hisco, the recently departed chief executive of the ANZ bank. His hypocrisy is on an epic scale most of us could only aspire too.

A few years ago ANZ bank tellers took strike action over a low wage offer and their boss, Hisco, questioned why he should give a pay rise to those workers just for waking up early in the morning.

Then they and the rest of us heard he had stepped down by mutual agreement (corporate speak for being sacked) over claiming $25,000 for the last nine years to store his wine and ride around in chauffeur-driven limos.

That’s a relatively small amount and at the announcement I doubted it was the only reason he was off. I would have expected the sum to be paid back and it quietly swept under the carpet. His chairman John Key said his crime was that he coded private expenses as business ones.

Naturally the ANZ staff were angry at the hypocrisy of the man to lecture them for nine years on probity and pay them as little as possible when his face was deep into the corporate trough.

He wasn’t required to return the money whereas they would have been as they left the building.

The man was on a $2.8 million salary and his sense of entitlement is appalling.

There will be plenty of cockies who have fallen foul of the ANZ and been dragged over the coals during Hisco’s tenure just as angry as the employees about this man.

Then we find out that his non-monetary benefits (perks) last year alone amounted to nearly half a million dollars and over the years he’s expensed something like $3.5m. We know the wine storage and cars were $25,000 but Key is staying mum on what on earth the rest is.

Key and his board have some explaining to do to shareholders, staff and customers about why they have allowed this man to run rampant with the cheque book for so long.

The regulators are now focusing on conduct and culture in the financial sector and Key’s board is required to be more transparent than in the past.

This sad episode is a good example of why there should be an inquiry into banking practices as there was across the Tasman to shine some sunlight into places that should be lit up.

I’ll tell you a story.

In the 2000s I spent six very interesting years on the board of Landcorp. I’d been trained that company culture is set from the top by the board and senior executives.

I wanted to show that my dealings working for the largest NZ farming business and spending other people’s money (citizens and taxpayers) were exactly the same as in my own business where it was my money at stake.

I never claimed a single dollar for anything and seldom claimed travelling expenses when using my own vehicle. My colleagues, though amused, found me a pain in the arse when I’d recommend a pie instead of a flash lunch and I’d insist we drank the cheaper wines when out for dinner.

My last meeting was a full day and straight into an evening function with our shareholding ministers.

Over dinner chief executive Chris Kelly wanted to know why I hadn’t shaved that day.

I explained that I had but it had been at 3.30am and my testosterone was still at a level where the stubble grew with wild abandon.

He was curious to know why I had been up so early.

I explained that for six years I had been getting up at that time, driving nearly four hours to Wellington rather than flying and then driving home after the meeting into the evening. And usually not claiming the travel.

I’d chosen not to drive down the evening before and stay in a hotel to save the company money.

It seemed no one had even noticed my frugality.

Perhaps a decent punishment for Hisco might be to send him to work for me on the farm for a few weeks. I might be able to teach him a few things.

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