The financial services sector is probably sick of parliamentary inquiries poking about into the affairs of companies to determine whether misconduct had taken place and what action, if any, was taken to fix problems.
They probably have had a gutsful of journalists and politicians wanting to strip back the corporate veil to better understand how these business at the zenith of Australian corporate life manage to fail to be the example of corporate governance and leadership that the community would expect.
Stiff cheddar.
What the boards of directors and the senior management of these institutions need to remember at all times is that they are more than just people in some corporate bubble insulated from the rest of us.
They are significant players in the economic life of this country and organisations of which the community legitimately expects a higher standard of behaviour and a focus on the public interest.
The Hayne Royal Commission pointedly looked at issues of community standards and expectations when it sought to determine what was to be recommended to tune up a system that appeared to have lost its moral compass somewhere along the journey.
What is clear is that those remarks made by the Hayne Royal Commission in relation to community standards and expectations may not have been seen by some people including the board and management of AMP as being relevant to how financial services businesses treat their staff.
AMP may well have lost its view of what is right and correct for the benefit of the welfare of the business holistically - not just financially - when it promoted an executive, Boe Pahiri, to a senior role after being disciplined for breaching the AMP’s own code of conduct following a sexual harassment claim made in 2017.
Former CEO, Alex Wade, resigned from his high profile post with accompanying media coverage of reports of him sending inappropriate pictures to female colleagues.
It is this that the board of directors and managers of AMP now wear like a millstone around their neck given the public revelations of the conduct of their senior executives – conduct that has clearly been leaked to achieve both maximum embarrassment and to force the hand of those in charge of governance to do something about the internal culture.
Whistleblowers will typically try and achieve things within their organisation in order to move the needle of the moral compass to a setting that aligns better with general community expectations.
The media is used by whistleblowers and other concerned parties to expose and pressure directors and executives to take some kind of action that forces an individual or a group of individuals to resign or make material changes to company policies.
Did AMP’s board really think that appointments or promotions with that level of internal controversy attached to them would not create outrage that would eventually find their way out of the joint, given the fact employees want to work in a place that has a culture that reflects their values?
The only way some individuals can try to fix a broken cultural situation is by allowing a shaft of sunlight into the place by using the media as the conduit.
This is the gap that the Finance Sector Union pointed to when I interviewed the authors of their study on the way employees respond to an aggressive sales culture that does not, and never did, align with the statements set down in codes of conduct and similar material.
It is true that the financial services sector has spent a lot of time before the parliamentary committees of the Commonwealth Parliament.
The fact that so many appearances have been made by senior executives of the financial services sector is not necessarily so that politicians can run a star chamber.
Committee inquiries into the financial services sector are a clear reflection that the parliament has decided a company or an entire sector has failed to provide sufficient protection to consumers or staff from undesirable and highly questionable behaviour.
This is not simply a company law question.
Committees looking at industrial relations matters should review whether the current legal situation is harsh enough to deter behaviour in the workplace that is inconsistent with basic dignity and respect.
This includes law firms and other professional practices where allegations of sexual harassment may be raised.
Nothing has come to my attention that would lead me to conclude that a parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the AMP being suggested by Labor Senator Deborah O’Neill is inappropriate.
Bring it on.