Just how utterly clueless are some of our biggest corporations? Far from the smartest people in the room, these lot sure do a good impression of being the dumbest twits in the echo chamber. How many more of them have to get woke and go broke before these numbskulls learn?
When it comes to Australia Day, supermarket giant Woolworths (Countdown, to you) got the message, quick-smart, last year. When the company announced that they would not be stocking Australia Day merchandise, the backlash was swift and brutal. This year, they’ve wised up: Australia Day is back on the menu at Woolies, with even a dedicated section.
Others, though, are not nearly so quick on the uptake that Australians really do love Australia and are determined to keep their national day.
Big business will shun Australia Day and allow staff to work on January 26, placing some of the country’s largest employees at odds with opposition leader Peter Dutton, who has vowed to protect the national day should the Coalition be elected.
Corporations including Telstra, Commonwealth Bank and AustralianSuper allow staff to work Australia Day and other public holidays for another day off – perhaps one culturally important to them – championing the move as a win for employees after flexibility around their time off, despite few taking up the offer.
Other businesses including Woodside and EY, which also offer flexibility around Australia Day, will avoid holding any major celebrations and have instead put an onus on employees.
International tourists will also be shielded from Australia’s national day, with one of the country’s largest travel groups, Intrepid Travel, opting to focus on the Indigenous side of January 26 on tours held on that day.
Well, there’s a list of corporations just asking for a good kicking.
Because Australians are not only not abandoning Australia Day, they’re flocking back to it. All the squawking and finger-wagging from the whining left has achieved is that support for Australia Day, on January 26, is growing, year on year. Even women and young people – traditionally more susceptible to leftist bullshit – are showing rising support for our national day.
The Opposition Leader this week said Australians should not be “ashamed of” Australia Day, doubling down on a Coalition election vow to overturn a Labor-era rule and force local councils to hold citizenship ceremonies on January 26 – a move he would make within the first 100 days if elected to power.
Woolworths, which resumed selling Australian-themed products to coincide with the national day, mandates all office-based staff have the day off, while retail members continue to have the choice to work the public holiday if rostered on under a longstanding policy.
What’s particularly notable is how much this woke nonsense is siloed within the white-collar workforce. These are, not coincidentally, the same people who are most likely, among the fast-diminishing minority of workers, to be union members.
AustralianSuper allows staff to work on the “January 26 public holiday” for another day, while those of a different background can switch another two state-based public holidays […]
The big four banks, ANZ, CBA, NAB and Westpac, all allow staff to swap Australia Day or another public holiday for a substitute day if approved by their manager.
The major accounting firms of Deloitte, EY and KPMG all offer flexible public holidays, which allows staff to swap two existing public holidays with a different day culturally significant to them.
They’ve chosen to benefit from living in Australia. If Australia Day is not ‘culturally significant’ to them, we might politely ask just why they’re still here.
And a great many corporations have yet to learn that the Twitter feed of the woke communications graduate in HR very much does not represent Australian public opinion.
