Call me crazy, but I’m not exactly inclined to take seriously lectures on business ethics from someone who makes billions from a genocidal communist regime. Being subjected to pontifications on slavery from someone who cheerfully deals with one of the most notorious slave-owning regimes on the planet just, I don’t know, makes me want to vomit.
This is, remember, the billionaire Quisling who deliberately undermines the democratically-elected government of his own country in order to play handsies with one of the most murderous regimes in history. A regime which is actively perpetrating a genocide, right now.
The pervasive nature of modern slavery in global supply chains, including some of Australia’s largest companies, has been criticised by philanthropist and mining billionaire Andrew Forrest in his third Boyer Lecture as he called for them to take more action to stamp it out.
The chairman of Fortescue Metals Group said on Sunday that he had come to see that modern slavery was “at least present … if not fundamental … to supply chains all over the world”.
Dr Forrest said modern slavery was “rife” – potentially in his own supply chain – saying that people need to ask themselves “am I doing enough?”.
He said, as he pocketed record profits from trading with a dictatorship notorious for forced-labour camps and industrial-scale forced organ-harvesting.
Dr Forrest pointed to the Modern Slavery Act as the most powerful local tool for remedying problems after it came into effect in 2019. It requires Australian companies with a turnover of more than $100m to report annually on slavery in their supply chains and their efforts to eradicate it.
The issue also touches parts of rural Australia with Woolworths finding that about 300 of its farm suppliers placed workers at risk of slave-like conditions, including unpaid wages and sexual harassment, Dr Forrest said.
Wesfarmers also recently announced it was cutting ties with twenty suppliers over concerns around excessive overtime, worker safety and bribery.
So when is Twiggy going to cut ties with the Chinese Communist Party?
He called upon large investors to pressure chief executives to investigate their supply chains, or they would be “complicit” in the modern slavery industry.
The Australian
He actually said this with a straight face.
How does Forrest square his high-falutin’ sentiments with the reality of dealing with communist China? Does he still believe, as was the popular delusion during the Deng era, that trading with the Chinese communists will magically encourage them to “liberalise”? That delusion was brutally killed off in 1989 and has only continued to collapse further into ignominy as China’s brutal crackdowns in Hong Kong, genocide in Xinjiang, and wholesale murder of Falun Gong continue – and worsen.
Reading this, the third in Forrest’s sanctimonious, self-serving Boyer Lectures, the only phrase that comes to mind is: “Damage Control”.
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