The Curse of a Corporate ‘Conscience’

Shayne Elliot, Chief Executive of ANZ, was reported to have said the Liddell coal power plant “would be very unlikely to meet our [environmental] standards so we wouldn’t finance it.” Mr Elliot said that the ANZ cares about these things. Bully for the ANZ, but who or, more appropriately, ‘what’ is the ANZ? Or, for that matter, the CBA, Westpac or NAB – all of which apparently declined to comment on their willingness to finance coal power.

The ANZ and other banks, and other companies outside of banking, are corporate entities. They are artefacts. They have no minds of their own. They can’t have opinions.

Let me please explain. If Pauline Hanson said that her fish and chip shop objects to the wearing of burkas in Parliament House, the ABC and other left-wing media would have a field day. All other news would be dropped. You can almost hear the superior guffaws; the suggestions that she had completely lost her mind. Yet Elliot’s statement is just as nonsensical.

I…