The purpose of this round of hearings is not to hear further apologies or expressions of regret.
These words were spoken yesterday at the banking royal commission. They were spoken to CBA executives, but should be more generally heard. The purpose of the inquiry is not to extract a “sorry” from a sorry sector’s lot. The purpose is to understand the sector.
“Sorry” has its value in many other contexts. Without it, our social bonds would fray. But this is the “sorry” that is conscious of its need to be said. The full and proper “sorry” is not a rationale for having behaved like a twit, but an avowal that we did.
“Sorry” may be appended by a short history of how we came to behave like a twit and it may be a chance for us sorry twits to atone. “Sorry” must be mined from the gut at great risk of herniation. To have value, “sorry” must be true. But, the real purpose of the “sorry” is not to be truthfully uttered but to be really, truly heard.
The finance sector has no gut. It is not a creature, but a machine whose army of parasitic nanobots are dispatched to suck ordinary people into the bondage of debt. There is nothing inside the most significant global market force but putrefaction. To understand this sector as human or even as truly comparable to any other form of trade is to understand the blood-type of a stone.
The sector is not “inhuman” but it is, inevitably, not human. Thus, it cannot be sorry and even if some of its representatives are truly sorry for the fictitious capital they quite legally write into reality each day, their “sorry” has no value as an utterance. It only has value as a cheque.
Most often, the “sorry” of an institution comes at no cost and sometimes, it brings profit. We could argue that the “sorry” of the Rudd government to Aboriginal people divided from their families was of greatest value to the Rudd government and the nation-state. Even as Rudd uttered “sorry”, he funded future regret. The so-called “emergency response” to a report on child abuse in remote Northern Territory communities was ongoing in 2008 and its work of separating families and estranging people from their most basic rights was work he had approved.
The year after “sorry”, Rudd introduced the BasicsCard, a cashless welfare card that separated Northern Territory supermarket queues into white and black. He may have been sincerely sorry for the apartheid of the past, but he was not faithfully sorry to its present, which was concealed by the myth of apology.
The firm, sector or institution enacts its “sorry”. There is possibly no enduring value in the “sorry” simply said. Just as the finance sector cannot be understood as a form of scaled-up barter, its true “sorry” cannot be the individual apology scaled up. Although, its purpose is the same: to offer reparations at personal cost.
Sorry is, or should be, the hardest and most valuable word for an individual to impart. If it were an easy word, it would require no internal struggle and have no external value when offered, which is its ruddy point.
Still, we can probably expect a future sorry pageant. Bankers will tell us all how sorry they are and they will explain their identical behaviour in a variety of ways. They will not say that their complicity with cruelty is a fact of the financialised present, but they will attribute it to individual failing.
Like Rudd, they may be truly sorry. Like Rudd, they will be more faithful to the preservation of the institution they represent than they are to their regret. Which will be their moral failing, of course, but the inevitable failing of a system that is not merely “too big” to fail those other markets now dependent on it, but too deluded to recognise its central failure.
This is one of many accounts that presage this apology. In asking the question “why do good people do bad things?”, many commentators apply the logic of the personal apology to the institutional sort, and fail, like those institutions, to see intrinsic failure.
Why do good people do bad things? Largely, for the same reason good people have bad debt. It’s a matter of survival, and we can’t be truly sorry for that.
This crisis will cut hard and deep but one day it will be over.
What will be left? What do you want to be left?
I know what I want to see: I want to see a thriving, independent and robust Australian-owned news media. I want to see governments, authorities and those with power held to account. I want to see the media held to account too.
Demand for what we do is running high. Thank you. You can help us even more by encouraging others to subscribe — or by subscribing yourself if you haven’t already done so.
If you like what we do, please subscribe.
Peter Fray
Editor-In-Chief of Crikey
23 thoughts on “The useless apologies of the banking royal commission”
klewso
November 20, 2018 at 1:44 pmI laughed at the prospect of a bank CEO (“earning(?)” enough to be able to more than live on what would be left over after they lost $2 million) nabbed accepting a freebie from a client (with dubious pedigree?) for a luxury holiday in Fiji – suddenly finding his moral compass during these procedures?
And funny watching Comyn – of the Comynwealth Bank – in the chair professing these “new morally acceptable practices” he’s ready to implement – while looking like he’s waiting to see how much the Royal Commission has been able to find out of what the banks have “really been up too”?
kmart60
November 20, 2018 at 2:01 pmThe proof of genuine contrition is – would you do the same thing again if you knew you couldn’t be caught out? As far as the banks are concerned, we all know the answer to that.
Pat Brow
November 20, 2018 at 2:04 pmBank CEOs are so sorry that they have agreed to return 10 years of bonuses. And given the egregious fraud they presided over, they have each agreed to 5 years unpaid community service.
AR
November 21, 2018 at 10:53 pmI’d emigrate to any planet where that could occur.
klewso
November 20, 2018 at 2:05 pmFinal Report :- ‘The Effects of the Magnetic Field of Money on the Moral Compass of Finance.’?
mark e smith
November 20, 2018 at 3:01 pmTo see the finance sector merely as “….a machine whose army of parasitic nanobots are dispatched to suck ordinary people into the bondage of debt” shows a Marxist with a poor understanding of the economically based philosophy of Marxism.
Banks etc should ideally be compelled to be purely servants of the productive economy, but that’s easier said than done even in nominally Marxist states.
The commission’s current stated intent to understand is what I and many others want them to do. Meanwhile Helen carry on as usual with stuff like today’s impenetrable ramblings about sorry.
R. Ambrose Raven
November 20, 2018 at 11:59 pmmark e smith would do better to enlighten us as to the relevance of stuff like his impenetrable ramblings about the economically based philosophy of Marxism.
Just what does “mark e smith’ want the commission to do? Why does the commission need to understand that, rather than applying logical counters to demonstrated failings?
Banking criminality of the massive extent again highlighted by the Hayne Royal Commission is driven by greed = more profit, higher pay for executives (though not shared with the workers). Hayne noted in his Interim Report:
“Almost every piece of conduct identified and criticised in this report can be connected directly to the relevant actor gaining some monetary benefit from engaging in the conduct. And every piece of conduct that has been contrary to law is a case where the existing governance structures and practices of the entity and its risk management practices have not prevented that unlawful conduct.”
So the problem is a capitalism that is behaving exactly as its supporters intend.
kyle Hargraves
November 20, 2018 at 3:16 pmHelen, my advice to you by way of a departure gift, is to curtail the slurping of the chardonnay in Melbourne (I presume) and pop up to the north of Australia for a year or so. I was there, in various capacities, for quite
some time.
Your 7th paragraph does you no credit at all and,in fact, misrepresents the conditions of life entirely. It was well known that if the majority of aboriginal families, having received their benefits on Thursday, were out of food by the following Tuesday. To the inconvenience of all dry-days were implemented so that material sustenance to families could be provided.
This initiative did not occur “over-night” The problem was endemic above the Tropic West to East. If you wanted to be poetic, associations with the novels of Dostoevsky or the deprivation alluded to by O.Henry would have been opportune.
As to the forelock-pulling behaviour, so rampant in Australia, the speech by Nelson was considerably more mature than the dribble offered by Rudd – which is illustrative of just how easily some people are pleased in this country and ditto regarding their maturity in regard to Nelson’s remarks. Ditto for the banks. Expand upon and construct that association – or is it more comfortable to wallow in sentimentality?
As an aside banking practice has not altered much from the 15th century. Add payments by commission to those mores and the result is only too easily anticipated. The NAB, to name one bank, has sent an electronic survey to its customers. One of the questions invites an assessment of the R.C. into Banking. – I’m told, by a reliable source, that most have ticked “no idea”. ho-hum.
Ruv Draba
November 21, 2018 at 7:07 amKyle, thank you for your many interesting and thought-provoking contributions. I shall miss them.
kyle Hargraves
November 21, 2018 at 11:40 amI have had to give considerable thought to many of your questions, Ruv, and I am not altogether satisfied as to some of my answers – were more research is required.
The writers for Crikey have an implicit theme of accountability of government (highly laudable) but the same appeals tend not to apply to their own workplace and I have identified numerous examples elsewhere.
It would have been to the benefit of my information if it was explained how QUINOA, as with wheat and corn etc., came to be domesticated during the post Neolithic period that occurred at different places at different times but fairly rapidly (allowing for the scale) after the most recent interglacial.
Another topic, for ones information, and germane to climate change, is the question : “why did the Neolithic not occur post the 2nd to last interglacial”. The example is less a criticism of Helen and more of me attempting to illustrate a point.
I recall Williams (Science Show) interviewing Carl Sagan about 30 years ago when anxieties over the “e” word [evolution] were presenting themselves for the nth time. Williams declared something akin to “surely this matter for Americans or anyone would be a non-issue now” yet Sagan responded to the effect “America is going into a period where it is smart to be dumb”
Others may be more optimistic but for me, Ruv, such is the image of our (future) world and the irony is that there exists more information (good, verified and bad) now than ever was the case.
AR
November 21, 2018 at 11:15 pmI will also miss you KH, a big fish in a small pond – it seems a puddle too often.
You may like to consider some recent rethinking on the E word, ““why did the Neolithic not occur post the 2nd to last interglacial”.“, Rudgley & Gimbutas did solid ground work – though decades old – which DNA (RNA actually) is now fleshing out.
Out of Afrika & the Bering Strait are soon for the dustbin of History.
Fare well mate and do drop a line occasionally.
kyle Hargraves
November 23, 2018 at 4:44 pmJust undertaking a bit if tidying up. Bernie’s perspectives on coal/climate seem to have relapsed. So much for teeth and soft toys.
Yeah – Rudley et al. Such “events” are beginning to be played out in Australia. See my note concerning an article on Crikey about the use of smart-phones (etc.) by indigenous people. Rudley makes some interesting points but “real” paleontologists (and anthropologists) such as Denise Schmandt-Besserat have trashed him (and describe him as a self-promoter). Also, we need to keep in mind that we have entered into the post-truth domain.
As to Gimbutas – well the same – in brief. As a general theme we have : “only males cause wars”. The presumption that the global ruling elites are “destroying all the facts” (about matriarchal societies) is a tad difficult to take seriously.
It is interesting that some animals such as canines and pigs have strictly hierarchical relationships and felines and elephants have situational dominance relationships. The bull (elephant) will run the place when the herd has decided on a territory that a cow has selected (and has been navigated A-to-B by the dominant matriarch). Experienced poaches always shoot the
matriarch first.
My suggestion is to read Rudley and Gimbutas (and R&G) along with some authorities. A lot of authoritative work exists for the layman (along with a lot of drivel and red herrings).
The Multi-Regional Theory (as an alternative to the Out of Africa Theory) has some issues. The arguments are rather complex and there are any number of motivations, nowadays, to hi-jack them. For ideological reasons some are not “comfortable” with the O.o.Africa Theory.
A really good article on this topic, that would trash the sentimental drivel contained in a speech (35 years ago) by a very capable public servant by the name of (the late – died about 20 years ago) Herbert Coombs would be in the interests of everyone. But it would also be a little to anti Mr Pearson (et al) for the likes of Crikey. Notwithstanding claims to free speech it ain’t gonna happen.
Yeah – I might just pay $45 every so often and catch up AR. All the best (educating this mob – I mean, in the main, the writers at Crikey).
kyle Hargraves
November 23, 2018 at 4:59 pmApologies : hit the “post comment” too soon.
The Neolithic occurred after the last inter-glacial because the climate was uniform, for the first time (relatively writing) for thousands of years. The interval post previous inter-glacials was not so stable. There is much more to the “answer” than that but that is “the drift”.
One could say, along with a good deal else, that sedentary occupation occurred by chance. Ditto for (hence) wheels and smart phones – although, less the case for the domestication of animals.
Another interesting question is “should we manage to wipe ourselves out to (e.g. 50,000 world wide) could homo sapiens ever recover to 21st century technology. The answer is “maybe yes – maybe no”. There is noting teleological about civilisations (be it Babylonian or ours); indeed cultures come to that – and yet another point of (extreme) confusion in the writings of Mr Pearson (et al).
Andrea
November 21, 2018 at 11:13 amBye Kyle!
kyle Hargraves
November 21, 2018 at 12:00 pmI’ll, doubtless, annoy (unintentionally) a few souls over the next few days via posts to topics I consider significant Andrea.
Believe it or not I did enjoy the discussions that we had but conducting discussions in a non-friendly google environment (that Crikey has moved to – and is of benefit to the majority) is a labour in itself.
Andrea
November 21, 2018 at 6:50 pmI’ve enjoyed our exchanges and your exchanges with others, you are in a class of your own with extensive knowledge and unconventional opinions on any number of topics.
Ruv Draba
November 21, 2018 at 7:05 amHelen wrote: To have value, “sorry” must be true
To have value, ‘sorry’ must be delivered by someone visibly, actively committed to correcting the underlying problems, competent to do so, and transparent and accountable in execution.
To be meaningful, ‘sorry’ is a constructive commitment to sustainable improvement.
‘Sorry’ accompanied by incompetence, indifference and obfuscation isn’t an apology but cynical posturing.
kyle Hargraves
November 21, 2018 at 11:03 amAssuming the liberty to extend the argument , noting as Ruv has, the apology must be made by a responsible person – or if one prefers – a person who is/was responsible for the event. There is no one alive who was responsible for colonialism in any form and by any nation. Similarly for WW2 (by way of illustration). Those
who participated – the few that are still alive – did so (as Marx put it) in circumstances not constructed by themselves.
BeenAround
November 21, 2018 at 6:09 pmIn any event, one cannot apologise for criminal and immoral conduct consciously and deliberately pursued by boards and senior management. In these circumstances, the only honourable thing to do (as if the banks and insurance companies are capable of anything like that) is await the consequences and cop it. Let’s hope the consequences are commensurate with the crime.
AR
November 21, 2018 at 10:52 pmFull marks for “… a machine whose army of parasitic nanobots are dispatched to suck ordinary people into the bondage of debt”.
There is a reason usury has a bad name.
We’ve heard the mewlings about ‘sorry’ from the spokesbots for the paper shufflers only because they were caught.
What was it Abbottrocious said “better to ask forgiveness than permission”?
If there is no restitution plus compensation from this enquiry for the victims – and there is not the slightest chance of that – it should convince anyone with heartbeat that banking & insurance should be nationalised.
sharper173
November 22, 2018 at 1:13 amI said to my most intelligent staff member the other day that the current CEO’s and Bank Chairpersons will likely go before the Royal Commission and plead that they were new to the job and the shite all happened before their time!!
Guess what? The CBA pair Livingstone and Cormyn have done just that!!….They blamed Narev….et al.
No doubt the ANZ pair will blame Mike Smith, and Westpac will blame Gail Kelly!!!..
Why the f**ck have not all the past CEO’s and Chairpersons for the last 15 years or more when all the rorts and shite started, been dragged before the commission to be examined??
A friend of mine had a novel suggestion – shoot one of the most egregious CEO’s ….don’t kill them…just disable them for life….just like the 60+ year olds they have ruined for life by foreclosing on viable businesses which have never missed loan payments….but were re-rated because the oppressive terms of a loan agreement exploited by the usurous Bank.
The shooter would have immediate hero status, would go to a jail as a star inmate, would probably get a lighter than normal sentence for GBH, free food and acommodation, could write a book in jail and have media career thereafter with decent paydays…..
Compare that to 20 years until death existing on a pension, living in shite public housing, anonymous and broken with no time to rebuild any sort of decent lifestyle.
Meanwhile the ex-CEO’s and Chairpersons count their Bank earnings in the tens of millions and rub shoulders with the Turnbulls at Point Piper.
I saw Alan Kohler quote that Narev got $42 million+ for his 7 years at CBA.
Peter Hannigan
November 23, 2018 at 8:29 pmAre you obliquely referencing the ‘one bullet pension plan’ meme that is wandering around the internet in Australia? I have a suspicion the meme is actually a disguised US import as are most things that involve resolution through bullets. But it certainly speaks to frustrations with the current state of politics and business.
sharper173
November 26, 2018 at 3:44 pmNo, I am referencing the opinion of my wife’s best friend whose husband died in a tragic road accident after the ANZ Bank foreclosed on a 30 year old business which had never missed a payment and was well respected in its industry.
The bereaved widow blames the ANZ Bank for the ruination of their lives, the loss of their home and the death of her husband who should have been at work on the day he was killed.
When you see the insouciant mug of Comyn, looking like a punk schoolboy with a collar too small for his neck, speaking like a spivvy real estate agent, daring the QC to tell him what he should be doing….then thoughts do turn drastically violent.