Broomhead’s dangerous intolerance of intolerance

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Every year, once per year, Australians are treated to an exposion of pomposity at the Orica annual general meeting, via Domain:

Influential businessman and Orica chairman Malcolm Broomhead has lamented the rise of a culture of “self-righteousness” and a mindset where people are “intolerant” of others.

In a speech to Orica shareholders, Mr Broomhead said “the decline we see of reasoned, articulate and productive discussion and debate, at almost every level in our society”, was a challenge to Orica and most companies in western economies.

“It’s a great shame that 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, where there was great hope of a future united world, we seem to just be pulling ourselves apart in a frenzy of self-righteousness,” he said at the explosives maker’s annual general meeting on Tuesday.

“And there’s an attitude of ‘I’m right and I’ll shout down anyone who disagrees’, and it’s becoming increasingly prevalent,” he said.

The exception, of course, being Mr Broomhead’s intolerance of intolerance.

Let’s look back to last year’s lecture-from-on-high to see why Mr Broomhead is so exercised by cultural sensitivity, via the AFR:

One of Australia’s most senior business figures, Malcolm Broomhead, has unloaded on the former Turnbull government and its handling of the China relationship, opening up old divides around national security and trade.

At a forum where the newly installed Treasury secretary Philip Gaetjens said the government would “not resile” from protecting national security, Mr Broomhead and other business figures were quick to criticise the deterioration of relations with Beijing.

“I think the relationship [with China] in the past 18 months has been terrible, it’s been perplexing and it’s been deliberate on our part,” Mr Broomhead told the forum on Chinese Investment and Australia.

“For some reason the recent government chose to go out of its way in rhetoric to almost insult the Chinese,” he said noting there would always be differences in the relationship but these had been managed by both sides of politics previously.

Mr Broomhead, who chairs explosives maker Orica and sits on the board of BHP, went a step further, saying the axing of Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister would be good for relations with China.

That didn’t work out so well did it? Perhaps that’s because the Chinese Communist Party caused the rupture in the first place, by violating Australian sovereignty with its various influence operations, a crisis which has mushroomed ever since.

2019 has been an object lesson in what not to do when it comes to the CCP as the Morrison Government has grovelled repeatedly to win over Beijing, only to be subjected to ever more scorn and violation in return.

So, should we pull our heads in and in no way offend our new Chinese overlords so that BHP and Orica can print money? Or, should we debate loudly, raucously, outragesously as we fight to retain our democracy?

I would have thought that the answer for a freedom-loving, free markets beneficary such as Mr Broomhead is self-evident.

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.