Federal MP takes aim at corporate Australia’s disconnect with regions

A disconnect between corporate Australia and the regions, as well as virtue signalling by some of Australia’s largest corporations, has drawn fire from federal Member for Parkes Mark Coulton.

Addressing the House of Representatives last week, Mr Coulton took issue with corporations’ virtue signalling by working on Australia Day in support of Aboriginal
people, however, abandoning the same people in the critical areas of telecommunications and banking.

Mr Coulton’s speech to parliament followed earlier discussion in Canberra about banking and financial services.

“The CEO of the National Australia Bank, in virtue, decided to work on Australia Day in support of Aboriginal people in Australia,” Mr Coulton said.

“They weren’t so thoughtful when they shut the Wee Waa branch.

“The people in that town who are most disadvantaged are the elderly Aboriginal people who are not au fait with online banking.

“The Telstra CEO decided to work on Australia Day to show her virtue and support for Aboriginal people, but where was Telstra during the pandemic when the kids at Wilcannia had to work remotely and didn’t have an internet connection to enable them to do that?

“It put them at an extreme disadvantage to people in other towns. Where were they then?

“I don’t have an issue with the people on the ground.

“On Australia Day, as I was driving across my electorate, I saw a Telstra technician working on an exchange.

“I’m sure he was doing that to do his job and make sure people had communication and not signalling his virtue while he was doing it.”

Mr Coulton also used his address to parliament to lambast Westpac for its decision to abandon the Moree community.

He also took issue with ANZ for refusing to finance the Port of Newcastle as the facility is used to export coal.

“Despite the fact that the Port of Newcastle authority has no coal assets, ANZ, in their virtue, decided not to finance them,” he said.

“What they failed to realise is that the majority of the grain that’s grown in my electorate in northern New South Wales, that is exported to countries all over the world and pays our bills, go through the Port of Newcastle.

“So while the banks are out there trying to sign up farmers as customers, they’re undermining their supply chains by not financing the Port of Newcastle.”

Mr Coulton called on virtue signalling to end and instead the focus firmly placed on supporting communities.

“I’ve heard some comments in this place that I find are quite offensive to the people I represent. I represent, after the Northern Territory, the highest percentage of Aboriginal people in any electorate in this country,” he said.

“I’ve been working with them for 15 years. These people are working out there as health professionals, in education, and as CEOs of local government.

“A large number of my shire councillors are Aboriginal. They’re building roads; they’re running cultural centres.

“We’ve got young Aboriginal men instructing boys at the Clontarf Foundation.

“I could go on and on. Good, solid citizens and part of the community.

“Some of the comments here, where people are speaking in slow voices and espousing their virtue and their care for these people with clearly no understanding of the integrity and the ability and the desire for these people to drive their own communities.

“My people have had enough of this.

“They are getting on with the job.

“They don’t need the sympathy and the virtue of corporate Australia; they just want the support to do what they’re doing.”