Why is it that often the contenders for the Bosses Behaving Badly in a Pandemic Award have form in other dubious areas?
Take this week’s public enemy number one, Jim Penman of Jim’s Mowing, who caused widespread outrage after a television interview where he encouraged his franchisees to keep working in Victoria despite the lockdown. He even offered to pay the fines of mowers caught flouting the rules.
“It is a ridiculous measure that has caused misery to tens of thousands of Victorians,” he said without irony, given the misery of catching COVID-19 for millions more.
Premier Daniel Andrews quickly swatted him down, warning mowers are not essential. But Penman’s unlikely to disappear given his controversial background.
You see Jim’s expertise goes beyond cutting grass — lucrative as that is for him. He spends his millions in the bizarre pursuit of the “science” of epigenetics which believes in altering people’s behaviour by altering their actual genes.
He has admitted in previous interviews to conducting experiments on rats and guinea pigs to induce hormonal change.
In Sydney, we had a similar situation with the pushy owner of the garish Le Montage function centre in Western Sydney, Sal Navarra, who told Network Ten last month that he would not be abiding by new rules to reduce crowd numbers.
He too has priors. He made a similar threat on Sky News back in June during the first round of restrictions, vowing to host as many guests as he wanted because he “didn’t want to deal with angry brides anymore”.
Presumably dealing with sick customers is easier.
And it’s not just men behaving badly. Beauty influencer Kristin Fisher of Sydney’s upmarket Double Bay dared authorities to shut down her eyebrow salon to the stars over her disgust at being treated differently to hair salons. Eyebrows raised but no arrest so far.
Since then we’ve seen a few more people gaining attention, including Melbourne lawyer Juan Martinez — managing partner of the giant HWL Ebsworth legal — who encouraged staff to return work rather than work from home, only to record six COVID-19 cases in a “key outbreak”.
Martinez is clearly not one to back down. Last week he filed an official complaint with the Human Rights Commission about an AFR headline that punned on his name, claiming it offended, insulted and humiliated him, based on his Spanish heritage.
Hurt feelings obviously a priority even when your staff are actually hurting from COVID-19.
Penman and the more recent names join a growing list of business people putting self interest before the national interest since the pandemic began in March, as outlined in my Crikey column back in April.
So what of my first batch of Businessmen Behaving Badly?
Well, there is the selfish billionaire retailer Solly Lew who very publicly rushed to close shops and stop paying rent to his landlords at the outset of the crisis.
Lew is unpopular with many in the business community over his stance but is still obviously beloved by the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who continues to consult him. Only this week Lew was once again handing out gratuitous advice to the government on economic policy.
Then there was Twiggy Forrest, who became a pariah in April over his close China links when he blindsided the federal health minister to do a bit of PR with the Chinese consulate-general.
This week ABC Chair Ita Buttrose made a captains pick to give him the prestigious role of delivering the annual Boyer Lectures.
Picking the controversial capitalist, whose wealth topped $20 billion only last week, will not just upset the lefties but plenty from the right who are angered by his constant spruiking for China.
Good old Sky staple Gerry Harvey, who was criticised back in March when he boasted to 60 Minutes that he was making plenty of profits off the pandemic, looks positively benign given what his corporate counterparts have been doing since.
Penman has a PhD in history. Who says study in the Humanities leads to a life of poverty?
Twiggy has a PhD in Marine Science. Its worth and the motives behind it are highly debatable, but it shows that science PhD’s pay slightly better than Humanities 😉
<>
Epigenetics _is_ an important area of genetics. and should not be described as “science” with scare quotes. Whatever Jim Penman is interested in is something else or some bastardised version. But the main references on the net seem to be either a sketchy wikipedia article or his own websites.
Thanks for your comment, Mike WWW. I was about to post something similar. Epigenetics is an important area of science and, contrary to the article, is concerned with modification of gene expression, not the ‘actual genes themselves’. Whether Penman has contributed anything useful in the area is another matter.
and I’ll third that – thanks for saving me the effort of writing this. Epigenetics is a perfectly respectable and important area of genetics
And I’ll fourth it – thanks for making these comments – the article contains a completely incorrect definition of epigenetics – it would be nice if the journalist could actually look up and understand the terminology before using it – and then understand what the crank she’s rightly reporting on is trying to do with it – I’m sure a call to a university geneticist would be able to help with that if it’s a bit of a headbender for a non-science-specialist, but it’s unhelpful to have such poor science reporting as part of what’s supposed to be a serious article.
Oh, me fifth apparently. 🙂 Good to see.
I agree with you in principle, Sue, but don’t be too surprised should you encounter a display of ignorance from at least one employee over the forthcoming week.
What Penman clicks on (or ignores) is an irrelevance to the topic but the intention of the reporter was to effect a “guilt by association” relationship to disparage Penman’s perspectives regarding lock-downs etc.
All politicians seek such methods to undermine a policy because it (for the unwashed) is more effective to arguing upon the facts – which requires rational argument and a moderately cognitive audience.
I take your point, Erasmus; thanks for pointing it out. I was thoroughly bamboozled that a journalist in an organisation that prides itself on independent and quality journalism doesn’t actually seem to do the quite basic thing of checking their understanding of specialist terminology by consulting a dictionary before writing an article. If you don’t get something basic like that right, you’re just adding to the misinformation and general sound and fury signifying nothing. And yes, absolutely, playing the ball and not the person, and arguing rationally instead of attacking people (even oafs, it’s true) is an equally important principle, as you rightly remind us.
Me four.
One can’t expect a journo. to be scientifically literate but most people are capable of googling.
Or reading a Gregory’s to find western Sydney.
Actually Agni, one damn well ought to have a firm comprehension of the topic prior to blowing the content into the public domain. To refer to matters with no understanding is irresponsible at any time and I’m sorry to say that the post truth barrel is becoming heaver with unadulterated crap by the hour.
As with most of the articles of Crikey this is another slab of emotional hogwash for the readers to literally lap up without a second thought. If I were Fray I’d fire the writers (except for one or two) and keep about a dozen contributers. One could apply to become a contributor but subscribers in general would get to look (only) at the discussions.
If the Big Pee is successful, how will this affect WA’s biosecurity restrictions?
The WA government is keeping its cards close to its chest but there is no constitutional impediment to a state declaring parts of its territory within its borders quarantine zones. If it were my decision to make I’d be looking at declaring most of the state a quarantine zone so that accessing any place within the quarantine zone required a permit. Perth’s quarantine zone would start just outside Perth and Jandakot airports and Fremantle port.
Western Sydney starts at George Street.
Have attended a few shindigs at Le Montage which I could have sworn was located in Leichhardt. Has the pandemic altered our social geography so much that Leichhardt is now part of ‘Western Sydney’?
I’m sure the beautiful people who puff past on Sydney’s second most crowded walking track would not agree.
If the reportage is highlighting something negative, it’s always happening in Western Sydney. Newtown and Marrickville are sometimes simultaneously located in the edgy inner west and Western Sydney depending on what is being reported: new hipster foodie wine bar – inner west; stabbing and affray – Western Sydney, even if it’s the same venue. I expect it of the TV news, even the Herald, but I did think that Crikey would do a better job.
It’s good to know that we’re “all in this together,” isn’t it? Perhaps you had such a surfeit of bosses behaving, you know, bossly, that you couldn’t fit in the nameless individual who is suing the WA government to have closed state borders declared unconstitutional. Attorney-General Charles Christian Porter, or Charles Porter III as our friends across the Pacific would say, was supporting this lawsuit on behalf of the Federal Government and against his own State, very nobly. Then a poll showed that WA Premier Mark McGowan had about 97% public support for the closed border within which WA residents are living almost normal lives unlike, say, our compatriots in Melbourne. The “constitutionally necessary” need for Commonwealth involvement suddenly evaporated and the PM made a quick weekend phone call to McGowan advising that the Commonwealth was out of the case. Still, the unnamed individual, whose name I won’t pollute my virtual keyboard by typing, is going ahead with the case and if closed State borders become unconstitutional health authorities will have to find a plan B.
In Janine’s defence, Rais, she did a whole article on Palmer recently on exactly that, plus all the other dubious moves over recent years.
WA is my “home” State but the Premiers are bring distension upon themselves as my reply to Mike (hopefully) makes clear. Your nemesis is, Rais, Mr (huggable) Clive Palmer. Now, that wasn’t too hard was it? However, as to veracity (and I refer equally to DB) I offer the following from the article.
Just in terms of curiosity how would one grade the following : (a) accurate or (b) fair or (c) informed or (d) “try displayed pig ignorance of the subject matter conjured as a basis to make political points.” [as it was expressed by an obviously knowledge contributor a few days ago]
From the article:
Then there was Twiggy Forrest, who became a pariah in April over his close China links
[point 1 – my emphasis]
when he blindsided the federal health minister to do a bit of PR with the Chinese consulate-general.
[point 2]
Picking the controversial capitalist, whose wealth topped $20 billion only last week, will not just upset the lefties
[point 3]
but plenty from the right who are angered by his constant spruiking for China.
[point 4]
We have four claims to veracity and I’m inclined to take all four apart as a service to the readership. I trust that she is not a victim of the virus because, assuming the best case, I wonder just what features of international economics and diplomacy she does comprehend. As to the forthcoming address (or lecture) she has dismissed that (a priori) out of hand. It seems that we are permitted only the sanitised (pun intended) or the pro Secretary of State view of Australia’s future.
I wonder if there is a law against inciting people to flout public health diktats.
A member of the MSM was tweeting to Melbourne citizens to please ignore the restrictions.
I’d be happy to see him locked up for the duration for that alone.
I could refer you to a good deal of material that advocated all manner of stuff, DB, during the (e.g. – among others) Acts of Toleration in England and the New Colonies. That someone tweets “bla bla” ought to mean nothing in an environment of free speech. Voltaire made this point as did Mill a century later and attached the principle to his (Mill’s) Theory of Harm.
If the fellow from MSM is to be sanctioned then what of Mr Trump or anyone else whose objective is entirely “post truth”? Compulsion is one thing but mere raving is quite another. The topic in question OUGHT to be incidental.