On Being Kind to be Cruel

National Australia Bank is offering cultural leave and counselling to Indigenous staff impacted by the loss of the voice referendum.

Personally, I think they’d be better providing counselling for customers affected by branch closures.

But that’s just me imagining a fairytale world in which corporations stick to their core business.

Meanwhile, accounting firm KMPG is proposing to run “yarning circles” so Indigenous staff can “heal in a culturally safe way”. All because a democratic vote didn’t go their way.

Suncorp does not offer cultural leave but have told staff they can take other leave if the result of the vote has overwhelmed them.

Suncorp’s diversity and inclusion leader Catherina Behan wrote on LinkedIn that a ‘Yes’ result could have …

“ … helped to restore even the smallest amount of trust in the people and systems that have inflicted ongoing trauma and violence for centuries.”

She added …

“Imagine the devastating blow to hope, the very loud message of rejection, the overt refusal to even come to the same table.”

Is it any wonder Indigenous staff need time off when senior executives are busy telling them that the referendum result was a “message of rejection” and a “devastating blow to hope”?

It was none of the sort!

The Herald Sun reported that Ms Behan later updated her post to say it was her personal opinion.

That’s called Suncorp insurance! They are, after all, based in Queensland where almost 70 per cent of people voted against the Voice!

It’s not good for business to start speculating that 70 per cent of your customers are racist.

But it’s not good for Indigenous people either.

Forget the ‘No’ vote. The worst thing to happen to Indigenous people is white guilt; the insistence that Indigenous people are helpless unless we provide for them. That’s not kind. It’s completely disempowering.

To suggest that grown adults might need mental health leave because a proposed bureaucratic body in Canberra isn’t going to be created after all only serves to infantilize those people.

It should be noted that there is no record of Indigenous people asking for counselling after the referendum result. Rather, it is pre-emptively offered by woke suits in a bid to appear caring.

But is it really caring to assume that your Indigenous staff cannot cope with a democratic vote that didn’t go their way … a vote for a constitutional change that we were constantly told was so minor as to be as close to a nothing burger as anyone could imagine?

Indigenous people are smart, strong and capable.

And we live in a country that affords every person, regardless of their background, amazing opportunities, as countless successful Indigenous people can attest.

To hold a referendum because you want to help Indigenous people, and then to use its defeat to insist they are now more disadvantaged than if the referendum had not been held is not kind. It’s cruel.