The sparring between Greens senator Nick McKim and Woolies boss Brad Banducci deteriorated into an unedifying headbutting contest.
A photo finish was needed to decide the winner of the gold medal for the most ridiculous performance at a Senate Inquiry – the contenders being Greens senator Nick McKim for his pertinacious questions on just one particular Woolworths profit measure, or the supermarket chief executive Brad Banducci for refusing to answer.This is because there was no great reveal in the answer – it’s contained in Woolworths’ annual report.
The curious aspect to this brawl is that Banducci didn’t shut it down by simply agreeing with McKim that the number was roughly 26 per cent.Instead, the Woolworths boss repeated the mantra that this was not a measure that the company was focused on – and that it preferred to use return on investment, or total shareholder return.The debate reached farcical levels when McKim threatened to hold Banducci in contempt and brandished a potential jail term of six months.
Banducci has a bit of recent form on poorly handling being interviewed. He walked out of a Four Corners interview a few months back because the cameras continued to roll after he fluffed the answer to a question. Maybe Banducci, who has already announced he will soon retire, was taking one for the team, or maybe he thought the broader audience couldn’t appreciate why return on equity wasn’t a particularly illustrative metric to use for performance, or was simply difficult to justify.
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