Bad optics have cost Woolworths CEO, Brad Banducci, his job.
Banducci, the latest corporate head to dance with the Woke mind virus, resigned this week after a series of brand-damaging decisions.
The outgoing CEO is loaded, and will likely leave with an AUD $30.4 million-dollar handshake.
That’s quite a lot for the man who banned Australia Day, and Australian flag merchandise from all Australian Woolworths stores.
Those optics went from bad to worse.
Fending off widespread criticism, as high up as Australia’s opposition leader, Banducci’s clumsy defence nose-dived.
He embraced Chinese New Year, argued no one wanted to buy Australian flags anymore, and then tried to salvage the double standard.
Banducci also fumbled a recent Four Corners interview about ‘price gouging.’
He’s clearly not comfortable with talking to Australians about the middle-man mark-up between the farmer and the plate.
This shouldn’t shock people.
Where there’s contempt for the nation, there will be contempt for its people.
What’s worth asking Banducci is:
Will he follow through on his Australia Day ban?
Will the departing CEO give up the golden handshake and the alleged shares in Woolworths to Indigenous Australia?
After all, so the defence of socially acceptable ethnocentrism goes, they were “here first!”
This is the follow-through of alignment with the “Invasion Day” false narrative, pushed by Blaktivists and Western Maoists – the more precise term for Cultural Marxists.
In fact, Banducci’s last act as a “coloniser” should be to “pay the rent.”
To be true to “never ceded sovereignty” – Australia-hating activism – the outgoing Woolworths CEO should hand over his private house, including any investment properties.
Then, to fulfil his obligation to “always was, always will be,” Banducci can repeatedly bow in subservient apology for his ethnicity, skin colour, and his unconscious “racism,” by leaving this “stolen land” behind completely.
The final nail in the coffin of Banducci’s flirtation with far-left extremism should be to shut the company down because Woolworths’ was built on “whiteness.”
Either that, or Banducci can “hand-back” the entire company to Indigenous Australians – without deference to the hard-working, and the undeserving.
Like ‘The Voice,’ the “trust-us-with-the-fine print” Canberra bubble can work out the details later.
Indeed, to be thorough, Banducci should then replace all staff with Indigenous employees, “past, present, and emerging.”
This satisfies the ethnocentric “blood and soil” doctrines of the Woke Jihadists he’s appeased.
This is the Western Maoist follow-through.
Yet, for all his Jan. 26 pandering, Brad Banducci is unlikely to do any of it.
Like many, his Australia Day decisions appear feckless.
It’s called debased emotional reasoning, veiled in flimsy excuses about costs and benefits.
When the real villain is ‘inclusive storytelling,’ gaslighting white guilt, “voice, and visibility.”
By cancelling Australia Day, the outgoing Woolworths CEO promised more than he should have professionally.
It was certainly more than he would be willing to deliver personally.
Banducci’s resignation isn’t just a consequence of bad optics, it’s a consequence of bad politics.
Regardless of how much good Banducci has done for Woolworths, his captain’s call on Australia Day sets that company up for a future fall.
They’re now in debt to a soulless activism that is never satisfied.
This is, of course, unless incoming CEO Amanda Bardwell can reverse course.
With no thanks to Banducci, this will be a difficult task.
More will be demanded of them. As goes the tale of the crossroads, and Robert Johnson’s toll for his soul.
Woolworths would do well to heed this advice:
Once you ‘invite the devil to dinner, he never wants to leave, better to have nothing to do with him.’