As ever, Harvey Norman’s annual general meeting on Wednesday was a categorical, unalleviated freak show. In pre-prepared remarks, chairman Gerry Harvey asked board candidate Stephen Mayne: “Are you a sexual predator?” The obscene allegation is, of course, beneath reply. Chief executive Katie Page made a show of elbowing her husband as if to curtail such lunacy, but she’d been peddling the same attack line in investor meetings.

The Corporations Act affords “reasonable opportunity” for shareholders to question a public company board at an AGM. As his troupe of related and affiliated mouth-breathers chuckled away abreast of him, Gerry handpicked mostly friendlies from the floor.