Westpac investors vote mostly ‘no’ to stupidity

Westpac was all-but inviting shareholders to have a free lash at the board, yet only 30 per cent took up the ‘offer’. The majority voted sensibly and with enlightened self-interest.

Westpac chairman John McFarlane. Picture: Adam Yip

Some good news: an overwhelming majority of just under 70 per cent of Westpac shareholders voted for the remuneration report.

Some outstandingly better news: an even more overwhelming majority of 93 per cent of Westpac shareholders voted to reject the mindless and aggressive stupidity of the climate activists.

The two votes demonstrate that investors both institutional and small haven’t entirely lost touch with reality and embraced the self-harm – and on to actual financial suicide - of utter woke insanity. Yes, as 30 per cent voted against the rem report, Westpac scored a ‘first strike’.

If more than 25 per cent vote against the rem report next year, it will score a ‘second strike’. That would then trigger a vote on a ‘spill motion’ – to ‘spill’ the entire board; to force individual votes on each director.

If more than 50 per cent then voted for the spill motion - but only if they did, as it’s only a vote on the spill itself not actually on the directors themselves – would Westpac move to actually voting on whether each director would be sacked or would continue. I can say without the slightest fear of being proved wrong that if Westpac did score a second strike on its rem report next year, there would be zero chance of it leading on to a successful spill motion.

It’s not simply that a repeated, say, 30 per cent vote against the rem report self-evidently does not deliver the 50.1 per cent conventional vote required to pass the spill motion.

That’s mindless stupidity right upfront for you. Yes, 25.1 per cent triggers the ‘’strikes’, but it still needs what we used to think was the conventional 50.1 per cent to do anything with the strikes. And to get that, somehow 20 per cent-plus of holders (on the 30 per cent vote against the rem report) would have to decide to immediately do a 180 – to suddenly vote against the board they’ve just voted for.

Westpac chairman John McFarlane. Picture: Adam Yip

So first off, it’s fundamentally and actually quite offensively anti-democratic; empowering a 25.1 per cent vote to ‘beat’ a 74.9 per cent vote.

But it’s also then fundamentally – and mindlessly - pointless; to be even the slightest bit effective, the anti rem reports votes require some other shareholders to immediately flip. Why would they?

A company could have, say, a 26 per cent vote against the rem report every year from here until the 22nd century and it would add up to four-fifths of five-eighths of sweet very little.

Furthermore, like the proverbial dog which catches the car, in those rare examples where shareholders have recorded two strikes against a rem report, even those shareholders have run a million miles from actually doing anything in the follow-on vote to spill the board.

Heaven forfend, after stating emphatically we are totally unhappy with the board, would we then want to, you know actually do anything, like you know, change directors.

Nothing better captures the mindless tick-the-box sheeplike behaviour of institutional investors. Especially when they are ‘following’’ the ‘advice’ of so-called ‘proxy advisors’ to vote against the rem report

Specifically with Westpac, given the events of the past five-plus years, it was all-but inviting shareholders to have a free lash at the board.

Yet only 30 per cent took up the ‘offer’. My compliments to the overwhelming 70 per cent majority which voted sensibly and with enlightened self-interest.

This was even more so in the votes on the proposed amendments to the Westpac constitution.

Shareholders voted 99 per cent for the sensible amendments proposed by the board; they then immediately voted 93 per cent against the mindless stupidity proposed by far left activist group Market Forces.

In a world of increasing mad wokeness, it was a small step but a welcome one.

Originally published as Westpac investors vote mostly ‘no’ to stupidity