Mark Latham slams $1800-an-hour Diversity Council program as ‘so pathetic it’s laughable’

DIVERSITY consultants are charging up to $1800 an hour to warn employees about the dangers of “non-inclusive” language.

WORKPLACE diversity consultants are charging Australian companies up to $1800 an hour to warn employees about the dangers of using “non-inclusive” language such as “mum”.

Former Labor leader Mark Latham slammed the Diversity Council of Australia’s “words at work” training program as “pathetic” on his Outsiders show on Wednesday night.

The DCA, headed by former Australian of the Year David Morrison, charges $2500 for members or $3600 for non-members for a two-hour program delivered by “experienced DCA staff and consultants” to educate companies about “the power of words”.

In a training video released last year, Mr Morrison and a female office worker inspect a sign left above a kitchen full of dirty dishes reading, “Clean up after yourself! Your mum doesn’t work here!” To solve the problem, Mr Morrison pulls out a red marker and adds the word “dad”.

“It’s so pathetic it’s laughable,” Mr Latham said. “Imagine being a corporation with so much money you can afford thousands of dollars to send your staff to learn about dirty coffee cups and a sign.

“It’s all wrong, it’s all terrible, it’s the end of the world, your biggest corporate challenge is it says, ‘Your mum doesn’t work here’ and you’ve got to change it to ‘mum and dad’ for that imbecile Morrison.”

Mr Latham described it as “laughable at one level” but “also a sign of what’s wrong with corporate Australia”.

“These outfits that have been pushing the diversity agenda haven’t got enough competition to drive down their profit levels and make them focus on efficiency and productivity,” he said.

“The things that really matter, instead of political correctness and language policing and signing up for these expensive, useless, thoroughly ridiculous seminars with David Morrison.”

In a statement, DCA chief executive Lisa Annese said the program was developed in 2016 because “businesses told us that they were struggling to include all members of their increasingly diverse workplaces”.

“In response, we developed the campaign video, series of guides and education program to show how inclusive language can improve workplace culture and drive productivity,” she said.

“It has been our most popular program by far and we are very proud of it. At DCA we support freedom of speech and Mr Latham is entitled to his views.”

Last year, the DCA revealed it had been forced to turn off comments and ratings on the video, which also urged against the use of the word “guys”, due to “highly offensive abuse”.

“We are happy for feedback, both positive and negative, but we were not getting a constructive or respectful conversation,” a spokeswoman said at the time, with Ms Annese saying she was “surprised it received such an intense reaction and the tone of a lot of that”.

“The sort of expletive-laden language that’s been directed towards people in our organisation and the chair of our board, I’m just confused by it,” she said. “It seemed a bit ironic to us [given we were] making a call for people to start having respectful workplaces.”

[e-mail]

Originally published as Mark Latham slams $1800-an-hour Diversity Council program as ‘so pathetic it’s laughable’