Week 8 Blog " An ethical in effective comminication"

Currently, Myer is the largest department chain in Australia. The compant is in a storm of criticism from various Social Medias. This is because Myer’s chief executive Bernie Brookes disagreed with the government plan which is designed to help disabled people. This post will explore an ethical point of view about what Mr Brookes said. I will explore what he should do to show caring attitude towards to disabled people.

Mr Brookes felt disappointed was the federal government plan that aims to increase the Medicare levy by half a percentage point which will cost the average household at least $350 a year. The main intention of the plan was to help disable people financially. Mr Brookes said that the government should not take the money because the shoppers such as tax payers will not use their money at Myer (Robins 2013).  However there are many stores for shoppers to spend their money on and not everyone spend their money at Myer. It means that the plan would not damage Myer’s profit as much as Mr Brookes believes.

Due to the comment, some people think that he does not have any concerns about people with disabilities but his own profit. His self-centred comment was highly unethical. This is because he has excessively emphasized on his profits.(Lehman and DuFrence 2013 p.10). Disabled people are also citizens of Australia as well as customers of Myers.  No one has the right to discriminate people against disabilities including Mr Brookes. That is why the government believes that it is essential to make society where disabled people can live comfortably. To create such an environment, the government needs to take the money from each household. Furthermore his comment might negatively affect his business, because some people may feel that they should not spend their money at Myer due to the comment. In fact, one citizen predicted that Myer will have a very disappointing Mother’s Day Trade this year. Due to his self-centred comment, Mr Brookes needs to consider in form of taking some actions to overcome this storm of criticisms. Otherwise people would think that Myer is a company which only concern about its profit. Disability discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes was furious about Mr Brookes’ comments and demanded Myer to employ 10 per cent more disable people by 2015. (“Myer lashed for CEO’s disability comments”, 2013 para.3). The reason why Mr Innes said such a demanding comment could be because he wants Myers to show that the company cares about disabled people rather than focus on  own profit.

To sum up, it is true that the company needs to increase its profit to keep running the company. However at the same time, it should also care about people especially people with disabilities. They often face many issues in their life such as employments. Disabled people often find it difficult to find a job even if their skills are much better than others. Myer should see their abilities and hire them. Otherwise Myer will get more severe criticisms about the comment. 

Lehman, C.M. & DuFrene, D.D. (2013). Establishing a Framework for Business Communication In BCOM (4th ed) Mason, Canada, Nelson Education, Ltd.

Myer lashed for CEO’s disability comment (2013) Retrieved from    http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/02/09/52/myer-faces-backlash-over-ndis-comments

Robins, B. (2013) Myer predicts hit from rise to health levy. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/business/myer-predicts-hit-from-rise-to-health-levy-20130501-2itaf.html