DAVID AND GOLIATH – THE STORY CONTINUES

All of us are familiar with the legend of David and Goliath, the biblical account of the diminutive Jewish stripling pitted against the Philistine giant in the ultimate tale of the uber-underdog prevailing against overwhelming odds. Although slain by a single stone to the forehead hurled from David’s slingshot and then dutifully decapitated and his head delivered up to King Saul, unfortunately the spectre of Goliath was not entirely eradicated from the face of the earth and lives on in its new modern day manifestation exemplified by the behaviour of big business and multi-national organisations across the globe. In many ways my novel, The Acquisition, is inspired by the David and Goliath theme, the David in my story represented by lowly paid and downtrodden employees and hardworking small business owners battling against modern day Goliaths in the form of overwhelming corporate power and greed, and the intrusion of behemoth bureaucratic institutions disrupting the everyday lives of honest, law-abiding citizens. In my adaptation the setting, rather than being in the Valley of Elah, is in a boardroom in Collins Street Melbourne, one of the beating hearts of corporate life in Australia, where my fictional band of bastards meet to scheme and plot to enact their sinister deeds. Unfortunately the behaviour of my fictional characters is played out all too readily in real life and in Australia, at this very point in time, we are witnessing first hand through the extraordinary investigative powers of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, the reprehensible conduct of the grotesquely profitable big banks, the Goliaths that dominate the corporate landscape in this country. With tentacles extending into all areas of the financial sector – home mortgages, small business loans, wealth management retirement funds and general property, health, life and funeral insurance; a probing light is being shone directly into the dark corners of their operations and the view being illuminated is a mighty ugly and disturbing one of unadulterated greed and corporate skulduggery, much of which is being inflicted upon those least able to defend themselves against these gluttonous corporate beasts. The Royal Commission has revealed sustained and systematic instances of malfeasance, such as charging fees for services that simply were not provided including cases where deceased clients have continued to have monthly fees for life insurance deducted from their estates; a macabre irony if ever there were one - charged in death for life insurance!! Other shocking acts of dishonesty include the banks’ health insurance arms refusing to pay out claims to seriously ill customers who have dutifully paid their monthly policy subscription fees on time year-in-and- year-out, in many instances for decades. And then in their hour of need, when they are at their most vulnerable, sick and requiring the financial health care coverage they have paid for in good faith; they are left abandoned and alone in shameless acts of stonewalling and duplicity. In yet still another example, an intellectually disabled teenager sold a funeral insurance policy over the telephone by a pushy, hard-arsed salesman, the audio tape of the transaction clearly indicating the youngster had no idea what he was signing up for. That we have to continue to stand up to the ogres and bullies of this world or they win out is a line almost as ancient as the fable of David and Goliath itself. They all deserve to meet my Acquisition characters, Des Ridley and ‘Arnie’ Tereshenko, in a dark alley somewhere in West Footscray. They’d soon sort the bastards out and give them what they deserve!

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