#john uhrig

The large number of people present here today is an indication of the concern among proprietors about the problems the back has been experiencing. The unusually large attendance is also a reflection of the intense focus of public scrutiny Westpac has had to contend with in dealing with an extremely difficult situation. There are proprietors, some of whom will be here today, whose primary interest is to seek vengeance because of poor profit performance. Others want to be able to feel more confident that the people currently responsible for ensuring improvement in performance can be relied upon to take that responsibility seriously.

I won't reveal what I said when told about it but obviously I was shocked because I thought we were starting on a clean slate. We thought the dramas were behind us. It might not be unreasonable that for an organisation that had come to find itself in this position to feel that it was time to set signals regarding taking responsibility. The signal had to go to everyone that things at Westpac are not going to be this way again. There is no sense in which Tony was personally responsible, other than he was responsible for everything that happened in Westpac's business in the US. That was the signal that needed to be sent to everybody, that when you are responsible you must accept what responsibility means. The statement had to be made.