The boss of the Australian bank, Ken Henry

Twitter has aroused fury at the "arrogant, petulant, disdainful" performance of National Australia Bank President Ken Henry at the Royal Bank Inquiry.

Henry, a multimillionaire who was once Australia's most powerful and respected official, provoked outrage by growling responses, mocking questions or refusing to answer and speaking in a low voice. .

The former Treasury Secretary, who owns important properties outside of Canberra, explained to the senior attorney who was assisting Rowena Orr, QC, the issues that he thought having to answer and those that he did not meet.

The answer on Twitter was, basically, with his head.

Posters on Twitter felt that his "sneaky" and "flippant" responses should lead him to resign from NAB's board of directors and one of them called him a " dinosaur".

"Ken Henry! Arrogant Idiot, in his mind, tearing up customers seems to be the problem of the customer," posted @ gretep4.

"Any self-respecting shareholder should demand his immediate resignation."

Others said that Henry had "abused … disrespected" Orr and some threatened to close their NAB bank accounts immediately.

Ken Henry's Wikipedia page was briefly reissued to indicate that he had appeared at the Royal Commission as an "arrogant tool and a real bag of bullets".

While other heads of banking and financial institutions apologized to the royal commission and conceded errors, Henry was less willing.

Take this exchange when Orr questioned Henry about the NAB board of directors' response to the scandal of "unserviced fees".

NAB executives reportedly remained silent for 11 months before informing the ASIC regulator that the bank had risen to 34.6 million Australian dollars ($ 36.8 million), which was a violation customers losing momentum.

Orr: Do you agree that the council should have intervened earlier?

Henry: (long pause) … I wish we could say it, I still do not know it …

Orr: I'd like you to answer my question, Dr. Henry. Do you agree that the council should have intervened earlier?

Henry: I answered the question how I could answer the question.

Orr: I'm sorry, is there a yes or a no Dr. Henry?

Henry: I answered the question of how I chose to answer the question.

Orr: I'd like you to answer my question. Do you agree that the council should have intervened earlier?

Henry: I would have liked it.

Orr: I'll take that for a yes, Dr. Henry

Henry: Well, you take it as a yes. well?

Twitter posters have also criticized the honorific title of Henry's "doctor," @thehonestbank tweeting, "It's not because you have an RD that your name is God that you are GOD." Unfortunately, Ken Henry of NAB has not received the memo. "

Henry AC, "Doctor" holds a Ph.D. in Economics and Companion of the Order of Australia for his work as an economist and habitat preservation of the hairy nose Wombat , an endangered species, was sometimes rude.

When Orr asked a question and Henry rejected it, saying "we went through" the problem, Orr replied, "No, I'm sorry, I do not think we did it. "

Henry replied, "Are not you doing it?"

Orr: No.

Henry: (under the breath) No, you would not do it.

Orr questioned Henry about NAB's lack of an official criminal record of violation of the law when he formally notified an offense for charging at least 12,000 clients in the amount of $ 2 million in fees. service.

Orr: Certainly somebody in your company at the time was wondering if that conduct was breaking the law and, if so, how was it breaking the law?

Henry: Yes.

Orr: Surely these are the questions that the risk manager should have brought to the risk committee?

Henry: "Maybe."

Orr: Back to where we started, "maybe," Dr. Henry?

Henry: Yes, maybe.

Orr: And am I afraid to still not understand the reason for your hesitation?

Henry: I probably can not explain it to you.

At other times, Henry adopted a conference style such that, when asked about the huge bonuses distributed to bank executives, he began to talk about the state of capitalism.

"The capitalist model wants companies to have no other responsibility than to maximize shareholder profits," he said.

"A lot of people who have been involved in this debate over the last 12 months have said that all you should be asking boards to do is focus on maximizing profits for shareholders. "

When Orr asked him if he had ever seen a document that she had shown him, Henry replied that he did not remember anymore.

"It does not matter, is not it?" he said before looking at Orr's stony response and adding, "Maybe so."

Henry, who has worked as a tax advisor to the Liberal and Labor governments, is viewed primarily as a darling of the left.

After working for former Prime Minister Paul Keating to successfully defeat Fightback of Opposition Leader John Hewson! During the 1993 GST election campaign, Henry worked for John Howard.

He then worked for Kevin Rudd, writing the 2010 Henry Tax Review, and then as special advisor to Premier Julia Gillard.

However, even the Fairfax press condemned his performance in the royal commission with the Australian Financial Review, calling it "your deaf".

"Henry has sought to portray himself as a profound thinker … but in doing so, he has blurred ideas about NAB's attitude to key governance and customer service issues," he said. writes the AFR.

Appointed in 2011 to NAB as Executive Director and then in 2015 as President, Henry was also a director of the Reserve Bank of Australia.

In 2016, Henry said that it was impossible to widen the gap between the high salaries of CEOs of small leaders.

He stated that he would work to align compensation with client results.

However, the same day, the NAB announced a profit of $ 6.64 billion; he announced the elimination of 4,000 jobs in the banking sector.

And despite Henry's desire to cut executive salaries in an obscene way, NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn could hit a record $ 10.76 million this year if he met his performance targets .

As president, Henry, who comes from a modest background and grew up in Taree as a lumberjack son, earns himself only A $ 790,000 from NAB.

He is also remunerated as Director of Reconciliation Australia, ASX, Executive Chairman of the Institute of Public Policy at Australian National University and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the SMART Infrastructure Facility of the University of Wollongong.

Henry says that his rural origins have made him a defender of nature's passionate defense. With his wife, Naomi, on the board of animal welfare institute, Voiceless.

"There is little more noble pursuit in life than giving voice to those who would otherwise suffer in silence," Henry explains.

But he is talking about his beloved wombat with a hairy nose, not his banking clients.