PLAYWRIGHT David Williamson has topped his attack on middle Australia with one on the corporate world.

Williamson said last night that chief executives on 300 times the average wage were destroying their businesses and the lives of their staff.

“Once you’re at the top, the last thing on your mind is the long- term survival of your firm and the care of its employees,” Williamson said.

“The thing to do is slash and burn and get the share price up temporarily by cost-cutting measures made at considerable human cost, then getting the resulting bonuses you’ve built into your already huge package, before the firm you’ve gutted falls to pieces.

“By that time you’ll have a golden handshake and be off to another corporate trough.”

Williamson was speaking at a belated launch party in Sydney’s inner-city Darlinghurst for Shelley Gare’s new book, The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Commonsense.

He was widely criticised for a piece in The Bulletin magazine in October last year that he wrote after winning cruise tickets to Noumea. He lamented that “theship was stacked to the gunwales with John Howard’s beloved aspirational Australians“. He said their aspirations ran to little more than holidays, “new cars, to kitchen refits, to renovations, to private education for their children and to practically anything made of plastic, wood or steel”.

The passengers “didn’t seem to be discussing Proust or George Eliot,” Williamson wrote.

The piece sparked a spirited debate about Australia’s “sneering” cultural elites and their lack of empathy with the ordinary dreams of suburban Australians.

Last night’s attack was reserved for the corporate world and where it is leading Australia. He said the children of his friends were working 70 hours a week and when he asked them if they really wanted to be doing that “they assured me they hated working those hours but if they didn’t they’d soon find themselves downsized”.

“There is a deeper malaise than airheadism, it’s managerialism, the art of manipulating, cajoling, terrifying and brainwashing executives to give their all for thecompany,” he said.

“This is done by the ubiquitous human resources departments which grow into huge mini empires within a firm, devoted to screwing the last ounce of productivity out of their executives.”

Williamson suggested that to be considered for an executive job you had to pass personality tests demonstrating yourself as a team player, irrespective of your qualifications. “Psychopaths are very good at appearing to be pleasant and witty team players. This probably explains why so many top level executives test high on sociopathic behaviour.”