This time last year, after Cricket Australia’s disastrously failed attempt to force a reduced pay model on domestic professional cricketers, the instigator of that failure fronted the annual general meeting. Board chairman David Peever wasn’t facing many journalists, given the meeting was for some reason held in Brisbane rather than Melbourne. Those who were there gave it our best shot.

With almost impressive impassiveness, Peever swatted away each question. Despite the bitter fight and humiliating backdown, he would not concede that any of his board’s actions or motives had been wrong, and denied the obvious damage that had been done to players and relationships. Afterwards he sought his questioners out and made polite chat with each of us. It seemed a deliberate move to show how profoundly he wasn’t bothered.

No surprise then that Peever took the same approach this week to the Longstaff review, which despite its lapses into jargon has provided a damning view of CA’s corporate culture. In his written response and media appearances, Peever has been a model of elision and deflection. The only useful thing out of his 7:30 Report interview was Leigh Sales’ summary: that the review “finds consensus among stakeholders that Cricket Australia says one thing and does another, that it’s arrogant and controlling, players feel treated as commodities, sponsors feel that their value is defined in transactional terms only. The report notes that the only people involved in cricket who don’t share this damning view are Cricket Australia’s own board and its own senior executives.”

Asked why the latter groups shouldn’t therefore resign, Peever twisted and dodged like a wind chime in a gale. He wouldn’t concede that they have overseen a deficient organisational culture, one that isn’t just about players but as a whole. The report sees the ball-tampering incident as born from to a failure “to offset some of the potentially corrosive effects of an unmediated corporate model”. That model exactly fits Peever’s background.

All the chairman would concede was that he and his board “accept our share of accountability”. That acceptance includes zero concrete repercussions. The only practical example required Peever to create a time-travel circle and cite commissioning the review itself. He keeps repeating that the review was voluntary, as though this implies moral courage from his administration, but that gets rather diluted when the review indicts the current regime’s failings and precisely nothing happens as a result.

In fact, rather than penitence, Peever has indulged in the hypocrisy of renewing his job contract for three more years while the review was being delayed. His extension was approved by Australia’s state cricket associations at this year’s AGM, while ESPNcricinfo reports that the review was available at least two days before that meeting. It could surely have been further expedited or the meeting delayed had CA wished.

The lack of awareness, or the ability to shrug off reality, is again almost impressive. “The work was never about wanting to dwell on negatives,” Peever told Sales. “We are moving forward from here.” The thing is, that’s exactly what Steve Smith said in Cape Town the night this all started, just before he was sacked as captain. His comment was painfully naive, and showed how deeply he failed to grasp significance or culpability. The shirt looks much the same on a different wearer.

“How can the very same people who presided over the flourishing of the toxic culture now be the ones to change it?” asked Sales. The very dilemma that Darren Lehmann recognised, when he first was supported by CA in saying he would remain as coach, only to flip 24 hours later and resign. The man they call Boof could see what the senior strategic mastermind will not.

This is the practical behaviour from an organisation that is promising change and growth and new directions. It all rings as hollow as an aluminium bat. See that report again: the “disappointment that more progress has not been made in matching rhetoric to reality.” I’ve just written a book on the sandpaper saga that covers some of CA’s deep-set problems in the kind of detail I can’t include here. Over this past week, words and conclusions set down months ago have been borne out to the letter.

Peever’s behaviour this week indicates that he thinks all this can slide off as well. Just like last year, he can bat away the questions and carry on as though nothing happened. Keep the cushy job, the fancy chair, and the hefty but undisclosed portion of CA’s multi-million dollar salary pool. He may be right – the state associations have shown no stomach to demand better. But the broader public view of his leadership will never recover. People don’t often pay attention to what happens behind the scenes. They’re watching now.