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On Wednesday morning, ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos launched himself into a debate on migration, by urging Australia to start handling its borders like a business.
“In a company, in a business, you choose the people you hire. You don’t just open the doors and say, ‘Well, whoever wants to work with this company, just come in.’ That’s not how it works,” he told an Australian Financial Review summit.
“You choose the people you hire, you choose the people you bring to your country, but you need them. You need them to grow the economy because they will bring talent.”
If you think this sounds familiar, you’re not wrong. Matos’ interjection bore echoes of former prime minister John Howard’s famous “we will decide” line delivered during the 2001 election campaign, which has set the tone for Australia’s immigration debate ever since.
His plea for Australia to choose people based on the country’s need also sounds a lot like our skilled migration program, which has existed in some form since the 1970s and has been widely copied by the likes of the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Canada.
Perhaps Portuguese-born Natos, who moved to Melbourne from Hong Kong only last year when he landed the ANZ job, hasn’t scrubbed up on the finer points of Australian political history. At least, that’s the charitable take.
Either way, that the chief executive of a Big Four bank would imply Australia has some form of open-door migration policy, at this particular moment, is telling. Throughout the western world, far-right parties including One Nation are surging via a message that immigrants are responsible for economic precarity and the rising cost of everything.
We aren’t saying Matos is Pauline Hanson-lite. He was arguing for a “balanced and planned” approach to migration. The point is that One Nation has moved the bounds of political discourse so far that even the recently arrived chief executive of a major bank feels it’s a good idea to broadcast an immigration-sceptical vibe.
He’s not the only one. Others in Australia’s business community are starting to get far more One Nation-curious. On September 1, Hanson held a $2000-a-head fundraiser at exclusive Melbourne power diner Vue de monde. Attendees included the multimillionaire business owner Andrew Abercrombie, who has been a Liberal Party fixture. In June, at a $15,000-a-head Perth dinner hosted by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, guests included billionaire Multiplex heir Tim Roberts and mining investor Tim Goyder. Hanson is the guest of honour at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce’s business lunch in Melbourne next month.
Any corporate worth its salt will employ at least one government relations person (the polite term for a lobbyist), usually a former political staffer who can help the C-suite understand the federal politics. Many of those people are now helping their executives engage with One Nation.
To help smooth over its relationship with corporate Australia, One Nation has recruited professional political operatives with experience in the lobbying game, including former Liberal staffers Mark Jones and Chris Taylor, who joined the party after leaving a job as head of policy at the Australian Banking Association.
Most businesses would be far more comfortable dealing with such people than the likes of Queensland Senator Malcolm Roberts, who has previously raised discredited theories about 9/11, before clarifying he rejected conspiracies about the terrorist attack, and once heaped praise on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
One lobbyist said that while engaging with the party was currently a “bitter pill” for the business community, that reluctance might give way to acceptance if One Nation made a strong showing in November’s Victorian state election.
“If so, the rivers of gold will flow [to the party],” he said.
Still, with the exception of Rinehart, a long-term patron of conservative causes who has bankrolled Hanson’s political revival, most business leaders are political weathervanes.
So many major companies made gushing calls for progressive goals in 2020 during the era now known as “peak woke”. Then suddenly, many stopped talking about diversity, equity and inclusion some time around November 2024.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has had executives from big tech, an industry once known for championing progressive causes, switching to ceaseless praise of the president.
What executives are willing to say publicly is less a reflection of their read on the direction the country is going. On immigration, One Nation’s surge, and Labor’s coming plan to cut immigration indicate that the Overton Window has shifted to the right.
On Wednesday, Matos jumped right into it.