Speaker 1: Him, I Boris and this is straight talk. I'm about
Speaker 1: to do a podcast with Anthony Miller. He's the CEO
Speaker 1: of the Westpac Group, which encompasses a lot of banks.
Speaker 1: I should make an initial disclosure. The disclosure is that
Speaker 1: my company Yellow Big Road Group, of which I'm the
Speaker 1: chairman of Made Shoulder, has a relationship with Westpac. They
Speaker 1: are a warehouse provided to us in relation to our
Speaker 1: own product with our global partner, which is Magneta, through
Speaker 1: a business called Resi Homelands or the Resi product.
Speaker 2: So that's a disclosure you need to make.
Speaker 1: And I also will happily disclose that I've been maybe
Speaker 1: forty year customer of Saint George Bank, right back from
Speaker 1: the days it was building society right through today. It's
Speaker 1: now sitting under the Westpac Group as still as a bank,
Speaker 1: but using the Westpac Group's banking license. So that's my disclosure.
Speaker 1: Other than that I have no relationship with Anthony. I
Speaker 1: have many a couplications before, but.
Speaker 2: In his capacity as a sea of a bank. So
Speaker 2: look for to this podcast.
Speaker 1: It's pretty exciting, pretty cool to actually be able to
Speaker 1: interview a CEO of one of the four b banks
Speaker 1: in Australia and from my point of view, one of
Speaker 1: my favorite banks.
Speaker 2: Anthony Miller, well and straight talk.
Speaker 3: Mate, thank you thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: This is pretty unusually it's a I find it as
Speaker 1: quite an exciting opportunity to sit in front of a
Speaker 1: someone who's the CEO of one of the largest banks
Speaker 1: in this country. And of course, you know, for our audience,
Speaker 1: you know, Australian banks are some of the most profitable
Speaker 1: banks in the world by virtual market capitalization if you're
Speaker 1: relative to that, and maybe that don't make the biggest
Speaker 1: profits in the world, but they in a relative sense,
Speaker 1: they are some of the most profitable banks in the
Speaker 1: world and definitely some of the highest rated banks in
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: And you're sitting at the helm of Westpac.
Speaker 3: Absolutely and I've been in the role two hundred and
Speaker 3: sixteen days Mark, so enjoyed every single day so far.
Speaker 2: It's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: I understand you come from fairly humble background. Maybe can
Speaker 1: just tell me where's Anthony Miller come from?
Speaker 2: Where we were born?
Speaker 3: But sure so I was. I was born in Canberra
Speaker 3: and for various reasons, we moved around a lot as
Speaker 3: I grew up. So I lived in Canberra Darwin, Alice Springs, Doubo, Canberra, Brisbane,
Speaker 3: and I finished high school in Brisbane. My last two
Speaker 3: years of high school were in Brisbane. And so often
Speaker 3: people think I'm a Queenslander, and I suppose two years
Speaker 3: of high school and five years of UNI sort of
Speaker 3: formative years, and certainly have a lot of affection for Queensland,
Speaker 3: but I spent a lot of time outside Queensland growing up.
Speaker 2: Under the state of origin rules. That doesn't qualify years
Speaker 2: to Queensland, or does.
Speaker 3: It not quite. The way it broke down is that
Speaker 3: when State of Origin first came on in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 3: I lived in New South Wales double Hoo, and I
Speaker 3: was mad Keen Rugua League supporter and it was seared
Speaker 3: in my memory that, you know, the frustrations that Queensline
Speaker 3: just kept beating us for those first four or five
Speaker 3: years until so they beaten But well that's right, and
Speaker 3: they had some grades, you know Wally Lewis and you
Speaker 3: know mountvin Ingram goodness, you know Eddie's Prime. So it
Speaker 3: was almost impossible to win. And so therefore I'm a
Speaker 3: little bit partial to see New South Wales competing state
Speaker 3: of a blue shirt on yes, that's right. But I'm
Speaker 3: a bit of a fan of the queens Land Red's
Speaker 3: rugby team because I had the privilege to going to
Speaker 3: school and people like Johnny Eels and guys like Mark
Speaker 3: Connors that I knew from UNI all played for the Reds,
Speaker 3: so I follow the Reds pretty closely. So so I'm
Speaker 3: sort of a little bit of it each way.
Speaker 2: Bet there, no, no, no, no, come on, come on,
Speaker 2: come on, and no, no, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: You can't do that too, which, Okay, which NRL team
Speaker 1: do you follow?
Speaker 3: Paramatta Eels deals And I've been with the Paramatta Eels
Speaker 3: since nineteen seventy five when my dad sat me down
Speaker 3: and said you can go for any team you want
Speaker 3: as long as it's the Eels.
Speaker 2: That's fairly democratic.
Speaker 3: And then and then I was sport because in seventy
Speaker 3: six they made the Grand Final. And then it just
Speaker 3: felt like for me until I was about seventeen, that
Speaker 3: every year the Paramatta Eels were either in the Grand
Speaker 3: Final or just missed out on the Grand Final, or
Speaker 3: won a Grand Final. And then since then, you know,
Speaker 3: it's been pretty barren.
Speaker 2: In terms of your fan brothers, sisters. What's the deal?
Speaker 3: So I'm the ordest of six six kids, six kids. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so myself, then my two sisters and then three youngest,
Speaker 3: three boys, six kids. Wow. Yeah, you know, it was
Speaker 3: a really really lucky, you know, really good upbringing, a
Speaker 3: great family. Mom and dad still going really strong. They're
Speaker 3: still live. Yeah, absolutely, Wow, that's still going strong. We
Speaker 3: celebrated dad's eightieth a couple of weeks ago. He's got well,
Speaker 3: they've got six kids, and they've got twenty three grandchildren,
Speaker 3: great grandchild.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And all fit, healthy, all all good people going after
Speaker 3: life in the right way.
Speaker 1: You have in your family, as I understand it, either
Speaker 1: one or two brothers who were fairly decent with using
Speaker 1: their hands.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So my one of my brothers, Paul, was a
Speaker 3: great boxer. He represented Australia at the Sydney two thousand
Speaker 3: Olympics and Manchester conwalf Games and he won a gold
Speaker 3: medal a super middleweight in two thousand and so he
Speaker 3: was a very good boxer. All my brothers they can
Speaker 3: handle themselves pretty well, younger brothers, that's right. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: I got to stay humble when I'm at home. And
Speaker 3: and then one of my sisters. Both my sisters were
Speaker 3: great sports persons and one of them won a gold
Speaker 3: medal at the Sydney Olympics in water polo. Really yeah,
Speaker 3: so they left me nothing in the gene covered in
Speaker 3: terms of you know, they just all of them super
Speaker 3: talented at sport and achieved so much.
Speaker 2: Did you play sport?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I was a really enthusiastic swimmer, really swimmer. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and I like I played all my sort of sports
Speaker 3: at young football and AFL rugby league, rugby union. I
Speaker 3: was really committed to being a swimmer, and you know,
Speaker 3: I trained twice a day. I was trained with Joe
Speaker 3: King at Leander in Brisbane. Hayley Lewis was one of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so she was in the squad.
Speaker 3: She was in the squad. Yeah. She was a terrific
Speaker 3: swimmer and obviously represented Australia. I wanted to represent Australia,
Speaker 3: just wasn't good enough.
Speaker 1: But because a lot of swimmers in up playing water polo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that how your sister's gone on a water polow.
Speaker 3: I think a little bit of the influence was that
Speaker 3: we were a mad keen swimming family and so at
Speaker 3: the pool and good swimmers. I think Gail, you know,
Speaker 3: my sister who was a water PLoP player. She could
Speaker 3: have been a champion swimmer, could have been a champion
Speaker 3: any sports. She is just such a natural athlete and
Speaker 3: such a capable, hard working training kind of person, So
Speaker 3: any sports she chose, I think she probably would have
Speaker 3: succeeded in.
Speaker 1: As a parent myself of a swimmer who was like
Speaker 1: one of my sons was an elite swimmer. One of
Speaker 1: the things I learned is about swimmers is that there's
Speaker 1: a massive amount of commitment to the to the craft
Speaker 1: and also for the parents for that matter too. What
Speaker 1: do you think you've learned in a character sense from
Speaker 1: a being a swimmer, but more importantly watching your parents
Speaker 1: sort of adopt or adapt into the commitment of having
Speaker 1: a son who wanted to be a swimmer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, great, great question. I mean, in terms of summing,
Speaker 3: I'm forever grateful that I was very committed to it,
Speaker 3: and also the fact that I didn't get there. I
Speaker 3: have no regrets because I trained really hard. I just
Speaker 3: wasn't good enough. But I got so much out of
Speaker 3: it in terms of friends, but also fitness, and also
Speaker 3: just I knew how to set a goal and how
Speaker 3: to relentlessly go.
Speaker 1: After And maybe you could explain it a little bit
Speaker 1: because most people probably haven't been to US. I haven't
Speaker 1: had the experience of it. So your summer holidays was
Speaker 1: committed to training when all you're made.
Speaker 3: To do it all year round. So I swam all
Speaker 3: year around, but the.
Speaker 2: Trials were and a jenerary.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right through summer summer holidays. Five am in
Speaker 3: the water, finished session seven, seven thirty in the morning,
Speaker 3: wouldn't do much during the day. Then I'd train in
Speaker 3: the afternoon. I'd be swimming anywhere between sort of ten
Speaker 3: to fourteen kilimeters a day. I was really going for it.
Speaker 3: What was this stroke? Look, breaststroke I wanted. I was
Speaker 3: competitive as a breastroker. I tried pretty hard at individual
Speaker 3: medally as well, but breastroke was my main sport, particularly
Speaker 3: a main stroker.
Speaker 2: And then you swim at minimum six days a week.
Speaker 3: That's right, it'd be twice a day every day, and
Speaker 3: then Saturday once this sad day.
Speaker 1: So which means when your mates when you were fifteen
Speaker 1: six and your mates is just starting to go to
Speaker 1: movies or whatever together and you can't do that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff because you're getting up four o'clock.
Speaker 2: So you have to give a fair bit up. Is
Speaker 2: it because you're the sort.
Speaker 1: Of personality is that you were compliant as a because
Speaker 1: I got four sons, only one that was any good
Speaker 1: at this was the most compliant sun.
Speaker 2: In other words, you never challenged me. Don't make it up.
Speaker 2: We got to go.
Speaker 1: Was it because you were a compliant kid, or was
Speaker 1: it because you were a driven kid?
Speaker 3: Or both? Well? Look, I think I think I was compliant.
Speaker 3: I suppose you know, I like to think I was
Speaker 3: a good boy, but I was driven. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: very focused on I had a goal. I wanted to
Speaker 3: represent Australia. I trained twice a day. I trained really hard.
Speaker 3: In some ways, I didn't trade smart. I trained hard
Speaker 3: and without sort of nuance and you know, giving the
Speaker 3: right things like rest and recovery, the right weight that
Speaker 3: they deserved. But that was back in the mid to
Speaker 3: late eighties where everyone thought you just just put the
Speaker 3: miles in and you'll get there.
Speaker 2: We're keeping log books in those days.
Speaker 3: I kept a bit of a log of you know,
Speaker 3: the sessions, but I didn't keep copious notes.
Speaker 2: You weren't doing pulse rates and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Oh no, we were doing in training sessions and there
Speaker 3: was a lot more science coming into if you were
Speaker 3: coaching and swimming training then, and the Institute Sport had
Speaker 3: been a big contributor to that sort of delivery of
Speaker 3: science into it. But I was very focused on just
Speaker 3: on the training, and I enjoyed the training. To be
Speaker 3: honest with you that you know it was quite social.
Speaker 1: It is you think not, but at the end of
Speaker 1: a fifteen hundred have a little bit of a chat.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactually right, and then look, you know I'm ad
Speaker 3: at all boys school and then assuming cent training, there's
Speaker 3: lots of girls, so that was also a little bit
Speaker 3: of a wow. This is a bit of an interesting dynamic.
Speaker 2: So what do you I mean?
Speaker 1: I can I often ask my son, but he'll tell
Speaker 1: me this. But what do you think you might have
Speaker 1: gained in terms of character or your character from putting
Speaker 1: in many kilomas in the pool, many early mornings, making
Speaker 1: lots of sacrifices. Maybe they weren't sacrifices, but when you
Speaker 1: look back in hindsight, had to make a call, what
Speaker 1: do you think you might have gained in terms of
Speaker 1: your character today in what you do at the bank
Speaker 1: for example? And I don't mean anything specific, but how
Speaker 1: how did that shape Anthony Miller today.
Speaker 3: What I think? How would I? Yeah, that's again a
Speaker 3: good challenge, certainly, the idea that you've just got to
Speaker 3: sometimes go through a lot of hard work to get
Speaker 3: the game, and that you know there's going to be
Speaker 3: periods of time where it's just a real grind, and
Speaker 3: that there there's not the sugarcoat of every day and
Speaker 3: everything's positive always because you're just in the middle of
Speaker 3: hard work, training hard you're for going going out with
Speaker 3: your friends because you want to be able to train
Speaker 3: at your best the next day. But then there's great
Speaker 3: rewards at the end of it. And then equally, the
Speaker 3: thing I enjoyed, I really liked your training. I like
Speaker 3: the sense of, you know, putting one hundred percent in
Speaker 3: and just feeling like you've exhausted yourself. And maybe it's perverse,
Speaker 3: but I took satisfaction out of being a really hard
Speaker 3: trainer and took great pride in that I was one
Speaker 3: of the better trainers and the team. And then one
Speaker 3: of the things I did learn was, you know, it's
Speaker 3: all very well to be good and hard training, but
Speaker 3: at that moment when you have to stand on the
Speaker 3: block and compete in the race. You know, you've got
Speaker 3: to have your head in the game. You've got to
Speaker 3: be in that moment ready to deliver. And that's one
Speaker 3: of the other great challenges of assuming, is that you
Speaker 3: can train for six months through summer and then you've
Speaker 3: got two and a half minutes to win, and your
Speaker 3: entire summers defined by two and a half minutes.
Speaker 2: In the last race of this it could be one
Speaker 2: hundred exactly right.
Speaker 3: And you know if you don't get everything perfectly right
Speaker 3: in the race, you know someone can beat you. And
Speaker 3: so you know you have to be so focused on
Speaker 3: am I doing it all? Am I doing it all right?
Speaker 3: Am I getting it all done? And so that sort
Speaker 3: of constant challenge of is this right? Am I really
Speaker 3: pushing myself as I should? Have I done everything as
Speaker 3: I should That constant challenge you imposed on yourself is
Speaker 3: sort of like a skill that's really helpful later on
Speaker 3: in whatever you decide to do. So I sort of
Speaker 3: feel like assuming that I was pretty privileged to be
Speaker 3: able to be a swimmer. I thought it really did
Speaker 3: give me a lot of opportunities and also the fitness
Speaker 3: and health consequences of just being able to swim ten
Speaker 3: to fourteen kilometers a day sets you up for life.
Speaker 2: I think that's right in a health sense.
Speaker 1: And I think also you've got to have at least
Speaker 1: one parent who's completely committed to that process for the kid,
Speaker 1: because it's actually quite when I look back, it's all
Speaker 1: encompassing being a parent of a swimmer in the end.
Speaker 1: For me, like I was happy to get my kid
Speaker 1: of a car and get when he got his license
Speaker 1: so he could at least get himself at training at
Speaker 1: four thirty in the morning.
Speaker 2: If I then say to.
Speaker 1: You today in terms of your job of the bank,
Speaker 1: and by the way, Westpac sits on a number of banks,
Speaker 1: well they're not. There's not a number of banks, but
Speaker 1: there's a number of brands, that's right. So you know
Speaker 1: you've got Saint George, that's right, your bank essays, a
Speaker 1: bank essays Bank of Melbourne and Bank of Melbourne and
Speaker 1: anyone else.
Speaker 3: And so in terms of bank or bank like offerings.
Speaker 3: RAMS also has its own system as well. So what
Speaker 3: really Westpac is an amalgam of you know, different banks
Speaker 3: sitting under the one group that is Westpac Group. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and so it's really actually a collection of banks within
Speaker 3: the group.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they all talk to different customers and they
Speaker 1: talk to different emotions from different sorts of customers. Like
Speaker 1: Bank of Melbourne is very Melbourne, Yes, Saint George is
Speaker 1: sort of not so much Melbourne's Sydney, more Sydney than
Speaker 1: anything else. I think, you know traditionally, because I remember
Speaker 1: Sir George about I was a customer of Saint George
Speaker 1: Building Society, Are you okay? And I went through every
Speaker 1: and then Saint George Building Society merged with another credit
Speaker 1: union or building society. Come overhood it was, and then
Speaker 1: they then ultimately it became St. George Bank, and then
Speaker 1: Saint George Bank was taken over under Gail Kelly by Westpac.
Speaker 1: That's well taken control by Westpak and now as a
Speaker 1: result that I'm now with Westpak, but I'm still with
Speaker 1: St George. But I know it's sitting on the west
Speaker 1: Bank brand. And as a as someone's sitting on top
Speaker 1: of such a it's a large group.
Speaker 2: What do you would you say that.
Speaker 1: The event Isswen, lots of other things happened in your
Speaker 1: life will talk about at a moment, but were they
Speaker 1: do they build resilience? View? Because like as a bank boss,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine I think you'd be putting a bushfires
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean there'd be a lot of dramas,
Speaker 1: I mean, like within the bank or maybe didn't you
Speaker 1: come in you came in after west PAC's major drama,
Speaker 1: the drama that sort of occurred during after nineteen twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, no, certainly. I joined Westpac at the
Speaker 3: end of twenty twenty and that was just in that
Speaker 3: sort of a difficult twelve months where you know, there
Speaker 3: was obviously infractions under the money laundering and OSTRAK matter,
Speaker 3: and then there was quite a bit of work that
Speaker 3: Westpac as a group had to do, which was you know,
Speaker 3: fixed or immediate processes, and so for a few years
Speaker 3: there it was very you know, very much focused on getting.
Speaker 2: Its house in order. We're doing it fifteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right, and so that was just that's just
Speaker 3: hard work, grinding way that's right, and more importantly, it's
Speaker 3: just getting back to the basics and making sure the
Speaker 3: way we deliver products and service to the customers were
Speaker 3: done at a standard that met community and regulatory expectations.
Speaker 3: And so you know, the bank did a lot of
Speaker 3: work on that, and that was also while challenging, also
Speaker 3: quite enjoyable in the sense of just you know, as
Speaker 3: a leadership team, all of us at the time just
Speaker 3: very focused on how do we just get Westpac the
Speaker 3: group back to where it should be, which is, you know,
Speaker 3: a really good bank, performing well and delivering for customers.
Speaker 1: And share holders, which, by the way, I'll come back
Speaker 1: to the customer shareholder thing, because that's a hard one
Speaker 1: to balance. Well, there's a balance, but it's a difficult one.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about how you do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if I just go back to you left school and
Speaker 1: what did you do.
Speaker 3: So I finished school in eighty seven and I went
Speaker 3: to university and I did a degree at the time,
Speaker 3: which was a little bit unusual. And you might remember
Speaker 3: the late eighties, Japan was the second largest colony world
Speaker 3: had just come out of nowhere through the seventies and eighties,
Speaker 3: and Japan was buying everything in Queensland. It just felt
Speaker 3: like tourists exactly right.
Speaker 2: So it was a massive development and everything, Yesdney as well, okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well certainly in Queensland. And so when I finished school,
Speaker 3: I suppose you know, my father had studied law, so
Speaker 3: I was a little bit drawn to I'll study law.
Speaker 3: But I decided to do an arts law degree, and
Speaker 3: it was the first time it had been offered. There
Speaker 3: was only eleven of us in the first class. And
Speaker 3: it was a combination of Asian studies majoring in Japanese
Speaker 3: language and some other so that's the outside of it.
Speaker 3: That's the outside of it, plus a law degree. And
Speaker 3: the law degree was at QUT and the Arts or
Speaker 3: Asian Studies degree was at griff of the University. So
Speaker 3: the two universities had combined and so to be sort
Speaker 3: of like Monday at QUT Tuesday at Griffith or vice versa.
Speaker 2: And they were physical in those days.
Speaker 3: Exactly right, quite two different campuses, one in the city,
Speaker 3: one out at sort of Mount Gravat. So that was
Speaker 3: a really interesting combination. And so I went after that.
Speaker 3: And my intention was when I finished that degree that
Speaker 3: I'd probably go and pursue, you know what it calls,
Speaker 3: like a career, perhaps working in Japan, or I'd go
Speaker 3: and study further in Japan.
Speaker 1: And as it turned out, that didn't eventuate. Did you
Speaker 1: learn to speak Japanese?
Speaker 3: I study Japanese, that's right. I would say my Japanese
Speaker 3: is poor, you know, one of the one of the
Speaker 3: challenges is that once you study languages, you've got to
Speaker 3: go and live and immerse yourself in the culture. And
Speaker 3: I didn't get to do that straight after university and
Speaker 3: so missed my window to really cement the language. But then,
Speaker 3: as it turns out, through my career later on, I
Speaker 3: was in Japan a lot for business. I really enjoyed
Speaker 3: working in Japan, and I had teams reporting to me
Speaker 3: out of Japan, so I've had a lot of exposure
Speaker 3: to Japan over the course the last thirty years.
Speaker 2: So did you ever practice as a lawyer?
Speaker 3: So I did. I finished university and I was a
Speaker 3: bit unsure about where I was going to go, and
Speaker 3: I was actually playing a little bit of rugby at
Speaker 3: Brothers Rugby Club in Britain, and a guy called Paul
Speaker 3: Tully and another guy who was working at the law
Speaker 3: firm Grand Deal Love encouraged me to join their law firm.
Speaker 3: So I joined their law firm for a couple of years,
Speaker 3: which was great because I was sort of unsure about
Speaker 3: what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go,
Speaker 3: and they gave me an opportunity just to work for
Speaker 3: a couple of years qualify as a lawyer. And I
Speaker 3: did that and that was that was that was great times.
Speaker 2: As a young lawyer.
Speaker 1: Did I guess you just again put just wim me
Speaker 1: hot on and you know, you just have to grind away,
Speaker 1: do sixteen hours a day, get paid crappy money.
Speaker 2: Do do they do college law in quis? How does
Speaker 2: it work?
Speaker 3: No? No, you could do that, but back then it
Speaker 3: was an article class. You're an article class because you're
Speaker 3: at the bottom of the food chain. And in some
Speaker 3: ways that was also, in hindsight, a great thing because
Speaker 3: I had to do lots of menial jobs as well
Speaker 3: as you know, potentially some of the more interesting legal
Speaker 3: and so you just get into work and you start
Speaker 3: from scratch and you just work. And the idea of
Speaker 3: just having to do hard work and eventually things will
Speaker 3: come your way was sort of like, well, okay, I
Speaker 3: understood that, you know, I grew up on that premise,
Speaker 3: and so I really enjoyed it and I got a
Speaker 3: lot out of that. And then what had happened was,
Speaker 3: you know, they were very good to me, and I
Speaker 3: was enjoying what I was doing there, and I got
Speaker 3: married and had a wonderful I had first baby, very
Speaker 3: very early, and I sort of sat back and forward.
Speaker 3: Do you want to be in a lawyer in Brisbane? Now?
Speaker 3: Is this? Is this why I studied art law? Is
Speaker 3: this what I thought I was going to do? And
Speaker 3: the answer was, actually, I think I want to go
Speaker 3: and look out for more and try something else. And
Speaker 3: so as a result of that decision, I applied for
Speaker 3: a job and I got a job here in Sydney
Speaker 3: with Mallison's, you know, the big law firm, and that
Speaker 3: was very gracious so then to give me a chance.
Speaker 3: And I went from sort of a small suburban, you know,
Speaker 3: small highly specialized firm in Brisbane that's really actually bossomed
Speaker 3: since since that time, to Mallison's very large firm in Sydney.
Speaker 3: And I was put into the banking and finance practice,
Speaker 3: which I hadn't worked in before, and I was assigned
Speaker 3: to a team. And the partner who I worked for,
Speaker 3: he was really tough, but he was really good for
Speaker 3: me in the sense that in what way well he
Speaker 3: was just so demanding and exacting in terms of accuracy
Speaker 3: and detail and work. And I think that was really
Speaker 3: good for me because it just set a bar immediately.
Speaker 3: You've got to be at this standard if you're going
Speaker 3: to prosper in this place. And you know, that was great,
Speaker 3: and I just put my head down and I just
Speaker 3: I just worked my way through that.
Speaker 2: Again. Well yeah, I just kept going.
Speaker 3: And I just and by and after a period of time,
Speaker 3: excuse me, he he was incredibly gracious and generous to me,
Speaker 3: allowing me to do more and more and gave me
Speaker 3: a lot more run of the place. And I saw
Speaker 3: some magnificent partners who I was just so impressed with
Speaker 3: how they handled and conducted themselves. It just really lifted
Speaker 3: me up and asked me to, you know, think about
Speaker 3: the kind of person I want to be, the kind
Speaker 3: of professional I want to be in the standard I
Speaker 3: need to set myself. And so I got a lot
Speaker 3: out of that. And in working at that law firm,
Speaker 3: I had some exposure to various banks and then eventually
Speaker 3: I moved to one of those banks, and that's how
Speaker 3: I went from law into finance effects.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people don't realize that there are
Speaker 1: in those big law firms like Mallicon's. I mean most
Speaker 1: of them think of it was a bit of a factory.
Speaker 1: But and it just greet.
Speaker 2: Me if I'm wrong. We're talking about the early nineties.
Speaker 3: This was ninety six. I came to Sydney into ninety six.
Speaker 1: So a firm like Mallison's, they're probably already merged with
Speaker 1: Stephen Jakeson.
Speaker 2: That's Malison Stephen and and now they're now something else.
Speaker 1: But but they got so big relatively speaking, at the
Speaker 1: time it was the market was dominated by them and
Speaker 1: two or three out the law firms in terms of size,
Speaker 1: and they got all the big jobs. Yes, the big
Speaker 1: banks that the big work. You would have been in
Speaker 1: one of the big four law firms. Does that does
Speaker 1: that somehow inform you as to or does that how
Speaker 1: to somehow shape you as to your future career that
Speaker 1: you end up in one of the big four banks
Speaker 1: you were one of the big you were at the
Speaker 1: big investment banks too prior to that, or the big
Speaker 1: foreign banks who were very active here in Australia. We'll
Speaker 1: talk about that in a second. Does do you think
Speaker 1: that has some impact on your career path? Did you
Speaker 1: say to yourself, Look, I've always been a a I've
Speaker 1: experienced at a big law firm. I've now been experienced
Speaker 1: at the big non re tail banks here in Australia
Speaker 1: and let's call maw it was deutsch Bank and whose
Speaker 1: gold missacks. Yeah, so globally two of the biggest banks,
Speaker 1: particularly Deutsche and the US and in terms of certain
Speaker 1: areas anyway, did that start to make you think this
Speaker 1: is the source of environment we've got to stick to
Speaker 1: or did you ever.
Speaker 3: Think to someone?
Speaker 2: Wouldn't I going back to a small local law firm
Speaker 2: like the one in Brisbane?
Speaker 3: Oh no. So so when I got to Mallison's and
Speaker 3: you know, I really enjoyed my time there, and I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed as I got to do more, and I
Speaker 3: really and what.
Speaker 2: Was it you enjoyed though about it?
Speaker 3: Well, they're all high quality people and who were every day,
Speaker 3: you know, going hard at it.
Speaker 2: Your colleagues or the colleagues.
Speaker 3: Colleagues above and below and around. So it was a
Speaker 3: very sort of performed kind of environment.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 3: And it was really interesting and you know, big end
Speaker 3: of town kind of works. That was quite for a young,
Speaker 3: impressionable guy from Brisbane. It was like, wow, yeah, this
Speaker 3: is exciting, and so I really enjoyed it. It was
Speaker 3: also the case that I never really had any plans.
Speaker 3: I never I sort of oh, that's really good. I'm
Speaker 3: going to try that. And I ended up going into finance,
Speaker 3: for example, by accident. I didn't start with that initiative.
Speaker 3: But then I had a conversation with Credit Sweese and
Speaker 3: they said, oh, you know, I want you. You know,
Speaker 3: we're looking for a lawyer. Want you join us? And
Speaker 3: I joined it as an in house lawyer, and then
Speaker 3: I moved into banking quickly thereafter. And it was because
Speaker 3: they said I want you to try this, and I said, yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll try that. I was never sitting back and saying
Speaker 3: here's my plan. I'm going to work in a big
Speaker 3: four law firm. Then I'm going to move into a
Speaker 3: big investment bank, and then I just never had it
Speaker 3: mapped out in my head. And in some respects I
Speaker 3: was just enjoying.
Speaker 2: The play was in front of you, exactly what, And
Speaker 2: I really.
Speaker 3: Enjoyed the people and working and the intensity required. And
Speaker 3: then as I got into that, and you're competing hard
Speaker 3: to perform and deliver, people then graciously and generously give
Speaker 3: you opportunities, or at least I was in that respect.
Speaker 3: And so that's how my career developed was without design,
Speaker 3: It was just developed as a result of just people
Speaker 3: giving me a chance at things, and I decided, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'll try that, and I'll try that.
Speaker 1: And so it's funny you should say this, because I
Speaker 1: wondered to myself, is Anthony Miller's propensity and preparedness to
Speaker 1: work hard and work with intensity and all those things
Speaker 1: you're talking about? Then? Is that something that was socially
Speaker 1: formed on him by putting him through swimming regimes or
Speaker 1: is that something that his personality always was going to
Speaker 1: do and when he ended up going to work, he
Speaker 1: was actually had the propensity and the preparedness to do it.
Speaker 3: So I think there were three forces. One is definitely swimming,
Speaker 3: you know, trainee experience, experiences, I know I can do
Speaker 3: it exactly. And then I think I was a little
Speaker 3: bit built that way. And then fairly my parents work.
Speaker 3: They worked hard, they put a hundred percent in, and
Speaker 3: I was never It was always clear to me, It
Speaker 3: was always clear to all my brothers and sisters that
Speaker 3: Mum and Dad were working really hard and they worked
Speaker 3: really hard to make sure we had opportunities, and there
Speaker 3: was no way I was ever going to let them
Speaker 3: down by not having one hundred percent effort into whatever
Speaker 3: we did or whatever goal or whatever opportunity was given
Speaker 3: to me, I was always going to give it one
Speaker 3: hundred percent and do whatever it took. And I sort
Speaker 3: of like, almost I felt an obligation to make sure
Speaker 3: that if I was going to do something, I was
Speaker 3: going to do it really well, because how could I
Speaker 3: look Mum and Dad in the eye and not have
Speaker 3: put one hundred percent into something like a sense of duty,
Speaker 3: a sense of duty, sense of obligation. But that's only
Speaker 3: because they work so hard and they you know, we
Speaker 3: didn't have a lot, but we wanted for nothing when
Speaker 3: we were growing up, and the eldest six kids and
Speaker 3: everyone was given a real good school. Everyone was given
Speaker 3: any sport opportunity they wanted to pursue they could, and
Speaker 3: you know, you've got swimmers, footballers, boxes, water pilot players,
Speaker 3: any sport anywhere. Mom and Dad would take whoever it
Speaker 3: was to that sport and then back them one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: And so I think we all felt an obligation to,
Speaker 3: you know, work hard and take every opportunity and give
Speaker 3: it one hundred percent. So I think there's three forces.
Speaker 3: I think the assuming definitely think a little bit of
Speaker 3: my own personality and DNA and then clearly that obligation
Speaker 3: or responsibility to mom and dad.
Speaker 1: Do you have any memories of any one particular individual
Speaker 1: who was a great mentor to you outside your parents
Speaker 1: at work in either the law firm or Creswiz or
Speaker 1: gold Misax or at Deutsche, was there someone who sort
Speaker 1: of took you under their wing and said, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try and this kid along. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Look, I think I was I was lucky in particularly
Speaker 3: in my career, that there's been a few people who
Speaker 3: took some interest in me and just gave me a
Speaker 3: little bit of extra coaching and insights. And there was
Speaker 3: a I was working for one partner at Mallison's, a
Speaker 3: guy called Michael Gammons who was very good to me,
Speaker 3: and he was really really fixated on accuracy and detail
Speaker 3: and that helped me improve and I improved a lot
Speaker 3: as a professional and as an individual. And there was
Speaker 3: another partner in the law firm who had a big
Speaker 3: impact on me, and he didn't probably didn't realize it.
Speaker 3: And I did catch up with him on a few
Speaker 3: occasions after I'd left the law firm and shared this
Speaker 3: with him. And he passed away on here a couple
Speaker 3: of years ago, and his name was John Stumbles, and
Speaker 3: he was the sort of senior partner in the banking
Speaker 3: and finance practice. And he was such a nice, decent guy,
Speaker 3: incredibly thoughtful and compassionate and incredibly driven, but just so classy.
Speaker 3: And I just every time I saw him in action
Speaker 3: and every time he spoke, I thought, Gee, this guy
Speaker 3: is so impressive. And then he started to just give
Speaker 3: me a little bit of coaching and a little bit
Speaker 3: of encouragement, and he'd sort of pulled me inside and say, look,
Speaker 3: you know, as you're doing this work, i'd be you know,
Speaker 3: think about this as you deliver yourself into that meeting Anthony,
Speaker 3: or would be mindful of the fact that this is
Speaker 3: what people will be looking for. And so I was
Speaker 3: very grateful for that coaching from a guy who had
Speaker 3: I had put on a pedestal because he was just
Speaker 3: so classy and so good at what he did. So
Speaker 3: I was lucky there. And then when I joined Goldman's
Speaker 3: there was a couple of people there who, again, you know,
Speaker 3: it's a highly high intensity, high performance environment, and a
Speaker 3: couple of people took the time out to give me
Speaker 3: feedback and sort of highlight what my strength is or
Speaker 3: what my weakness is and what I should work on,
Speaker 3: and so I was very grateful for that.
Speaker 2: That's interesting you should say that, particularly that as a
Speaker 2: younger man in a law firm impressed with somebody's let's
Speaker 2: call it kindness and generalists because generally speaking, the sort.
Speaker 3: Of more.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's incorrect, but the more accepted proposition of someone
Speaker 1: who's very, very successful in an organization like a big
Speaker 1: firm is that you have to be a bit of
Speaker 1: a bugger to get up there, you know, like you
Speaker 1: have to be tough and mean and all those sorts
Speaker 1: of things. When someone like you says that they were
Speaker 1: impressed as a younger man with someone who actually played
Speaker 1: good qualities kindness, gentleness, but also constructive criticism, how much
Speaker 1: of that have you taken away from that and put
Speaker 1: into your cell phone what you do now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so that's again a good sort of challenge. Like
Speaker 3: I'm incredibly driven, I think in the business today, that's right.
Speaker 3: I'm very I'm very competitive. I want to win, but
Speaker 3: I don't want to win unfairly. I don't want to
Speaker 3: have an unfair advantage and win. I want to I
Speaker 3: want everyone to have the same opportunity and you know,
Speaker 3: competing in a race, it's no good if you're given
Speaker 3: every advantage and the others have no such chance to compete.
Speaker 3: It's not really a racist.
Speaker 2: You're talking about internally.
Speaker 3: Now that's internally, that's externally. But you know, competing. I
Speaker 3: do enjoy competing and I do enjoy winning. But equally,
Speaker 3: if I've tried my best and I wasn't good enough,
Speaker 3: then so be it. And so therefore, you know, you
Speaker 3: can and should be able to be an effective executive
Speaker 3: and an effective leader, and things like making sure everyone
Speaker 3: is fairly treated, making sure everyone is heard, going out
Speaker 3: a way to help someone who's a little bit less
Speaker 3: fortunate in opportunities in the office or opportunities where it
Speaker 3: might be seems to me to be like something that
Speaker 3: absolutely should be allowed and should be endorsed and should
Speaker 3: be accepted. And that doesn't mean you can't be compassionate,
Speaker 3: which I think is really important and really important virtues
Speaker 3: to be compassionate, but compassionate and thoughtful, but also really
Speaker 3: demanding of yourself and then also able to then say
Speaker 3: to other people, let's lift your standard. And asking someone
Speaker 3: to lift their standard is not unfair inappropriate. If you're
Speaker 3: a person who's thoughtful, compassionate, understanding and prepared to the
Speaker 3: same as I did the same. And so I suppose
Speaker 3: so with that.
Speaker 2: Leadership by example, I think I think.
Speaker 3: It's a little bit of that. Yeah, I think also,
Speaker 3: you know, and I think about leadership and what I
Speaker 3: have to do at the bank, there's an element of
Speaker 3: leadership and we're going in this direction. Equally, as a leader,
Speaker 3: I've also got a responsibility to make sure people have
Speaker 3: the best opportunity to improve and develop and grow. And
Speaker 3: so leadership is a little bit of service as well.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not as a leader that's your reward
Speaker 3: and look at you and everyone needs to do what
Speaker 3: you say. But actually, no, I'm a leader and my
Speaker 3: job is to then help everyone prosper, everyone progress, everyone improve.
Speaker 3: And so I think that sort of leadership where it's
Speaker 3: anchored around you know, look at this dominant personality and
Speaker 3: look at how successful they are, and there's this idea
Speaker 3: that they're a bit of a bugger and they're a
Speaker 3: bit hard nosed. No, I'm not interested in that. I'm
Speaker 3: much more focused on that leader who we're here to deliver.
Speaker 3: We're going to win, but we're going to do it
Speaker 3: together and what can I do to help you to
Speaker 3: contribute to where we've got to get to as a team.
Speaker 3: So that's how I think about it. That's how I
Speaker 3: try and balance it.
Speaker 1: We often say, I mean, you would remember this from
Speaker 1: when your brother was boxing styles wind fights, so you
Speaker 1: you know, in a long version, then you try to
Speaker 1: describe your style. But let's say, as a leader, what
Speaker 1: would how would you describe it in a shorter version, like,
Speaker 1: you know, how would you describe yourself as a leader?
Speaker 1: There therefore as a leader, like the way you lead
Speaker 1: the bank, because you know how many stuff you got,
Speaker 1: like how many people in the group.
Speaker 3: We've got just under thirty eight thousand in the group.
Speaker 3: You're not sort of looking at.
Speaker 1: Let's call it the latest people have been employed in
Speaker 1: the last eight hundred or something, and you're not sort
Speaker 1: of talking to each on them.
Speaker 2: That's impossible.
Speaker 1: So you've got to build leadership teams as well below you.
Speaker 1: So do you build leadership teams as a leader that
Speaker 1: follow your style of leadership? I mean, do you sort
Speaker 1: of self select or do people self select based on you?
Speaker 1: You do you do you pick people in your own
Speaker 1: image as a leader?
Speaker 3: Good? Good question, I think I think it's all a
Speaker 3: little bit of all of the above, if I can
Speaker 3: answer it that way, which is, you know, what I'm
Speaker 3: very focused on at Westpac, and what's really important to
Speaker 3: me is I want a team, a leadership team, because
Speaker 3: I think a great team is always going to be
Speaker 3: so much more successful. So what I'm really focused on
Speaker 3: is an executive team who have great teamwork, have each
Speaker 3: other's backs, clear on what we collectively are going after
Speaker 3: where we want to take this bank. What I've also
Speaker 3: been focused on, for example, as I've brought people into
Speaker 3: the executive team, is making sure that other executives got
Speaker 3: an opportunity to meet and to interview those perspective candidates.
Speaker 3: Not just your call that's exactly right. I want us
Speaker 3: to say, is this a team member. We want part
Speaker 3: of our team who will commit and share with us
Speaker 3: both the challenge and the upside of what we want
Speaker 3: to go after. And so I've been very focused on that.
Speaker 3: And what's been very interesting to me is that you know,
Speaker 3: we've got a goal we want to take Westpac, but equally,
Speaker 3: the executives who've joined us and who want to join us,
Speaker 3: and as we build this right across the bank, everyone
Speaker 3: wants to join a team. They want to be part
Speaker 3: of a team. That is what we are focused on
Speaker 3: and what we're trying to create. And so that's been
Speaker 3: really really invigorating and encouraging to see that kind of response.
Speaker 1: Because like, you know that you have a limited pool
Speaker 1: where to choose your executive team out of. I mean,
Speaker 1: unless you bring him in from over sous, perhaps you are.
Speaker 1: But let's say we're just looking at the Australian landscape
Speaker 1: and that you know the people who are available for
Speaker 1: a spot that you need to fill based on what
Speaker 1: you want your leadership to to look like. Sometimes you
Speaker 1: have to go and see who's out there in the marketplace,
Speaker 1: Like we're doing Rabia League at least time, but the
Speaker 1: rooster is we're always finding you know, who someone fits
Speaker 1: into our system. Yeah, but because you know, someone could
Speaker 1: be a great player, have all the talent in the
Speaker 1: world for a particular spot position, could be sand a wing, whatever,
Speaker 1: But unless they fit into our system, won't we won't
Speaker 1: employ Our system has a lot to do with character, style,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Is that something you get an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do at a bank like yours, Because I've noticed I
Speaker 1: saw on the paper today that someone's left one of
Speaker 1: the big banks is coming over to join you guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so how do you do To use that analogy,
Speaker 3: I sometimes use this description of you know, let's get
Speaker 3: the right athletes in the right seats, but we've got
Speaker 3: to have it. It's got to be a team. And
Speaker 3: we've got some exceptional talent at Westpac, and so it's
Speaker 3: been a real pleasure and delightful to see and elevate
Speaker 3: some of them and have them promoted and you can
Speaker 3: see just outstanding performance. But there's definitely been a couple
Speaker 3: instances where we thought, you know what, it's probably appropriate
Speaker 3: just to bring in someone who can bring a little
Speaker 3: bit of more open minded thinking or some different thinking
Speaker 3: into the team. And so that's why we have recruited
Speaker 3: a couple of external executives, and we will continue to
Speaker 3: always look at the talent of the internally and externally
Speaker 3: is to make those decisions. But the number one rule
Speaker 3: or discipline I've been focused on is making sure that
Speaker 3: they will work as a team and they will fit
Speaker 3: in with the team, which is why, you know, having
Speaker 3: other executives help in the decision as to who we
Speaker 3: wanted to bring in and why is in my mind
Speaker 3: pretty important.
Speaker 1: But in your game, do you have like understood or
Speaker 1: agreed anti poaching rules? I mean, I mean, like how
Speaker 1: do you find these people? Or do you meet them
Speaker 1: at a function? Or do really good question this dude's
Speaker 1: good or that girl's great. Yeah, let's go for us.
Speaker 3: So look at a couple of things. I mean, obviously
Speaker 3: we have recruitment firms that help us at the market.
Speaker 3: I do think it's my responsibility as a leader and
Speaker 3: any leader of any bank, and I certainly see the
Speaker 3: leaders of Westpact their job is to constantly understand the
Speaker 3: quality of the team they have, the quality of the
Speaker 3: talent out they're in the marketplace, and to be constantly
Speaker 3: asking themselves, have I've got the balance right? Are we delivering?
Speaker 3: And constantly testing and challenging as to whether it's working
Speaker 3: and working as it should and making sure that the
Speaker 3: team's performing. And equally, have you got the right people
Speaker 3: in the right seats with the right ability and attitude
Speaker 3: to deliver? And so and so Therefore you know that
Speaker 3: idea of finding talent is if you will, probably my
Speaker 3: number one job description retaining and investing in people is
Speaker 3: probably really my number one job description. And then all
Speaker 3: the leaders in the bank have that same obligation, which is,
Speaker 3: we've got to make sure we've got the best talent,
Speaker 3: We've got the best people on the best seats. And
Speaker 3: if I think about banking and where we are today, Mark,
Speaker 3: and you think about the world in which we operate,
Speaker 3: you know, more and more it's going to be automated
Speaker 3: more and more. It's digital. Ninety six percent of what
Speaker 3: people do with Westpac is digital. And then you think
Speaker 3: about the regulator who says, I want you to be
Speaker 3: the same. I don't want you to have more risk
Speaker 3: appetite in one area versus another bank that ain't like that.
Speaker 3: So and then you put something like AI over the
Speaker 3: top of it, and what you have is everything's becoming
Speaker 3: much more homogenized and so it's being driven to be
Speaker 3: the same. And so therefore, how are we going to
Speaker 3: be different and how am I going to differentiate Westpac
Speaker 3: in the marketplace? And it's going to be back to
Speaker 3: the future. It's your people and how good they are,
Speaker 3: and more importantly, the discretionary effort they bring in every
Speaker 3: day and the way they feel trusted and empowered and supported.
Speaker 3: That's where we've got to go. And that's why I'm
Speaker 3: very focused on how I build a team and how
Speaker 3: that team then leads the company, and how everyone in
Speaker 3: the company understands we've got your back, because the way
Speaker 3: we're going to win is by having the best people
Speaker 3: with the best in work environment, giving us their best
Speaker 3: every day.
Speaker 2: So what is a win for you, Anthony?
Speaker 1: So, like in other words, who are your stakeholders mean
Speaker 1: a broad a sort of group of stakeholders, But who
Speaker 1: are your stakeholders? And what is it that most of
Speaker 1: them are looking for? They're looking for, you know, the
Speaker 1: profit cash profit you're going to report. Are they looking for,
Speaker 1: you know, a share price or what.
Speaker 2: Are they looking for?
Speaker 3: And so our goal is a number one and I'm
Speaker 3: just number one in what regard number one? And so
Speaker 3: that's exactly right. It doesn't mean it's the largest. And
Speaker 3: what I'm looking for is that, you know, from a
Speaker 3: customer customer service proposition, everyone goes, gee, they're the number one,
Speaker 3: and we're not there at the moment. There's some pockets
Speaker 3: of the bank which are number one in customer metrics,
Speaker 3: et cetera, but we're not universally where we need to be,
Speaker 3: and so we're after that. So that's our goal. I
Speaker 3: don't think you can be number one unless you have
Speaker 3: the best employee proposition. So I want to be the place,
Speaker 3: and I want to create an environment worst pac and
Speaker 3: we have a great environment, great people, but I want
Speaker 3: it to be the number one place that people want
Speaker 3: to work. So I want to create the number one
Speaker 3: employee proposition and people come to work. And if you've
Speaker 3: got the best people coming to work, giving their best
Speaker 3: every day, then that underwrits your ability to provide that
Speaker 3: customer outcome, that outcome that you want, which is number
Speaker 3: one customer. If I get those two right, then I
Speaker 3: think what I do is I deliver the right return
Speaker 3: to shareholders and that's that consistence, sustainable growing return to
Speaker 3: shareholder in terms of dividend and obviously share price growth.
Speaker 3: And so that's the other element of what I think
Speaker 3: is number one. And we need to deliver better return
Speaker 3: on equity. We need to deliver better cost income ratio.
Speaker 3: Those are all if you will indicators, and if we
Speaker 3: can get those right, then I think that will If
Speaker 3: you will allow us to claim and be recognized as
Speaker 3: number one, doesn't mean we're the largest. It doesn't also
Speaker 3: necessarily mean we're always the most profitable. But we are
Speaker 3: getting that balance right customer, employee and shareholder, and if
Speaker 3: I get that right, then we will be number one.
Speaker 1: Do you see the regulator as a stakeholder because the
Speaker 1: regular represent Australia absolutely, and so because we give you,
Speaker 1: we give you a license. When I say we, Australia
Speaker 1: has given you a license to be, to be, to
Speaker 1: take deposits and to be what they call an adi
Speaker 1: or a bank so to speak. And the Regulator is
Speaker 1: the policeman around this sort of stuff. Policemen also, but
Speaker 1: I'm not as not that bad as more they do
Speaker 1: a lot of other things as well.
Speaker 2: Now they stakeholder representing.
Speaker 3: All of us. I think that's right. I mean, I
Speaker 3: would you know, in the context of if I'm going
Speaker 3: to be number one in terms of customer service, I've
Speaker 3: got to need a standard. I've got an obligation to
Speaker 3: the community and to the regulator in terms of how
Speaker 3: to deliver our services. So I feel it's entwined if
Speaker 3: I'm going to be number one in that customer proposition
Speaker 3: that I'm providing that I'm absolutely viewed by the regulator
Speaker 3: and by the community in the same way that I'm
Speaker 3: meeting those standards that I need to meet because you're
Speaker 3: absolutely right, you know, a license to operate a bank
Speaker 3: as a bank is a privilege and we need to
Speaker 3: and do recognize it as such, and so therefore need
Speaker 3: to make sure and everything we do we meet the
Speaker 3: standards that the regulator stroke community expects of us.
Speaker 1: So many many years ago, and I think it was
Speaker 1: around about my recollection was about two thousand and one
Speaker 1: or two. The very well known and you'll remember Blood Pit, won't,
Speaker 1: but it was a very well known CEO of ABHI.
Speaker 1: His name was Don Argus. Yes, and Don was asked
Speaker 1: I think it was an interview for the AFR. He said,
Speaker 1: they said to him whatever they said to what keeps
Speaker 1: you up at night? What keeps you awake at night?
Speaker 1: And his response was a foreign entity who has the
Speaker 1: big balance sheet coming into Australia and either buying a
Speaker 1: bank or competing with a bank, And he quoted General.
Speaker 2: Electric at the time.
Speaker 1: General Electory at the time was the world's largest company
Speaker 1: by market CAPP was probably the biggest finance financier in
Speaker 1: the world in terms of you know, asset finance, and
Speaker 1: it's not today, but it was then.
Speaker 2: Because the Gypsy's sort of changed that.
Speaker 1: But and interesting enough general actorly do you come into
Speaker 1: Australia If I asked Anthony Miller today, what's something that
Speaker 1: keeps you awake at night in terms of the banking sector,
Speaker 1: not not just West but but the banking sector. What
Speaker 1: is the biggest challenge to you today?
Speaker 3: Look, I mean there's a couple of things. So if
Speaker 3: I could sort of have a bit of liberty to
Speaker 3: say from one thing, I think you know one thing
Speaker 3: I'm very focused on. I think all the chief executives
Speaker 3: of the banks are, and chief executives right across Australia,
Speaker 3: which is cyber and cyber crime, cyber security data. It's
Speaker 3: just such a challenging environment. And we're not just if
Speaker 3: you will, dealing with say criminals or you know, unfair
Speaker 3: business practices. We're dealing with nation states assaulting the country.
Speaker 3: And so that's that's a complexity and a challenge that
Speaker 3: I don't think previous CEO sort of any era had
Speaker 3: to had to contemplate. And the challenges we face as
Speaker 3: we deal with cyber threats to the country are such
Speaker 3: that you know that that does deeply worry me. The
Speaker 3: other aspect of I suppose what I do worry about is,
Speaker 3: essentially banking is increasingly, as I described it, homogenized, commoditized,
Speaker 3: and so is it something that we could be further
Speaker 3: disintermediated by or impacted by as a large technology company
Speaker 3: looks to via their phone essentially say just deal with
Speaker 3: me on everything, and I will outsource and if you
Speaker 3: will have a white label offering, and I'll have a
Speaker 3: deposit over here, and I'll get a bank which will
Speaker 3: just be technically the deposit adi institution, but you'll do
Speaker 3: it all via me, and you'll do it all via
Speaker 3: my phone, for example, like Google. That's right, Google and
Speaker 3: other one of the technology giants, exactly right, And so
Speaker 3: do they then if you will into the financial services
Speaker 3: or the regulated banking sector, and I do worry about that.
Speaker 3: I do think other executives worry about that. I do
Speaker 3: also reflect on the fact that, however, if that's where
Speaker 3: they do go, then they will be captured by regulation
Speaker 3: that they're not captured by today, and they don't want
Speaker 3: that kind of regulation, And then that will be a
Speaker 3: very interesting proposition to put to people, is do you
Speaker 3: want these people providing banking services without necessarily the same
Speaker 3: responsibilities in the other sides, that's right, and then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, being a regulated bank and being very
Speaker 3: good at how you deliver on your regulatory obligations to
Speaker 3: both regulator and community becomes not a burden, as it
Speaker 3: isn't as advantage, but is part of your comparative advantage
Speaker 3: and in fact is something that we should be embracing
Speaker 3: and celebrating because if we do that well, then that
Speaker 3: reinforce is that license top rate and that right top right,
Speaker 3: and reinforces our position in the marketplace.
Speaker 1: You guys are with the banking section, particularly the big
Speaker 1: five banks including mcquarie. You're the biggest tax payer in
Speaker 1: the country, probably as a group, definitely one of the
Speaker 1: most influential.
Speaker 2: Where do you see.
Speaker 1: Your banks or your grouping bank, your bank group obligations
Speaker 1: relative to nation building and national policy in relation and
Speaker 1: things like super tax. Do you feel as though you
Speaker 1: have a position or do you think you feel as
Speaker 1: though you should get on the front foot about it
Speaker 1: As a bank, I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: As an institution.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a that's a and that's a challenge
Speaker 3: for us. A question that we ask ourselves is, well, look, well,
Speaker 3: certainly we're a big company and in big industry and
Speaker 3: have a big role to play in the Australian community
Speaker 3: and economy, and we have a license stop rate, and
Speaker 3: we need to be very fixated on we're delivering the
Speaker 3: right standard of service to our customers and we're meeting
Speaker 3: that community and regulatory expectation in doing that. And we've
Speaker 3: just got to make sure we're superb at that. And
Speaker 3: if we're superb at that, then I think we've earned
Speaker 3: the right to be able to contribute to the public
Speaker 3: discourse around particular things like tax maybe industry relations, maybe
Speaker 3: policy settings, etc. But I think we've got to make
Speaker 3: sure we're very very good on delivering that service to
Speaker 3: the standard our customers want and the community expects if
Speaker 3: we're going to contribute to these discussions. And I would
Speaker 3: say that perhaps you could. You know, over the last
Speaker 3: ten years there's been a period of time where the
Speaker 3: banks haven't been at the standard needed to and Royal
Speaker 3: Commission and other things revealed that. But I do think
Speaker 3: we perhaps particularly with COVID and what's happened in the
Speaker 3: last few years, hopefully people do feel banks are working better,
Speaker 3: working hard to deliver customer service to the right standards.
Speaker 3: Community expects and so therefore we can and should contribute
Speaker 3: a little bit more to some of these bigger topics
Speaker 3: and bigger discussions. But we've got to be a little
Speaker 3: bit honest with our sales marketing on until we've got
Speaker 3: that standard. We got ourselves to that standard consistently, we're
Speaker 3: going to be careful.
Speaker 2: The Glas Houses argument, this.
Speaker 3: Is exactly right, and we've just got to be a
Speaker 3: little bit humble about how we put our selves forward
Speaker 3: into these into these kind of debates. I do think,
Speaker 3: for example, Westpac is Australia's oldest company. First, they're going
Speaker 3: to help us bank first and oldest bank, and the
Speaker 3: fact is that our success has been tied to the
Speaker 3: growth and progress of this country, and so we have
Speaker 3: a heavy responsibility to contribute to Australia's growth and support Australia.
Speaker 3: And one of the things I would sort of say
Speaker 3: that we've done is we've committed to retaining our businesses
Speaker 3: in Papua New Guinea and Fiji because that's part of
Speaker 3: what is important to Australia's natural interests as we go forward.
Speaker 3: And we've therefore got a great working relationship with Canberra
Speaker 3: in making sure how we do things and what we
Speaker 3: want to do in P and G and FIG is
Speaker 3: something that they're comfortable with and is serving the national
Speaker 3: interest as we go forward. And I think that's been
Speaker 3: to me and I think that I'm very proud of that.
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of the Voice Pact doing that. And
Speaker 3: that's an example of the kind of things we know
Speaker 3: we need to do more of in helping Australia, because
Speaker 3: if Australia prospers, then being a bank with the market
Speaker 3: share we have, we naturally prosper as a results, and
Speaker 3: so thinking much more nationwide is sort of also part
Speaker 3: of my job description.
Speaker 2: Now, two more quick questions. The first one is.
Speaker 1: Cryptocurrency and all the usual players in relationship cryptocurrency and
Speaker 1: a bigcoin, et cetera, ethereum.
Speaker 2: What's the bank's position in relation to that?
Speaker 3: So the underlying technology where continuously working with our peer
Speaker 3: banks international and domestic the Reserve Bank on how we
Speaker 3: might use that technology, particularly in the context of international
Speaker 3: payments for example, and tokenization of deposits and our sets
Speaker 3: all of a sudden could reduce a lot of friction
Speaker 3: quick couldn't make it all quicker and more efficient. What
Speaker 3: we've got to be careful of is you know, as
Speaker 3: things go faster and more efficiently, you know, frauds and
Speaker 3: other matters are affected more effectively and efficiently. And so
Speaker 3: we've got to make sure that, you know, as we
Speaker 3: go further with this, that we are still retaining certain
Speaker 3: protections that community and customers expected us. In the context
Speaker 3: of cryptocurrency itself. Uh, you know, we continue to see
Speaker 3: an enormous amount of fraud and scam activity in generation
Speaker 3: around cryptocurrency, and so we are conservative in terms of
Speaker 3: facilitating payments into crypto exchanges and payments out of crypto
Speaker 3: exchanges using these train well the Westpac banking system, and
Speaker 3: I think that's a statement probably applies to all these
Speaker 3: train banks because there is just such a hyperpensity for fraud,
Speaker 3: scam and criminal activity that we're very cautious about that.
Speaker 3: And so until that is addressed, it's hard to see
Speaker 3: how we just go and embrace that asset class in
Speaker 3: a way that some of the uses of it are
Speaker 3: advocating we should go. And so and one of the
Speaker 3: other interesting things for me is this interesting and emerging
Speaker 3: challenge for the United States, which is it's embracing on
Speaker 3: the one hand, bitcoining crypto. But the US's pre eminence
Speaker 3: in the world is one of the reasons for that
Speaker 3: is it's US dollar, and the US dollar is the
Speaker 3: currency that everyone goes to and goes between as they
Speaker 3: do their international trade or if you will, complete transactions.
Speaker 3: So why would you you gebilize jeopardize that by encouraging
Speaker 3: something such as a bitcoin as an alternative where there
Speaker 3: is no ability to truly monitor, trace and if you will, govern,
Speaker 3: And that would only start to weaken US position globally.
Speaker 3: And so I'm finding that a little bit of an
Speaker 3: interesting development, which is, you know, US Hedgemeny is at
Speaker 3: risk if you allow bitcoin the full run or the
Speaker 3: cryptocurrency universe to have the full run of international payments,
Speaker 3: et cetera. So how do we get that balance right?
Speaker 3: That's to me a little bit unclear, and it also means,
Speaker 3: you know, let's be thoughtful crypto.
Speaker 1: So basically your position to let it play out and
Speaker 1: see what happens. It's one of those areas where I
Speaker 1: don't think you have to be first, you just got
Speaker 1: to be right. Yeah, and so let's be right. So
Speaker 1: final final question, more of commentary. I noticed when we're
Speaker 1: doing the work on this podcast. Some two books you've read.
Speaker 1: I'm sure I've read many books. But two books you
Speaker 1: read is called Why Nations Fail, and the other one
Speaker 1: is called The Count of Monte Christo.
Speaker 2: But I just want to look at Why Nations file
Speaker 2: that book.
Speaker 1: That book was actually quite an interesting book and I
Speaker 1: remember it as well. But it was sort of proffering
Speaker 1: a position that nations that fail are the ones that
Speaker 1: sort of only look after the elite and lock out
Speaker 1: everyone having an opportunity, fair opportunity to innovate through innovation,
Speaker 1: to become.
Speaker 3: Better what they do?
Speaker 2: Is that a Is that a book?
Speaker 3: Big?
Speaker 1: Does that book sort of somehow describe how Anthony Miller
Speaker 1: feels and thinks about just about how things should happen
Speaker 1: in the world.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, it is a book. I've read it a
Speaker 3: couple of times and have reflected on it. Certainly, you know,
Speaker 3: the nation's failing because the essentially the gap between the
Speaker 3: have and have not gets too far. But more importantly,
Speaker 3: they have nots don't think they have any hope. I
Speaker 3: don't think they have any opportunity. And so that's a
Speaker 3: really critical challenge, exam challenge for society today.
Speaker 1: And we have that with young people's right. I feel
Speaker 1: that relative to people, say my age, the boomers, that's right.
Speaker 3: And then in particular, perhaps the example that most brings
Speaker 3: this out, which is housing and access to housing. And
Speaker 3: so you know, I own my house, and everyone of
Speaker 3: my age and generation, you know, we all got opportunities
Speaker 3: and we have brought property, and I think we've enjoyed
Speaker 3: the wealth effect of house and house prices growing, but
Speaker 3: we're currently not building enough or creating enough house or
Speaker 3: unit supply so that everyone feels they're a chance of
Speaker 3: getting it. Doesn't mean you guarantee that they get it,
Speaker 3: but they've got to feel like this hope that they'll
Speaker 3: get it. And so one of the things that I
Speaker 3: drew out of the Wye Nations file is that unless
Speaker 3: we are working much harder at ensuring those who don't
Speaker 3: have property, as an example, feel there's at least hope
Speaker 3: and there's things in place that give them a chance
Speaker 3: of getting access to property, then that's a real problem
Speaker 3: and we've got to solve that. And those who have
Speaker 3: property and those who are, if you will, in the
Speaker 3: incompor position that many of us are today, we have
Speaker 3: a bit of a responsibility to say, well, what else
Speaker 3: can we do? Now? What should we be doing to
Speaker 3: ensure that others have the same opportunities we had our
Speaker 3: bit circumstances different and you know, the environments different, But
Speaker 3: we've got to give them the same opportunities, the same
Speaker 3: hope that we all had that drive our behaviors to buy,
Speaker 3: and they obviously enjoy owning property.
Speaker 1: And the reason I asked you because and to some extent,
Speaker 1: I've sort of set you up a little bit. But
Speaker 1: and then I apologize to that. But it goes back
Speaker 1: to my earlier question about banks having a say on policy,
Speaker 1: because if I just use young people, anyone under the
Speaker 1: age of thirty, who's looking at and by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm going to sound like a heretic saying this, but
Speaker 1: would be thinking themselves like I can't afford to go
Speaker 1: and bid against ants the middle because Anthony Miller's got
Speaker 1: Maybe you're not the boss of Westbak, you're just a
Speaker 1: school teacher, headmaster at a school. But you've accumulated two properties.
Speaker 1: Your income from the two properties now is being added
Speaker 1: to your other income from your wage, and given negative gearing,
Speaker 1: Anthony Miller might get approved for more money to buy
Speaker 1: the property against one of my young producers. He's only
Speaker 1: twenty two, and Anthony Miller is going to use negative
Speaker 1: gearing to.
Speaker 2: Build up more of a portfolio.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm not against eve viearing. I
Speaker 1: think it's a great thing that's being great for Australia.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, this summit that's being held
Speaker 1: a productivity summer, they're they're going to address tax reform
Speaker 1: and as I sound, going to sound like a heretic,
Speaker 1: but to some extent, wealth has been created in this
Speaker 1: country by using sort of tax concessions that really only
Speaker 1: benefit blokes like you and me today and women like
Speaker 1: you and I, you know, like people in our position,
Speaker 1: and it is largely unfair for the younger people because
Speaker 1: whilst they can use negative gearing, they actually don't ever
Speaker 1: call a five for loan. And we're always going to
Speaker 1: be a to able to add bid them because then
Speaker 1: the eggy gearing, we're going to be able to say,
Speaker 1: you know, and I want that property and my income
Speaker 1: is better than yours, mister twenty one year old. Therefore
Speaker 1: I can always abid you, and as a result of
Speaker 1: our bidding, you never get on the ladder.
Speaker 3: We can't.
Speaker 1: I don't think we can solve more housing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems like an issue we can't solve. When we
Speaker 1: saw somebody coming out of Treasury which is leaked somehow,
Speaker 1: they saying that Treasures already advised the government that they
Speaker 1: will not meet there one point two million housing guide
Speaker 1: the new houses. So if we can't solve the housing issue,
Speaker 1: affordability issue for younger people. And you know, younger people
Speaker 1: are big, big cohort in your business. I mean they're
Speaker 1: very important to you because they're the next generation. You know,
Speaker 1: we're all going to die off at some stage. You've
Speaker 1: got to fill the bucket back up with younger people.
Speaker 1: And you've got to attract younger people, which is tasting
Speaker 1: back to the question I should before and given you
Speaker 1: know your you know why nations fail book, it's because
Speaker 1: institutions governments talking about not restructuring or changing the structure
Speaker 1: of the system to allow people to get back on
Speaker 1: the ladder younger people.
Speaker 2: Where do you think?
Speaker 3: So I come back to that idea that people need
Speaker 3: to feel that they have an opportunity, that there's hope.
Speaker 3: I do think we have not done anywhere near what
Speaker 3: we should be doing to create more supply in the
Speaker 3: context of housing. And so when you talk about there's
Speaker 3: a lot of us within this element of incumbency that
Speaker 3: can therefore just keep buying and thus squeezing out those
Speaker 3: who don't, you certainly can try to temper that demand
Speaker 3: by limiting how many properties you might own, and obviously
Speaker 3: that just creates our cottage industry of arbitrage, etc. And
Speaker 3: what we've done and continue to perhaps put too much
Speaker 3: weight on, is how do we solve the demand side
Speaker 3: in Australia. So why don't we lend more money or
Speaker 3: give more money to first home buyers or cap interest
Speaker 3: grant and they're all good things, and we should do
Speaker 3: all of those things. But what we've got to do
Speaker 3: is solve supply. And if I just keep this simple
Speaker 3: sort of proposition in front of us, which is supply
Speaker 3: at the right price point, so that all those people
Speaker 3: who can't at the moment by a property can see
Speaker 3: there is an opportunity or potential opportunity and they have hope.
Speaker 3: We've got to create that. And so if I think
Speaker 3: about the median income in Australia is about ninety thousand dollars,
Speaker 3: as a bank you would land probably five times someone's
Speaker 3: income subject to expense verification maybe six times subject too
Speaker 3: expense verification against their income a mortgage. So therefore that
Speaker 3: tells you we need a lot of houses in that
Speaker 3: sort of five hundred to six hundred thousand dollars zip code.
Speaker 3: If we're going to solve what is currently available in
Speaker 3: terms of financing and matching the two that's right. And
Speaker 3: so then you break it down and say, okay, we
Speaker 3: need more five hundred and six hundred thousand dollars houses,
Speaker 3: and so median income median house prices in Australia over
Speaker 3: million dollars at one point six million dollars in Sydney
Speaker 3: Regional Australia as median house price is five hundred thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: So if we're going to go after house price houses
Speaker 3: units at the right price point, why aren't we thinking
Speaker 3: a lot more about how we create more opportunity in
Speaker 3: regional Australia just given the price point there meets so
Speaker 3: much more of what we need to solve. Second thing
Speaker 3: is is that maybe we have to continue to work
Speaker 3: harder at densifying and providing a lot more properties in
Speaker 3: the city rather than the big home which obviously costs
Speaker 3: an amount and well, because of costs and because of
Speaker 3: a whole host of other issues are more expensive than
Speaker 3: five to six hundred thousand dollars, how do we create
Speaker 3: a lot more five hundred to six hundred thousand dollars properties?
Speaker 3: And we're not putting that exam question in front of
Speaker 3: everyone in the property ecosystem to deliver. And I think
Speaker 3: if we then said let's go after that, you'd be
Speaker 3: surprised at what could be achieved if that's the goal.
Speaker 3: And more importantly, we say to every single council, your
Speaker 3: job is to make sure that there's fifty new units
Speaker 3: or houses at the price point at five and six
Speaker 3: affordable house, Yeah, but not affordable in the sense of,
Speaker 3: you know, a slightly pejorative Oh it's a low socio demographic.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: No, this is just price of property at the right
Speaker 3: price point to meet to demand that at the moment
Speaker 3: is not being Do you think.
Speaker 1: The word affordable is probably the wrong word to use
Speaker 1: because it is pejorative, It sort of sounds like and
Speaker 1: to develop as.
Speaker 3: Some people will feel like, you know, it's a little
Speaker 3: bit sort of patronized affordable housing. No, no, no, just
Speaker 3: got to get more property at the right price point.
Speaker 3: For people who can pay that price.
Speaker 1: It's a better narrative, much better narrative because the people
Speaker 1: whore buying it, I don't want to be thinking the
Speaker 1: buying affordable housing. They want to think I've bought the
Speaker 1: price because that's the price I can afford. It might
Speaker 1: be a bit smaller, might you know, might have you know,
Speaker 1: slightly one bathrooms, but it might be just slightly different
Speaker 1: to be affordable from the developer's point of view. But
Speaker 1: that's what it makes sense. And I think the change
Speaker 1: in the narrative is really important. And you know the
Speaker 1: industry more than better than anybody.
Speaker 3: Know who you are. We've certainly got good insights on
Speaker 3: the industry and we know better than anyone. But we've
Speaker 3: got good insights on the industry, and we're very keen
Speaker 3: to support the industry. And you know, and the job creation,
Speaker 3: the nation building opportunities in building let's put more into
Speaker 3: regional Australia. And then you think about regional Australia, Northern Australia.
Speaker 3: We need a lot more of our population living in
Speaker 3: Northern Australia for a whole host of reasons, not the
Speaker 3: least of which is it's not it's a reasonably elegant
Speaker 3: potential way to deal with cost of housing at the
Speaker 3: right price point for the demand that we have. The
Speaker 3: only other thing I'd say about that book which I
Speaker 3: thought was really important was, and you drew on it
Speaker 3: in some of your observations, that what you when you
Speaker 3: read the book is about the power of having innovation
Speaker 3: and the way private property or intellectual property laws and
Speaker 3: protecting people who come up with great ideas and giving
Speaker 3: and thus stimulating and challenging people to innovate and come
Speaker 3: up with new things. So and that's one of those
Speaker 3: things which you know we should continue to ask ourselves.
Speaker 3: Are we're doing enough? And I think we have great
Speaker 3: intellectual property protections in Australia, but are we creating enough
Speaker 3: of an environment and enough room for people to try things,
Speaker 3: create things, trial and error, because we've got to innovate
Speaker 3: and we've got to be really open minded and courageous
Speaker 3: about trying things if we're going to I suppose, succeed
Speaker 3: as a nation. And if there's one thing you sort
Speaker 3: of could argue the US has as an advantage of
Speaker 3: everyone else in the world, is they believe every day
Speaker 3: that they're going there's a chance to get ahead. They
Speaker 3: believe in the American dream, and they believe in the
Speaker 3: idea that they can innovate and they can create. And
Speaker 3: obviously their technology industry and what the innovation and the
Speaker 3: ambition they have is extraordinary, and that is to underpin
Speaker 3: so much of the success in the United States. We
Speaker 3: need to encourage that a lot more in Australia, in
Speaker 3: my view, and create a lot more context where people
Speaker 3: feel to go and try to try an experiment. And
Speaker 3: one of the issues in Australia is sometimes I think
Speaker 3: we're a bit tough on each other, hiding behind that
Speaker 3: idea of the tall poppy syndrome where we drag people
Speaker 3: down for trying. I think we've got to start to
Speaker 3: really endorse and celebrate and get behind people who are
Speaker 3: trying things and create a much more positive culture around that.
Speaker 2: Anything like that.
Speaker 1: That's actually pretty cool that you actually said that, because
Speaker 1: innovation and the innovation nation, which is what Malcolm turn
Speaker 1: Will try to turn Astralia into when he was the
Speaker 1: Prime minister here is probably my biggest bug beer. I
Speaker 1: think we've lost a little bit of that, and not
Speaker 1: that we're without talent.
Speaker 3: I mean I think we've got enormous talent.
Speaker 2: Amazing.
Speaker 3: Just liberate that talent and give it every run of
Speaker 3: the place. Well mate, thanks very much. I really appreciate
Speaker 3: it things. Thank you. That's very gracious to as so,
Speaker 3: thank you very ch I'm.
Speaker 1: Actually privileged to have a CEO and your of your
Speaker 1: elk into the organization, so thanks so much.
Speaker 3: And that