Tech billionaire mcannonbrookes is the insiders’ outsider. Someone with enough money to do and say what he likes, without fear of government or big business backlash. 'Australia has not really seen anything like him before.'
Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes, Qantas head Alan Joyce and retiring BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie, our whistleblowers, and Melanie Perkins.The activist bosses“When politicians talk about how they wish business would speak up less on social issues and more on tax cuts, there are three guys in Australia who’d be thinking, ‘They mean me’.” That trio, according tobusiness editor John McDuling, are Atlassian boss Mike Cannon-Brookes, Qantas head Alan Joyce and retiring BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie.
Joyce, too, has made noise on progressive issues, announcing a 2050 net zero emissions goal for Qantas and – as the airline is a sponsor of Rugby Australia – weighing in on the Israel Folau controversy after the star player declared homosexuals would go to hell. Joyce was vocal in the 2017 same-sex marriage debate, donating $1 million to the Yes cause, and walked the talk this year when he married long-term partner Shane Lloyd, providing a valuable spot of role modelling in the process.
What’s fascinating to McDuling is that these corporate heavyweights are no longer moving in lockstep with conservative politicians. Rather, they’re taking cues from their customers and shareholders – albeit not all of them, and with perhaps an eye on posterity.
Boyle’s 2018 disclosures led to multiple inquiries, including a bipartisan federal parliamentary committee that issued a scathing report with 37 recommendations for tax office reform, as well as the ATO changing some of its processes. “When people come forward, that’s when change happens,” says Ferguson. “You cannot underestimate their influence and impact.
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