AAA<\/p>\n
On Wednesday morning, ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos launched himself rather clumsily into a politically toxic debate on migration, by urging Australia to start handling its borders like a business.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a company, in a business, you choose the people you hire. You don\u2019t just open the doors and say, \u2018Well, whoever wants to work with this company, just come in.\u2019 That\u2019s not how it works,\u201d he told an Australian Financial Review summit.<\/p>\n
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ANZ chief executive Nuno Matos during the Financial Review Asia summit in Sydney on Tuesday.Brent Lewin<\/p>\n
\u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
If you think this sounds familiar, you\u2019re not wrong. Matos\u2019 interjection bore echoes of former prime minister John Howard\u2019s famous \u201cwe will decide\u201d line<\/a> delivered during the 2001 election campaign, which has set the tone for Australia\u2019s immigration debate ever since.<\/p>\n His plea for Australia to choose people based on the country\u2019s need also sounds an awful 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.<\/p>\n Perhaps Portuguese-born Natos, who moved to Melbourne from Hong Kong only last year when he landed the ANZ job, hasn\u2019t scrubbed up on the finer points of Australian political history. At least, that\u2019s the charitable take.<\/p>\n Related Article 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 rather telling. Throughout the western world, far-right parties including One Nation are surging via a toxic message that immigrants are responsible for economic precarity and the rising cost of everything.<\/p>\n We aren\u2019t saying Matos is Pauline Hanson-lite. He was arguing for a \u201cbalanced and planned\u201d approach to migration that aims for \u201cbalance\u201d. \u201cDon\u2019t go extreme,\u201d he concluded. 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\u2019s a good idea to broadcast an immigration-sceptical vibe.<\/p>\n He\u2019s not the only one. Others in Australia\u2019s 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 businessman Andrew Abercrombie, who has been a Liberal Party fixture. In June, at a $15,000-a-head Perth dinner hosted by Australia\u2019s 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\u2019s business lunch in Melbourne next month.<\/p>\n Related Article Any major 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 Canberra bubble. Many of those people are now helping their bosses engage with One Nation.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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<\/a>, before clarifying he rejected conspiracies about the terrorist attack, and once heaped praise<\/a> on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n One seasoned lobbyist said that while engaging with the party was currently a \u201cbitter pill\u201d for the business community, that reluctance might give way to acceptance if One Nation made a strong showing in November\u2019s Victorian state election.<\/p>\n \u201cIf so, the rivers of gold will flow [to the party],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Still, with the exception of Rinehart, a long-term patron of conservative causes who has bankrolled Hanson\u2019s political revival, most business leaders are opportunistic political weathervanes.<\/p>\n So many major companies made gushing calls for progressive goals in 2020 during the era now known as \u201cpeak woke\u201d. Then suddenly, many stopped talking about diversity, equity and inclusion some time around November 2024.<\/p>\n Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House has had bosses from big tech, an industry once known for championing progressive causes, switching to ceaseless praise of the president.<\/p>\n What bosses are willing to say publicly is a reflection of their read on the direction the country is going. On immigration, One Nation\u2019s surge, and Labor\u2019s coming plan to cut immigration indicate that the Overton Window<\/a> has shifted to the right.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Matos jumped right into it.<\/p>\n The Business Briefing newsletter delivers major stories, exclusive coverage and expert opinion. Sign up to get it every weekday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n Save<\/p>\n You have reached your maximum number of saved items.<\/p>\n Remove items from your saved list<\/a> to add more.<\/p>\n![\"Prime](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/86791ab344f2b348c92066fa3f38a855cfdee016.jpeg\")
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<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Kishor](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789548856_988_d5caa734967eb213b2f2e2a5a051fd787a32a624.png\")
Kishor Napier-Raman<\/a> is a senior business writer for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. Previously he worked as a CBD columnist and reporter in the federal parliamentary press gallery.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"September 16, 2026 \u2014 3:56pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":893891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-893890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/893891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}