ANZ claims social justice warrior status
Baby boomer directors and senior executives at ANZ have tapped the social justice lingo of the protest era to word up the bank's messaging to stakeholders in the 2017 annual report.According to chief executive Shayne Elliott, ANZ's core purpose is "to help shape a world where people and communities thrive".Elliott also pledges to make the bank fairer: "I want us to be known as a company that's respected for being fair and balanced in the way we think about issues and for taking action to meet the expectations of our customers, employees and society".On page 2 of the report directors explain they want the Australian community to value and trust the bank, but concede that "for this to happen we know that things need to change at ANZ".On the next page the board even tries to downplay the significance of the A$6.9 billion cash profit: "A strong financial performance each year, while critical to the success of the bank, is not of itself the whole story and reflects little about who we are as an organisation and the role we play in society."In the supplementary annual review, directors also highlight their desire to embed respect for human rights in business decisions."We need to acknowledge previous poor practice and raise standards across all our activities," the bank states in the annual review. "We are expected to strengthen standards on issues such as human rights and environmental sustainability."There were fifteen references to "human rights" in the annual review compared with only eight mentions of "performance rights".The spirit of social justice sweeping the bank appears, however, to have had little impact on sensitive details of the directors' remuneration report.Almost every member of the senior executive team collected more than $2 million in cash and incentives last year, with Elliott receiving a handsome return of more than $6.2 million.The next best earner was Mark Whelan, the head of the institutional division, who raked in $4.47 million.Chief financial officer Michelle Jablko collected cash and incentives worth $3.24 million, while Alexis George - who is managing the offload of the bank's wealth management businesses - snared $1.5 million for her first ten months in a senior executive role.