ANZ in a rush with new Qld man

ANZ has a new top man in Queensland following its recently completed $4.9bn acquisition of Suncorp Bank.

Bruce Rush is the new ANZ boss in Queensland

ANZ has a new top man in Queensland following its $4.9bn acquisition of Suncorp Bank last week. Bruce Rush, who has served as chief executive of Suncorp Bank since last year, will step up into the role of ANZ Group managing director Queensland.

Rush, who will continue in the role of Suncorp Bank CEO, will be responsible for liaising and collaborating with the Queensland Government about the ongoing integration of Suncorp Bank. This includes the commitments ANZ made to the Queensland Government as part of the implementation agreement signed in June 2024.

Rush, who boasts he is a proud Queenslander, says the Sunshine State has significant opportunities ahead of it in the lead up to the Olympics.

Bruce Rush is the new ANZ boss in Queensland

ANZ’s commitments to Queensland include establishing a new major tech hub in Brisbane that will employ 700 people and allocating $15bn of new lending as part of its existing renewable loan commitments and supporting green Olympic Games infrastructure over the next decade. It also will set aside $10bn of new lending for energy projects, particularly those targeting bioenergy and hydrogen over the next decade and $10bn lending to support Queensland businesses over the next three years. Rush is a Suncorp veteran, having served in various roles since 2012.

Miles away

Premier Steven Miles is giving his re-election chances a red hot crack despite some nasty polling showing he is well behind. Addressing the corporate crowd at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) lunch in Brisbane earlier this week, Miles was spruiking his latest bribe, sorry policy, of setting up a string of government owned petrol stations in order to bring down fuel prices.

Premier Steven Miles

And Miles doesn’t do anything by half measures, showing a video clip of himself in casual clothes interviewing people on the street about the cost of living crisis. No surprise that skyrocketing petrol prices was one of the key concerns of the average person. The problem for Miles is that his speech to CEDA was aimed at the suburbs rather than the big end of town, who like the idea of socialised petrol as much as a knitting needle in the eye. Miles came across as yet another big spending Labor Premier. One wag asked your diarist whether he got to lunch with a “50 cent bus fare or by filling up at your local government owned service stations.” Ouch!

Flying high

LifeFlight will significantly increase its engineering capability following the official opening of a new $26 million maintenance facility – the LifeFlight Clive Berghofer Maintenance Centre - at Archerfield Airport in Brisbane.

The facility, which spans 5000sqm and is the largest in LifeFlight’s network, was developed by Archerfield Airport Corporation. It is named in honour of LifeFlight supporter and philanthropist Clive Berghofer, who funded a training chopper for the organisation. LifeFlight will lease the facility as part of a 10-year service contract with Queensland Health and for LifeFlight’s other operational requirements. It is the largest hangar complex to be built at Archerfield Airport. Constructed by Space Frame, it will replace LifeFlight’s former maintenance facility built in the 1940s, which the organisation has outgrown.

The new LifeFlight centre at Archerfield

Originally published as ANZ in a rush with new Qld man