ANZ boss Mike Smith faces citizenship test

The British-born but nomadic ANZ chief will face his greatest challenge this week: his Australian citizenship test.

Outgoing ANZ chief executive Mike Smith. Picture: David Geraghty

The time has come for Mike Smith’s most searching test.

This week, the British-born but nomadic ANZ Bank chief executive will sit his Australian citizenship examination.

Mr Smith will have to tick the right box in at least 15 out of 20 multiple-choice questions on the nation’s political system and ­values.

If the ANZ boss has a big weekend and overlooks his homework, he will not be completely disgraced — as of the middle of this year, about 7200 of the 650,000 people to sit the online test had failed.

Candidates who come up short three times can take a course-based test run over 20 hours.

Mr Smith, who has chosen to put his roots down in Melbourne after 37 years in global banking, told The Australian that he was “probably quite a good Aussie in some ways”.

“I think I’m very straight with people,” he said.

“I like the people and the way of life. I feel comfortable here. Obviously it’s important to keep your international perspective, but two of my kids were born here and I’ve actually spent more of my life in Australia than anywhere else. For us, it’s home.”

Then-ANZ chair Charles Goode recruited Mr Smith from HSBC in Hong Kong in 2007.

Mr Smith hands over to chief ­financial officer Shayne Elliott on January 1 after eight years in the job, and will start a 12-month advisory role to the ANZ board on international affairs from July 11.

Mr Smith will be paid $250,000 plus reasonable expenses.

He said he had avoided making any decision about his future, and had not ruled anything in or out at this stage.

Another executive role, non-executive directorships and some government role helping with connectivity in Asia were all possibilities. “A lot of people have asked me to do certain things and I’m trying to resist that for the ­moment,” he said.

“The danger is you just take on too much and find that you’re just as busy as you ever were.

“So I have to think about what I really want to achieve and where I want to make a mark next, but I would like to do some form of ­national service.”

Having travelled extensively throughout his career, Mr Smith said he would enjoy “not going through airports for a bit”.

“Also, I want to do a bit of social stuff with people I’d like to catch up with socially, instead of business function after business function,” he said. “It will be nice to have a kind of normal life.”