Qantas’ new chair John Mullen knows the public doesn’t like being lectured on social issues

John Mullen comes to the key job at Qantas after a long history in corporate Australia. Picture: Aaron Francis

Veteran company director John Mullen has signalled that he plans to be a very different chair of Qantas when he takes over from Richard Goyder in October.

Goyder, who has been on the Qantas board since 2017 and chair since October 2018, was a strong backer of former chief executive Alan Joyce, including his high-profile support for the Indigenous voice to parliament campaign last year.

It was an exercise which reached a high-water mark in August when Joyce hosted a function with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Indigenous former AFL star Adam Goodes, to unveil a new logo on Qantas planes supporting the “Yes23” campaign.

The proposed Voice was overwhelmingly defeated by 60 per cent to 40 per cent in a national referendum in October.

In a speech to a business lunch in Sydney last week Mullen, who joined the Qantas board as chairman elect in April and takes over as chair sometime before the annual meeting in October, rang a warning bell for corporate Australia.

He said support for the Voice had “backfired” and that business leaders were seen by the public as being “high and mighty” and telling them what to do.

He said that support for social and political causes had been a step too far, due to the risks for companies they are seen to back a position of one political party – and that party later losing an election.

While he agreed that corporate leaders could not be “anaesthetised from what is going on in the world,” he said that “getting involved in every social cause can do a lot of damage”.

Companies such Wesfarmers, BHP, Rio Tinto, and the big banks supported the Voice, some with donations to the Yes campaign.

Mullen admitted that as chair of Telstra, which gave $1m to support the Voice, he was one of those who had been part of the trend.

In a separate conversation with The Australian he said the way companies had gone about backing the Voice was seen by some of the general public as being too “high and mighty”, telling others what to think rather than conceding that there may be different views.

Given his background in corporate Australia – a former chairman of Telstra, and current chair of Treasury Wine Estate and international pallet company Brambles – Mullen’s comments would have been important in the general debate about how much companies get involved in social causes.

But the fact that he is about to take over as chair of Qantas – the company which was the most high-profile backer of the Voice when led by chief executive Alan Joyce – makes an additional statement that the new team at the top level of the airline has got the message.

Joyce’s appearance with Albanese and others was seen by angry customers as a sign of hubris as he was leaving the job after years of generous salaries and share options.

It was one of many criticisms of the airline’s management last year which was seen as too arrogant and more concerned about corporate profits and its own interests than customers.

By taking a public stance which wasn’t quite a mea culpa but was an acknowledgment that strong support for the Voice did not go down well with some members of the public, Mullen was signalling a shift to a more humble view from the top of the country’s largest airline.

Mullen’s comments were made in the context of a reflection on how corporate Australia has changed from an era when companies focused on profits at all costs, to one where corporate leaders were having to take in the views of a broad range of corporate “stakeholders”.

But as he said, it was a question of balance. And it is that balance which he brings to Qantas.

Mullen comes to the key job at Qantas after a long history in corporate Australia, including in airlines and logistics.

In this sense he brings a more practical background from the transport sector to his new role than Goyder, whose full-time corporate career culminated in a 12-year stint as chief executive of Perth-based conglomerate Wesfarmers – which ended in 2017.

Mullen cut his teeth in the transport industry, recalling last week his work for the late Sir Peter Abeles when he ran Sir Peter’s European transport operations in the ’90s.

Abeles had the grand vision of creating an airline logistics business in Europe, based on a new generation of “quiet trader” aircraft, which could fly into European cities over extended hours.

He ended up over extending himself and the business lost millions of dollars. Mullen was sent to sort out the mess.

What he revealed last week was that the exercise, which involved selling the business to a group of European post offices, involved some considerably creative accounting to paper over the hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.

Sir Peter, according to Mullen, had assured the prospective buyers that the business was breaking even.

Mullen and a friendly accountant set about making sure that – on paper at least – that was the case.

Mullen went on to rise up the ranks of logistics company DHL, becoming global chief executive of DHL Express from 2006 to 2009, then managing director of Toll Holdings freight logistics spin-off Asciano from 2011 to 2016, and chairman of the Toll Group from 2017 to 2022.

His experience at the coal face of transport and logistics means he comes to the job with a hands-on knowledge of the sector, backing up his chief executive, Vanessa Hudson, with his own practical experience in logistics.

He has also had first-hand experience in dealing with the general public in his role as chair of another former government-owned enterprise, Telstra.

Qantas’ new chief executive has already set a different tone in her early days.

On Friday the airline unveiled a new corporate look for its aircraft under the logo “Go Australia” in support of the Olympians and Paralympians headed for the Paris Games.

It’s a more focused, more inclusive strategy than the Yes 23 logo, which is in line with the approach of the new chairman.