Indigenous voice to parliament: Freight chief Paul Scurrah questions ‘unfair’ campaign railroading workers

Companies openly supporting the voice referendum may not be honouring diversity and inclusion policies, warns one CEO.

Pacific National chief executive Paul Scurrah. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Daniel Pockett

Former Virgin Australia chief executive Paul Scurrah has questioned corporate campaigns for the “yes” vote in the upcoming voice to parliament referendum, suggesting they were unfair on employees of those companies.

In an interview on Sky News, Mr Scurrah, who now heads rail freight business Pacific National, said a vote in the referendum was a “very individual, personal choice”.

“I know there’s some CEOs … pushing a position and you have to believe that CEOs, like I do, make these decisions concluding that it’s in the best interests of the company or they wouldn’t be doing it,” he said. “As a CEO of company that has over 3500 people right now, what I find hard to reconcile is we’re very serious about our diversity and inclusion policy which is a policy that says we embrace people of all sorts of backgrounds and beliefs … and it’s hard for me to reconcile forcing a position on them and honouring our inclusion and diversity policy.”

Numerous large companies including Qantas, BHP and Visy have made significant declar­ations of support for the Yes ­campaign. In August, former Qantas CEO Alan Joyce unveiled three aircraft emblazoned with “yes23” and promised to provide free flights to key members of Yes23 and the Uluru dialogue.

Unions were strongly behind the Yes campaign but the Flight Attendants Association of Australia was concerned that the public stance by Qantas would not be helpful to the cause.

FAAA federal secretary Teri O’Toole said cabin crew had been verbally abused by passengers, upset that they were being “told how to vote” when they flew.

In the case of BHP, the mining giant announced a $2m donation to the Yes campaign in June.

On Monday, BHP Australia president Geraldine Slattery defended the donation, saying the company’s relationship with traditional owners was “integral” to its business.

Speaking at a retail shareholder Q&A session, Ms Slattery said BHP had consulted with traditional stakeholder groups as part of its reconciliation action plan.

In doing so, it had become clear those groups expected the mining major to support the Yes cause in the October 14 referendum.

“Our relationship with traditional owners and other Indigenous stakeholders are some of the most important relationships we have at BHP,” Ms Slattery said.

“We operate on the traditional lands of Indigenous people at many locations in Australia and around the world.

“We partner widely with Indigenous communities with long-term agreements.”

Several other large companies have pledged support for the Yes campaign including Rio Tinto, Woodside, Woolworths and Wesfarmers, while Visy Industries and the Paul Ramsay Foundation have made significant donations.