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Well, thank you very much and let me add my welcome to each every one of you here today.
Westpac is once again very proud to be hosting this event One Big Thank You. I’m representing
Westpac State Leadership Team here today, so on behalf of my peers who run our retail
and personal banking business, commercial banking business, regional branches, our call
centres, our wealth and funds managers' businesses - Let me say that you are all our most highly
esteemed guests and most welcome here today. Westpac is very proud of its partnership with
Volunteering Queensland but I'll let others speak to that a little later. I'd just like
to talk briefly today about why Westpac is so involved in volunteering and just a few
interesting anecdotes of the past year or so.
So firstly, why is Westpac involved in volunteering. Well, one reason is it's actually part of
our corporate vision. It’s part of our organisational vision to be one of the world's great company
helping our customers, communities and people to prosper and grow. And that feeds into our
business strategy so it’s actually quite deliberate. It’s part of our vision and
strategy set by our board, communicated to key stakeholders, implemented by our management
and people, 'help communities to prospect and grow'. And it’s about making our business
sustainable because a strong community means that we can share the spoils of those efforts.
As an organisation, we set some policy to promote our vision and Westpac provides very
tangible support to our employees. One example is that one days leave that each employee
is entitled to take to volunteer and support a community activity every year and our staff
absolutely love to do it. So, in the six months to the 31 of March. Westpac staff took just
over 2.5 thousand days of volunteering leave in Queensland - that's 40% up on the previous
period which is quite important and it's equivalent if you like to seven person years of volunteering
but it’s not just about the organisational support in policies that's merely the facilitator.
It’s actually about the people - our employees. They love to do good things to help the community
and if our people didn’t want to volunteer then no amount of HR central bureaucratic
policy making would cause anything happen. So at the end of the day, it's the culture
at Westpac that is to support communities, to volunteer for a reward that is not monetary
but comes from helping others. So I run Westpac's institutional banking business
as you’ve heard. My team banks the largest corporations and institutions in Queensland.
So, my people are some of toughest negotiators and hardest heads in business, so you might
think that my team would have no interest in volunteering and supporting communities.
Not true. Volunteering community support activity is a part of our culture regards of which
department you work in, your location or what your day job is. And I can tell you there
is nothing more humbling for your slightly egotistical high powered cooperate banker
and to show how inept they are and wrapping up kids Christmas presents at the Salvos in
December. It is quite leveling but they love it.
Well, the last few years have seen a few natural disasters in Queensland. I’m sure you've
noticed and these photos that you are seeing here are some of them mostly from around Bundaberg.
So just a couple of anecdotes one specifically from my team and some other stories as well.
Westpac is now well prepared for the disaster season in Queensland. We prefer that it didn’t
happen every year but none the less, we're prepared and we provide the disaster relief
cards to the Queensland Government, they're stored value debit card that are issued through
the Department of Communities - the Minister was here earlier today. Also as part of our
preparation we put on standby, just for a matter of interest, a mobile ATM that has
got its own generator it operates wirelessly and it's sitting in Queensland at Christmas
time or just before Christmas waiting to be deployed to wherever disaster strikes. So,
that the community that is adversely affected can get back on its feet as quickly as possible
but I digress - that's what the organisation does. In the January floods this year when
Bundaberg was very badly hit and the Department of Communities was gearing up to make relief
payments to people who were impacted. We were on the end of the line supplying those cards
that were being handed out to people with their value on them to get people back on
their feet as they were affected by disaster. But the Bundaberg flood was a little bit different
to the flood a couple of years earlier, much faster, much less preparation time, much less
warning - so the pressure to issue these cards was intense. So, to ensure supply we had do
actually cajole our supplier to print cards on a 24/7 timetable well outside what the
commercial arrangements that we had in place were.
Then, we had to get the card to Brisbane and Bundaberg so that they could be issued. The
courier companies managed to stuff up a couple of deliveries. So, we actually physically
put a staff member of mine on a plane to Sydney to bring back a suitcase for 40,000 disaster
relief cards - now that was the organisation and contribution quite apart from that the
Westpac people. Three of them took it upon themselves to voluntarily spend the whole
of the Australian Day weekend physically in the offices of the Department of Communities
to ensure that these cards were loaded, able to be distributed. And it might not sound
like much but those three people made a huge difference to the successful and timely distribution
of government relief payments to people in the affected communities, helping our customers
and the community and people to recover. They also made a bit of a hip of themselves by
forking out to buy morning tea and afternoon tea for the public servants in the Department
of Communities which went down very well. Volunteering effort - part organisation, part
people. In Bundaberg, in early February we deployed
the red army not the Mud Army. We start them off with red T-shirt and they turn out whatever
color they like. And these are the photos here. So it's a team of Westpac volunteers
who with very little support from Westpac move into the effected community immediately
after the disaster and offer to help with absolutely whatever. We provide a large BBQ
trailer which in these disaster effect communities tends to become a little bit of a meeting
point for people it’s a place where can get a feed when the traditional services in
town aren't open. The first one of these, we actually deployed a couple of years earlier
into Grantham and the Lockyer Valley when that area was adversely impacted and we donated
that BBQ trailer to Global Care. This is an organisation that is linked to one of our
customers and all volunteers. So it's the activities in the community post
disaster from a volunteering point of view Westpac I think does very, very well. One
of my colleagues state leader Mike Wright, he runs the retail banking business here,
I think he’s in one of these photos here. He's a bit younger and slightly fitter than
me, he managed to get this shirt off to work with the army blokes and at one state we didn't
actually think he was going to come back to his day job - he was having such a wonderful
time assisting. For those employee who can’t volunteer but also want to help, we have the
Westpac Foundation collect staff donations and the unique thing about the Westpac Foundation
is the way distribute is funds. It’s through employee’s choice - so staff members actually
direct where the funds go rather than having a centralised bureaucratic sort of process.
Someone who removed from the front line of where the actual needs are. The process is
very much that staff on the ground in the affected areas direct where the funds are
spent. So, in Bundaberg, it’s the renovation and repair and building of the junior footy
club house - that is too small for the government to worry about, it’s not an essential service
but it is a key part of community recovery. That’s where those funds tend to find their
way because there are staff on the ground as part of the community direct them where
they most need to go. We're not finished in Bundaberg yet, you might
think that the crisis is over but now next phase there is on the 5th of June we're putting
it in the Firefoxes. So the Firefoxes is a group of ladies that were born out of the
Victorian bushfires a few years ago and all of these, I’m a psychologist, but all of
the best advice is that people most need psychological support and emotional support 4 to 6 months
after a disaster. It’s after the emergency state government response is gone. It’s
after the essential infrastructure is rebuilt but people haven't actually had the opportunity
to rebuild their lives. So we're putting the Firefoxes in there they start next month on
5th of June and they'll be working in the community in Bundaberg and other affected
areas there to support the longer term recovery. Away from disaster there is plenty of volunteering
at Westpac that is simply business as usual. I checked the Westpac intranet site for volunteering
yes, this is a specific website, many pages in fact. Lots of links to organisations channeling
the volunteering effect, lots of information and whole calendar a volunteering in community
support events and of course Volunteering Queensland has pride of place there.
Upcoming, next month we got the City to South Run a first in Brisbane where Westpac is the
presenting sponsor. 14 km I suggest you start your training now. I did the Mother's Day
Classic on the weekend and I can almost walk today. But the proceeds from the City to South
Run go to the Surf Life Saving Association, Westpac Rescue Helicopter, among other charities
and that is something that we’ve been supporting for a long time, well over 25 years, must
almost be 30 years. So, you can be forgiven for thinking that always volunteering and
community work on banking is only a side line activity at Westpac. Ahh, no so. But we do
recognise that the community is our own backyard and the market place where our reputation
is everything. And rest assured, it’s not mere lip-service that we are paying, as I
said earlier, it's part of our DNA, part our culture, strongly support by our people. Therefore,
all of Westpac's organisation support and all our employees willingness to be engaged,
those efforts would be wasted or at least much less productive if it weren't for the
channels that Volunteering Queensland and your organisations provide to ensure that
our efforts can be directed, with expertise, to exactly where the needs are and where the
greatest benefits would be realised. We're Bankers after all. So, thank you for allowing
us to partner with you in helping the community.