Anthony Miller

So the key for us is how does our workforce evolve and how do we help train people to do new roles augmented or assisted by AI and other tools that are clearly coming in?

Well, I mean, everyone's excited about what it could be in the future.

I think we need to recognise I think it's a reasonably profound opportunity, AI, but I think the dramatic headlines and the fact that equity research analysts love to try and call out spectacular changes in cadence and operating doesn't mean it necessarily follows.

Yeah, I think for Westpac and I think for banks in Australia, contributing to the solution for the housing affordability challenge is one of the key challenges we have to solve.

We have to contribute to how does society get to a point where everybody feels that opportunity to own a house or

own their own apartment or their own house is within reach.

And at the moment, a large proportion of the population doesn't think it's realistic and we've got to solve for that.

And it's fundamentally a supply challenge.

And it's fundamentally about solving for a supply challenge at the right price point.

And so therefore, what can we do and how are we contributing and how are we working with regulators, government, et cetera?

Well, we lent money following the responsible lending guidelines prescribed by the regulators.

So we've not lent too much money.

We've lent in accordance with what the regulations require.

I think also that's meant a lot of people have had the opportunity as a result of our capacity to finance them to go into the property market.

And if you think about for Australians, the dream of owning a house is one that most have.

Secondly, we have a fiscal setting which inspires people to own their house because of the principal place of residence exemption and things like that.

And so, therefore, we've supported people in what they wanted to go after and which they've been incentivised to go after, whether it be that cultural phenomena of own your own property or that fiscal incentive of the tax relief because you own your own house.

And so we've participated in that.

And most importantly, I think we could say we've participated in that responsibly because we can only lend to someone if we discharge our obligations around responsible lending.

I think it's had a contribution because there's no doubt that 30 plus years ago with BAL 1, BAL 2 coming into operation, the weighting attached to the risk