Ninety-five per cent of Australian senior leaders come from an Anglo-Celtic or European background, according to a survey released by race discrimination commissioner Tim Soutphommasane.
The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report released on Wednesday looked into the cultural backgrounds of the CEOs of the top 200 companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX), the senior management of those directly below the CEO level, federal government ministers, the heads of federal and state departments, and the vice-chancellors of universities.
According to the 2016 Census 58% of the Australian population have an Anglo-Celtic background and 18% have a European background, but when it comes to Australian leaders, 75.9% are Anglo-Celtic, and 19% have a European background.
"The findings of this report suggest we have a long way to go before realising the full potential of our multicultural population," the report states. "If progress is being made on cultural diversity, it remains slow."
Anglo-Celtic Australians account for 76.9% of CEOs.
The "C-Suite" of senior management just below the CEO had 75.7% Anglo-Celtic and 18.9% European. The highest proportion of Anglo-Celtic leaders were in federal and state government departments, where 83.3% were Anglo-Celtic and 12.5% European. Only 4.2% were from non-European or Indigenous backgrounds.
The AHRC argued in the report that it was unlikely that this would improve over time without a push to improve diversity.
"It has already been about half a century since the White Australia policy started being dismantled, and about four decades since non-European background immigrants began arriving in Australia in significant numbers," the report said.
"For some time now, the children of immigrants on average outperform the children of Australian-born parents when it comes to educational and employment outcomes. In the highly mobile society we should expect of an egalitarian Australia, we should by now be seeing greater representation of cultural diversity in senior leadership."
The report observed that in some cases, for example, where Australians with Asian heritage were reported as success stories in Australian business, it tended to be at the helm of a company they themselves had founded rather than those who had risen through the ranks to become CEO. Brad Chan, the CEO of Banna Property Group is quoted in the report as stating that a lot of that had to do with the politics of the corporations.
"The working environment in large corporations didn’t really suit my strengths
and, like other Asian Australians, I saw limited opportunities for leadership … I was
not willing to play the game," he said.
"Politics play a role in getting ahead, and merit wasn’t necessarily enough to climb the corporate ladder. The ones that were more outspoken and found ways to self-promote were the ones that got ahead. My preference was to work hard and get ahead on my own merit, but that wasn’t enough."
Soutphommasane said the report should challenge how Australia sees itself.
"In a society where nearly one-quarter is estimated to have a non-European or Indigenous background, the findings of our latest study challenge us to do better with our multiculturalism," he said in a statement.