Banks move to reassert political power through the bureaucracy

When the head of Australia’s largest retail bank takes to the stage at Canberra’s largest gathering of alpha-administrators alongside the head of the unfairly feared Department of Finance, you know the bank badly wants something it doesn’t yet have.

That’s the scenario playing out next week, when Matt Comyn, chief executive of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Jenny Wilkinson PSM, secretary of the Department of Finance, will appear in an on-stage tête-à-tête at the Institute of Public Administration Australia’s annual shindig.