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Mathias Cormann says he cannot wait to start his new role as the head of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Australia’s longest-serving finance minister will take over as secretary general of the Paris-based organisation from outgoing Angel Gurría.
“There is much work to be done, global cooperation on economic, social and environmental policies is more important than ever,” Cormann told reporters in Perth on Saturday. “I can’t wait to get stuck into it,” he said.
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, said it was the most senior appointment of an Australian candidate to an international body for decades, and a “recognition of Australia’s global agency”.
Cormann said he was honoured to be selected and would focus on promoting stronger, cleaner, fairer economic growth and raising employment and living standards following the coronavirus pandemic.
He also promised that Australians would benefit from his appointment.
“Australia is a very successful trading economy, and what happens in the rest of the world matters to Australia,” he said.
Cormann singled out climate change as a key challenge, saying he planned to pursue an ambitious and “global” approach to help countries become carbon-neutral by 2050.
He also wants to finalise a multilateral approach to digital taxation, and strengthen the outreach of the OECD into the Asia-Pacific.
“This is a great honour for Mathias who has worked tirelessly over several months to engage with leaders, senior ministers and officials of OECD member nations from Europe, Asia and the Americas,” Morrison said in a statement on Saturday.
“Mathias’ work and life experience in both Europe and Australia, his outstanding record as finance minister and Senate leader and his expertise in international economic diplomacy will ensure he makes an outstanding contribution as leader of the OECD.”
Cormann thanked both sides of politics for supporting his candidacy.
Labor’s Tony Burke welcomed the appointment, but remembered that the Coalition had failed to support the former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s bid to become the next secretary general of the United Nations.
“Labor has had a very simple view that it’s in Australia’s interests to have Australians in significant international roles,” Burke told reporters in Sydney on Thursday.
He agreed Cormann had genuinely changed his position on climate change since his time in government.
“I expect that what he says on climate change now is what he believes, and I expect what he said when he was in government is not what he believed,” Burke said.
Cormann will begin his five-year term on 1 June.
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