Irish businessman ‘donates AU$1m’ to Australian same-sex marriage campaign

Alan Joyce, the Irish man who is chief executive of Qantas Airways, personally donated AU$1 million (€670,000) to a campaign to legalise same-sex marriage in Australia, according to a person familiar with the matter.

A nationwide postal ballot started this week to canvas the level of support for same-sex unions in Australia, which lags behind countries including the Ireland, the US, New Zealand and the UK on the issue.

Ireland was the first country in the world to introduce same-sex marriage by public vote. Shortly after the referendum in 2015, Yes Equality’s political director Tiernan Brady was invited to Sydney to speak to campaign groups there about the Irish experience. He later moved to Australia to lead the Australian Equality Campaign.

The pledge from Mr Joyce, who is gay and originally from Tallaght in Dublin, comes as major corporations including Qantas and Commonwealth Bank of Australia back marriage equality.

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The donation, equivalent to half of Mr Joyce’s base salary, is the largest individual contribution to the “Yes” campaign, according to the Australian Financial Review, which reported the pledge on Wednesday.

Through a Qantas spokesman, Mr Joyce declined to comment.

Mr Joyce has previously said he was disappointed that politicians had not already decided on the issue. While opinion polls have long shown the majority of Australians support marriage equality, previous efforts to change the law have been stymied by conservatives in parliament.

“I personally will be donating money to the campaign, a significant amount, because I’m passionate about it,” Mr Joyce told reporters last month as he released the airline’s annual results. “I’ll be spending as much time as the campaign wants me to speak about the cause. Companies and business leaders should be out there on social issues.”

Mr Joyce’s base pay was AU$2.1 million in the year ended June 2016. His total compensation, including stock, was AU$13 million after a rally in Qantas shares, the airline’s annual report shows.

The Irish man had a pie shoved in his face during a business breakfast event in Perth earlier this year. He brushed off the incident, saying: “Well I think when you’ve been CEO of an airline for nine years there’s a lot of things that happen over that period of time,” he said. “This is different . . . it is an unusual event but these things happen.”

Bloomberg