11 October 2011
Industry leaders in open war against Canberra
The Australian
They've lost faith in Labor's ability to deal with issues.
The mutual antagonism between the government and the business community has never been sharper and more public.
Ignore all the polite debates of the tax summit and the cautious statements of possible consensus in theory on possible future reform.
In reality, business - big, small and in between - has lost faith in the ability of the government in general to deal with the many issues facing the economy. That is not to say the business community is in any way enamoured with the Abbott opposition either.
It is more a case of gravitating towards the least worst option and coping with the populism and contradictions of an Abbott government later.
For now, business has more than enough urgent problems coming out of Canberra to complain about.
The carbon tax due to be passed by the House of Representatives this week is Exhibit A in the case against the Gillard government and its lousy sense of timing, policy and financial pressures.
The latest public assault by Dick Warburton, now leading a new lobby group called Manufacturing Australia, demonstrates how dismissive leading business figures have become of this government. It's all too late for Warburton and others, of course, to change the architecture or reality of the carbon tax. The legislation is settled. It's more that the frustration of business leaders is now so extreme that they are determined to express it anyway.
In more normal times, business leaders tend to be circumspect in what they say publicly about any government's failings.
In part, this is a matter of commercial self-protection. It is always risky to be a target of an angry government lashing out at its critics. And, unless carefully phrased, complaints can be too easily disparaged politically as more special pleading from those who can afford to pay more.
In part, it is a belief that more can be achieved by private conversations and pressure, even if some of these may be unsatisfactory or unpleasant. No more. With few exceptions, any quiet productive negotiations have become a casualty of what has turned into open warfare.
The business community in general understands this government is neither a long-term proposition nor in any real position to take revenge.
Not that business can play just the innocent, injured party. It has weakened its own case and demonstrated its own lousy sense of timing and sensitivity, with the tendency of too many boards to keep paying executives as if the sharemarket and their company share prices were still zooming along.
The result is an ever uglier confrontation. And what Labor can do is booby-trap many of the policies it is now trying to get passed to prevent a future Coalition government being unable to easily rescind them. The property rights being put into the permits acquired under the carbon tax regime is the most telling example of this.
Graham Bradley's lunchtime address tomorrow as retiring head of the Business Council of Australia is likely to reflect how much the mood has changed. When Bradley was appointed two years ago, the BCA was still alarmed at the negative reaction from Canberra to its high-profile campaign against Labor's industrial relations changes back in 2007. The emphasis was on rebuilding a more co-operative relationship to try to regain influence. The debacle of the resource super-profits tax highlighted the limitations in that idea. But any hopes for change in approach from the Gillard government and a supposedly more consultative prime minister have long since faded.
Over the past several months, more and more business leaders have decided that there's no point in staying silent about what they see as a general unravelling in Canberra with a rapidly increasing damages bill.
The worsening climate in industrial relations, including what is happening with Qantas and the resources sector, only reinforces that. But it won't stop Australia lecturing the rest of the world about getting its act together.