EDITORIAL: Big business must speak up for national interest

Advocating for big business can be a tough job, and even more so during a cost-of-living crisis.

As the populist narrative goes, they’re the ones to blame for the fact the price of your weekly grocery shop is climbing ever higher, your insurance premiums are outrageous and you can’t afford to fly anywhere for a holiday.

It’s a mood politicians — desperate for someone else for the populace to blame for their discontent — have seized on. Big business bashing has become one of Canberra’s favourite pastimes, and it’s not just Labor and the profit-hating Greens who are getting in on it.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has pledged to introduce divestiture powers targeting supermarkets and major retailers, and elements of the Nationals have suggested the same should be on the table for the aviation sector.

So it’s little wonder that in recent years the men and women who are driving our biggest and most productive companies have developed a fear of poking their heads above the parapet, lest they be shot down.

Instead, they’ve taken an “inside the tent approach” to dealing with governments, playing nice, keeping their criticisms behind closed doors, and hoping that our political leaders will see the sense in their arguments.

That hasn’t worked.

It’s got us restrictive new industrial relations laws which business fears will be a handbrake to productivity and unleash an onslaught of strike action across a range of industries.

It’s got us a regulatory environment in which an environment minister can strike down a $1 billion project at the behest of a handful of objectors.

It’s got us an economy on life support, just a heartbeat away from slipping into recession.

And finally, after accepting the softly-softly approach isn’t working, the business community has found its voice again.

At a dinner attended by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, Business Council of Australia president Geoff Culbert said the business bashing from politicians needed to end.

“There is now a material and concerning disconnect between the negative way in which business is perceived, and the positive value it creates for Australia,” he said.

“Somewhere along the way, business has become a convenient scapegoat for all manner of challenging issues, and it’s coming from all sides of politics.

“It may be popular to bash big business, but in doing so we are making success taboo in this country — and that is not consequence-free.”

The business community itself must wear some of the blame. It’s partly through their timidity that we’ve found ourselves here.

It’s a relief that they’ve once again started calling out bad policy for what it is.

Their next task is to convince Australians once again that what’s good for big business is good for the economy, and therefore good for households and individual prosperity.