Fair's fare benefits government, not business

The Rudd/Gillard governments have introduced many business-unfriendly policies.

Three of these the mining tax, Fair Work Australia (FWA) and the carbon tax were to promote the ALP's political ends, rather than those of the nation, and many business representatives offered inadequate opposition to them.

A high point was the mining associations' stand against Rudd's mining tax.  In its original form, that tax would have seized much of the value of firms whose success has cushioned the impact of the global financial crisis on Australians.  Vigorous business opposition reduced the proposal's damaging effect.

FWA, masquerading as a ''fair go'', loads the dice in favour of unions and vastly enlarges their role, even though they barely represent 12 per cent of private sector workers.

It is designed to reverse the trend of declining union membership and to increase unions' abilities to fund Labor's election campaigns.

The outcome has been hit-and-run industrial disputes and wage increases uncompensated by productivity improvements.

This strangles competitiveness and increases costs -- by $200 million in the case of the Qantas dispute.

To save the business, Qantas management confronted union blackmail, which invited attacks from government ministers, including Bill Shorten, the man most likely to replace Gillard as Prime Minister during 2012.

With the carbon tax, business compliance has been crucial to the government passing a program, which, if left to stand, will progressively choke competitiveness across our most productive industries.

Only one of the three industry-wide business association, the Australian Council for Commerce and Industry, consistently opposed the carbon tax.  The Australian Industry Group (AIG) and the Business Council of Australia (BCA) offered various degrees of support.

The AIG sought a carbon tax but at half the Government's $23 rate.  Heather Ridout, its CEO throughout the negotiations, has since been appointed to the Reserve Bank board.

The BCA shifted from support of an emissions trading tax, to seeking a $10 carbon price and then to opposition unless other countries implemented similar policies.

Few of the major sectional industry associations have been prominent in pointing to the economic damage inherent in the carbon tax legislation.

The Minerals Council opposed it vigorously but originally did so only because it offered inadequate compensation to its member firms.

The Housing Industry Association also originally opposed the tax only on technical grounds but this hardened to bring the association adamantly against the government's carbon tax and its Liberal Party direct action alternative.

THE Australian Bankers Association opposed the carbon tax only because it prefers a cap and trade system so that its members can benefit from trading in carbon credits.

The carrot of soil-enriching subsidies tempted support from the National Farmers Federation but eventually the federation opposed it.

The electricity and gas industry peak body, the Energy Supply Association of Australia supported a carbon tax as long as the brown coal generators receive adequate compensation.

Experience shows that industry representative bodies focus on promoting their members' sectional interests.

In order to obtain particular concessions, they frequently offer support to government 'big picture' policies.

Unfortunately this provides cover for policies that enhance the government's political interests at the cost of the nation's interests.

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