Albanese’s love affair with the big end of town is on the rocks

The honeymoon is over between the Albanese government and big business. To be fair, this union was an odd couple from the start – a marriage of convenience in which hope over reality was never going to triumph.

But big business’ tactic to declare the divorce by reading its “Dear John” letter to the government on Tuesday night at the annual gala Business Council dinner, at which Anthony Albanese is the keynote speaker, is both aggressive and humiliating for both.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and BCA chief Bran BlackCredit: Fairfax Media

These groups are each other’s natural predators – an instinct both of them resisted in the government’s early days in office. They marched arm in arm during the big employment summit in 2022, while big business gave its full weight to the Labor government’s referendum on an Indigenous Voice to parliament.

Roll the clock forward 18 months, and high inflation, elevated interest rates, and a cost-of-living crisis have spawned a concerning competition in Canberra over which party can produce the most populist policies.

In this political contest, big business has been rendered collateral damage.

The BCA and the government now both have image problems.

The Canberra rhetoric that suggests business is responsible for the cost-of-living crisis will have consequences.

The Business Council’s effectiveness and its clout are being questioned by a number of its powerful members speaking behind their hands in a Chinese whisper chain that has reached the media.

Desperate to head off its internal detractors, BCA chief executive Bran Black and president Geoff Culbert have lined up Labor as well as Peter Dutton’s Coalition in the council’s sights on Tuesday night.

The Albanese government’s industrial relations changes have become the lightning rod for big business, which depicts them as a retrograde step that will hamper the country’s competitiveness.

BHP has been leading the charge against Labor’s recent industrial relations reform. The BCA, which has been largely missing in action during this battle, has belatedly joined the fray.

The threat from the business community is that investment will be redirected overseas – a big stick that it has pulled out many times before and occasionally used.

Business argues that rather than developing a reform that is needed for the economy to evolve and prosper, the political debate has devolved into a business-bashing exercise.

At Tuesday’s night event, the BCA is expected to declare its members will stand united against business bashing, and the populist policies from Canberra.

The BCA argues that 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.

It reckons that 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.

Industrial relations issues aside, the BCA’s point has some validity.

Suggestions from Canberra that industries ranging from supermarkets to aviation should be broken up are extreme, and the benefits are dubious.

Sure, some companies have engaged in price gouging, and the true culprits need to be called out and dealt with by the competition regulator. But, in many cases, higher prices of goods reflect businesses’ attempts to recoup their own inflated costs.

That said, the community placing its complete trust in big business is also a big swing.

People have witnessed plenty of instances of big businesses engaging in outrageous behaviours – from banks to casinos and aviation. Big business has kicked plenty of own goals.

So combating populism – particularly when turbocharged by governments in the lead-up to an election – is a tall order.

The Canberra rhetoric that suggests business is responsible for the cost-of-living crisis the community is enduring will have consequences.

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