Clive Palmer’s impact ‘bad for business’, says KPMG head Peter Nash

CLIVE Palmer’s influence on the Senate is having a negative impact on business confidence, the chairman of KPMG in Australia says.

CLIVE Palmer’s influence on the Senate is having a negative impact on business confidence, the chairman of KPMG in Australia says.

Peter Nash yesterday urged a breakthrough in parliament this week to provide a boost to business, saying the Coalition had failed to convince the “punter in the street” of the need for budget savings. He warned that the malaise afflicting business would continue if the impasse over the budget continued.

“The complexities that have emerged in Canberra, the inability to get things done in a budgetary or policy sense is a real challenge for the country and we need to find a resolution,” he said at a KPMG discussion in Adelaide yesterday.

“We are now reaching a critical timeframe in which things have to be done, or business will start to stall and confidence will start to stall as well.”

Asked about business confidence and the role of Mr Palmer, whose Palmer United Party senators help hold the balance of power, Mr Nash said: “What is happening in the Senate at the moment is not good for Australia; it’s certainly not good for Australian business, that’s for sure.’’

He said a solution might be to work out the best way to negotiate with Mr Palmer once the objectives of the PUP were established.

“These things need to be sorted out and require a negotiation platform so we can get through the next couple of years,” he said.

Mr Nash said if the Coalition did not find a way to negotiate with the Senate, business confidence would continue to stall.

“If business has to live with what’s going on in Canberra for the next couple of years, then we will live with it, (but) instead of having a positive impact and spurring business forward, it is just going to continue to be a drag,” he said.

“So we have to find a way to break out of the current malaise if we really want to achieve growth objectives.”