Abbott must think we are fools

May 9, 2014
Issue 
Tony Shepherd, former president of the Business Council of Australia.

“This will not be a budget for the rich or the poor; it will be a budget for the country,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in his April 28 speech to the Sydney Institute, a privately funded “public affairs forum”.

He must think we are total fools.

Why else would a government that supposedly plans to introduce a budget that is “not for the rich” ask Tony Shepherd, former president of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), to conduct a pre-budget “audit” of government spending?

The BCA represents the interests of the 100 biggest corporations in Australia. It has consistently been the leading advocate of the most right-wing, neoliberal “reforms”. It has campaigned loudly and aggressively for tax cuts for the rich, privatisation, attacks on welfare, public services and workers' rights.

To add insult to injury, until last October Shepherd chaired the board of management of the construction and services giant Transfield Services, a corporation that has been a major beneficiary of outsourced government services.

Transfield has profited from hundreds of millions of dollars worth of federal government contracts in recent years, including $180 million for operating Australia's refugee detention camp on Nauru.

This is an obvious case of conflict of interest, you would think.

But Shepherd has declared no such issue. Progressive policy group The Australia Institute revealed in its report, Auditing the auditors: The People's Commission of Audit, that Shepherd's Commision of Audit report “includes no statement about the conflicts of interests that may arise from him being the immediate past President of the BCA and … no information about Mr Shepherd’s business interests or investments, nor are they provided with a declaration that no such interests exist.”

Further, it is clear that the corporate members of the BCA, and possibly Transfield, stand to gain directly from several of the recommendations of the commission. These include recommendation one: “Keep the proportion of GDP collected as tax low and in turn reduce the future tax payments.”

This would benefit all BCA members.

There is also recommendation 17: “Require all high income earners to purchase private health insurance.” This would benefit the big health insurance companies in the BCA.

Recommendation 28: “Cut the minimum wage in real terms.” This would benefit all employers.

Recommendations 43, 58 and 60 call for government payment, IT and property management services to be outsourced — to the benefit of many companies.

Recommendation 57 calls for Australia Post, the Snowy Hydro scheme and other public assets to be privatised. These are companies that actually compete effectively with BCA members.

The famous last line in the old Australian union song, “The Ballad Of 1891”, goes: “It's a rich man's country yet.”

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