The Business Council of Australia (BCA) has joined the Mineral Council to bag the Albanese Government’s decision that makes doing business in Australia challenging, while its CEO Bran Black complained that both Labor and the Coalition are neglecting younger generations with their shortsighted policies.
Black’s views were revealed by the AFR’s John Kehoe, who accessed a speech that the BCA boss was set to deliver at his outfit’s annual dinner tonight.
Before ripping into the Government primarily and then the Coalition secondarily, Black gave himself some cover from critics by showing he cares for our growing up children and our children’s children who look set for a tricky future.
In a nutshell, Kehoe says Black argues that “Labor and the Coalition are consigning younger generations to a future of higher taxes, ballooning government debt and poorer living standards…”
Let me list his gripes that follows his surveying of around one hundred CEO members of the BCA:
- Runaway government spending that Treasury predicts over coming decades.
- Young Australians are fearful they’d never own a home.
- Young people will face higher taxes as Government spends more on welfare and other outlays.
- Meanwhile, technology and artificial intelligence (AI) could mean less need for workers.
- Personal income tax is set to be 58% of all taxes in the 2060s, up from the current 50%.
- The Government’s workplace laws mean a lot of CEOs are cautious about hiring new people.
- The Coalition’s threat to breakup big retailers, and the Greens excessive profits tax weren’t big encouragers of investment.
Of course, to be fair, the big business members of the BCA haven’t covered themselves in glory in recent times. Price gouging by airlines, supermarket retailers, big banks and energy suppliers have hardly given many of them the freedom to be critics of others. However, Black is spot on when he argues the following: “We have let the balance shift too far away from encouraging Australians to grow, hire, innovate and be more competitive on the world stage. Instead of taking the big steps on the things that matter, we are taking incremental – but noticeable – steps backwards.
“This shouldn’t be dismissed as talking Australia down. It’s a belief right across our membership that we can and must do better for our future generations.”
Black recognises that all stakeholders have to contribute to ensure the country becomes more productive. To help this happen, the BCA is calling for:
- An easing of the cost of living.
- Tackling the housing crisis.
- Achieving net zero emissions by 2050 with both affordable and reliable energy.
- Paying for the growing care needs of Australians.
- Developing a skilled workforce.
Like many before him, he wants less red tape, more flexible workplace laws, simpler planning systems and a more efficient tax system.
The problem with all these demands is that we all know them and business leaders and Australians with common sense all know what’s needed. But nowadays we don’t have leaders who can pull it off!
We all know the GST should be higher to pay for big tax cuts, but no one trust politicians with that trade off.
We all know local councils are inefficient, cost-hitters that hurt builders and ratepayers who try to improve their homes.
We all know governments add about 30% to the cost of a new home but no politician is ever gutsy enough to fight to change that.
Until we have leaders with real guts, there’ll be no real economic glory for not just younger generations but all Aussies!
