Editorial: Give us a reason

Australia has been fortunate to have reformist federal governments over the past two decades. Starting with the Hawke-Keating Labor government and continuing with the Howard-Costello coalition, Australia has overhauled financial markets – with the float of the dollar as its centrepiece – and streamlined industrial relations.

Those governments rewrote tax legislation to make the system fairer and broader. Australia has moved away from dependence on tariffs and quotas, creating much more efficient agricultural, technology and manufacturing sectors. Competition and consumer protection laws and regulation of financial services, including the huge superannuation sector, have changed for the better.

These changes allowed Australia to move through the global financial crisis without stalling – something unique among developed economies – and added to the prosperity of all Australians.

The Rudd government, for all its faults, took steps in the right direction on infrastructure (established and funded Infrastructure Australia), immigration (increased numbers coming into Australia) and telecommunications (the structural separation of Telstra and the national broadband network).

But in other areas, Australian governments have failed. Treatment of indigenous Australians (notwithstanding Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Stolen Generation) remains a blight on the country. Governments have not done enough to address global warming and the pricing of carbon.

As Australians prepare to vote for a government led by either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott, both parties need to offer business voters credible options.

So far, neither Gillard nor Abbott has impressed.

The most important thing a government can do for business is provide economic stability. In Australia, this means an economy with a growth rate of slightly more than 3 per cent, stable inflation between 2 and 3 per cent, employment growth, immigration and a sensible wages policy.

However, in the flight to the middle ground, it is hard to tell the difference between Gillard and Abbott. Neither leader has strong economic or business credentials.

Both are pushing for a budget surplus in three years, although Gillard will get hers through a mining tax and slightly lower company tax rate. Abbott wants a slightly higher company tax rate to pay for more generous parental leave.

On industrial relations, Abbott has been at pains to dismiss any thought that he would re-introduce the Howard government’s workplace relations laws. It may have lost Howard the election but the laws were liked by business, especially small business owners who struggled with unfair dismissal laws. Both Gillard and Abbott have, effectively, the same immigration policy (including treatment of asylum seekers) and the same environmental policy, at least in how it affects business. Neither seems to want to price carbon formally until the rest of the world does.

Governing any country requires leadership and vision, especially when it is young, abundant with natural resources and part of Asia, the globe’s most dynamic region. Before polling day on August 21, both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott need to give voters a reason for backing them.

Sean Aylmer

BRW

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