The global wankers truly have no idea what is happening nor what to do about it. I could point to half a dozen stories today as Australia’s global wanker community nod furiously in agreement that they are not to blame for the de-globalisation revolution sweeping the world. Endlessly they repeat the term “populism” as if holding up a crucifix before an approaching vampire. BCA president Catherine Livingstone was classic:
“Populist anti-business sentiment” that is restricting the ability of the federal government to pass policy could have “devastating” consequences, according to outgoing Business Council of Australia president Catherine Livingstone.
“Businesses need consistency and continuity of policy,” she will say in a speech on Thursday night at BCA’s annual dinner, her last after 2½ years as president.
“This notion that you can have a vibrant economy, driving higher wages and better living standards, without healthy and globally competitive private enterprise is very troubling.
“A populist anti-business sentiment militates against a prosperity objective, and could have devastating long-term consequences.”
Ms Livingstone will tell Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who will attend the dinner, that “we do recognise the challenges you face, and will continue to work with you on purposeful policies for a prosperous Australia”.
This included the Turnbull government’s 10-year plan to lower the company tax rate.
“We have strongly and publicly supported the government on this policy because it is right for the country,” she will say.
With respect, Catherine, take your global wanker cloak off for a minute. Put yourself in the shoes of one those deplorables currently revolting against your ideology. They’re angry because they’ve been left behind by globlisation and your answer is to demand a monumental tax cut for the top winners of it. You not could have crafted a better message to drive folks into the arms of the populists you purport to despise.
Martin “Parko” Parkinson was much better:
“I can understand the rise of populism in Greece or in countries that have been really badly affected by the GFC,” he told an American Chamber of Commerce event at law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth.
“I can even understand to a certain extent, in the US, where real wages for 60 per cent of the male population are lower than where they were 30 years ago.”
But even Australia, whose economic circumstances have been better off than those of the United States, has not been immune from the rise of populism, he said.
This, in part, was caused by the deterioration of trust in big businesses and rich people who try to game the system and ignore their social obligations.
“When you see evidence of corporations and wealthy individuals trying to avoid their fair share of tax, trying to take shortcuts, ignoring the social licence to operate, that erodes trust in system,” he said.
“Even if they are still themselves actually individually getting better off, it erodes their trust in the system.
“I think what we are suffering from is a loss of trust. We’ve seen it happening over the long period of time in loss of trust in institutions and now I think what we’re seeing is a rise of populism that is a broader manifestation of that.”
Dr Parkinson said the economic forces that plagued Australia post-war – including isolationism and stagnation in living standards – were still prevalent today.
“Why, when we in Australia have experienced a long period after World War II where we try to protect ourselves from the rest of the world, we missed out on big growth in trade, we saw our living standards decline in relative terms, we experienced multiple recessions, we find ourselves being referred to by Lee Kuan Yew as the poor white trash of Asia, we saw ourselves being described by Paul Keating saying unless we get our act together we are going to be the Banana Republic,” Dr Parkinson said.
“Why is it today that the policies that got us in that situation are somehow going to deliver us better outcomes today? It is the fact people are willing to heed that sort of nonsense and they think they will get away with it, I think it is damaging for our society.”
Maybe so, Parko, but that collapse of trust you speak of is now so severe that it is the defining feature of the system. Day-to-day both business and the government, in the form of Parko’s boss, straight up lie to our faces about everything. Turnbull’s company tax cut was a pre-election brain fart that was designed to disguise a total abdication of real policy reform. Not everyone understands this precisely but they feel it in their bones, not least when global wankers ram it down their throat.
So, what is a global wanker to do? I support all reform that rewards productive effort over specufesting and rent-seeking. That includes a lower company tax rate. I also support free trade, markets in general, and liberalism per se. But right now even I want to burn these global wankers tidy little edifice to the ground. What is needed to stop everyone else from actually doing it, to restore the loss of trust that Parko rightly identifies, is this:
- a national narrative that describes a project of improving Australian competitiveness counter-balanced by equity and requiring mutual sacrifice;
- comprehensive tax reform that cuts corporate tax rates, while reforming away the appalling tax concessions that corrupt the tax system including for property and super;
- immigration must be lowered to historical norms and visa rorting stopped in its tracks;
- properly modeled infrastructure must be rolled out to reduce congestion and boost productivity;
- productivity oriented reform must be adopted across government, and
- the Aussie dollar must be dropped through a combination of policies.
Only this comprehensive national program to restore functioning markets to the economy, and an Australia that is fit enough to compete within them, will prevent Trumpism from taking power here.
That is, it is your failure, global wankers, not that of the deplorables. You seek rents. You fail to offer sacrifice. You pervert policy. You communicate through a foghorn. Your imaginations fail. Your leadership is a badge of psychobabble.
And so, Australian liberalism will burn.
