The Agenda for Vested Interests Has Almost Consumed the Government’s Agenda Entirely

.png) Sunday, January 8, 2023 I have generally referred to Labor as a government for vested interests. I use this turn of phrase because Labor tends to get things done for their major backers and so-called mates to the detriment of hardworking Australians. The backers can be financial backers or they can simply be fellow travellers in the union movement, industry superannuation funds and class action law firms. These are the people with real clout with the government. For example, Wayne Swan is the head of the Australian Labor Party and chairman of industry super fund Cbus. He has just committed $500m of his members’ savings to his former chief of staff’s federal housing initiative, which has no detail. It seems beyond strange and financially risky to commit this money without any proper due diligence and modelling being undertaken. Perhaps his dual positions affords him the inside word on how the housing accord will protect his members’ super fund investments? While this may be seen as a minor political speaking point, it is beginning to have a real impact on the nation. The impact is that the government does not take the broader community interests into account when devising economic policies. At this rate, Australia will emulate Argentina over a century ago when the vested interests took over a once prosperous economy and turned it into a weak, debt-ravaged nation. Argentina created a situation where the vested interests ran the country into the ground. We have thus far avoided that fate under successive governments of both political persuasions. But this risk has reared its head in Australia in years past. The former United Australia Party allowed vested interests to dictate its policies. Accordingly, Robert Menzies ensured the modern Liberal Party deliberately eschewed the link between financial backers and policy making. There are at least four areas where the government is focused on vested interests, not the public interest. Firstly, the attempt by Financial Services Minister Stephen Jones to remove transparency from super funds. In his first act, Jones set out to hide millions in related party transactions including payments to unions. This was not what the Treasury recommended and can only be seen for what it is – an attempt to cover up flows between super funds and unions. It means that workers can no longer see how much Cbus is paying to the CFMMEU or how much AustralianSuper pays the ACTU. Secondly, the creation of multi-employer bargaining by Tony Burke means small businesses can be dragged into union negotiations where they have no staff who belong to a trade union. When the private economy has union membership of 10 per cent, why on earth would the country be putting unions back at the centre of our supposedly dynamic economy? Third, class action law reforms are going to be exempted from acting in the best interests of their clients as we had proposed. Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus wants to remove the caps the Coalition put in place to protect the members of a class action so their court orders are not eaten up by the law firms. Fourth, the housing accord set out by Jim Chalmers is basically a $450m payment to the super funds who already receive close to $150bn in mandatory contributions each year. Bizarrely, this means the super funds will be able to become your landlord but Labor won’t let you use your super to own your own house. Home ownership by super funds is okay if you are a major super fund, but not if you are a typical Australian. This is perhaps the best example of the warped policy making that vested interests generate. In aggregate, the agenda for vested interests has almost consumed the government’s agenda. It doesn’t have time for other things which are important to the broader populace. It means the government hasn’t bothered to continue our work on regulating crypto or develop policies to promote private investment. It means the government has no plan to improve the tax system, fix service delivery inside the Australian federation, address the ageing population or make it easier to do business and attract investment. While the government is focused on their favourite trifecta of unions, super funds and class action lawyers, we can forget about this type of progress and hard working Australians will end up paying the price. Sadly, right now, the best we can hope for is that the Senate stops the worst of these excesses to slow our morphing into Argentina. Meanwhile, as the alternative government, the Liberal Party must and will develop our own broad based policies which address the nation’s major economic challenges and ensure that the whole nation benefits not just Labor’s mates and vested interests. ‍ Andrew Bragg is a Liberal senator for NSW. ‍