How is it looking after the best interests of the business and shareholders to be taking sides in a highly polarising issue?
It's not like, say, supporting a legitimate charity such as guide dogs or surf life saving or something like disaster relief. Pretty much nobody's going to object to that.
Taking sides in an issue like this however, where's the upside? For every person who's happy about it, there's someone else who's unhappy.
Fury over Qantas shows the risk when corporates court politics
Barely a decade ago.....
It is therefore hardly unreasonable to suggest that if directors want to devote shareholders’ money to political campaigns, they should have to make those preferences clear when they seek office, rather than imposing them once they bask in its privileges.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce had a cream pie smashed on his face in 2017 after being attacked by Tony Overheu, 67, who came from back stage at a leadership breakfast in Perth during the same-sex marriage referendum campaign. Overheu pleaded guilty in the Perth Magistrates Court to assault and trespass and was fined $3000.
There are, for sure, business leaders who believe they are just doing the right thing. Those claims would be easier to accept were they donating their own money, instead of gifting other people’s. But far more is at stake than corporate leaders’ sincerity.
It is, in effect, the defining feature of liberal societies that they distinguish spheres of activity that in earlier times, and in other forms of government, were fused together.
Under feudalism, said Max Weber, to own was to rule and to rule was to own: feudal lordship conferred the right to govern one’s serfs, as well as to direct their labour. In contrast, capitalism – and even more so liberal democracy – drew a line between property and polity, the realm and the estate.
That process of “disembedding” vested in the political process the decisions that could only be authorised by the political community as a whole; at the same time, it vested in the ownership of property responsibility for the productive use, within the limits set by law, of economic resources.
Nothing better epitomised liberalism’s separation of economics from politics than the emergence of the modern corporation, which Nicholas Murray Butler, Nobel Prize winner and president of Columbia University, famously described as “the greatest single discovery of modern times”, without which “even steam and electricity would be reduced to comparative impotence”.
Corporations were, of course, nothing new: many of corporate law’s crucial features – such as the principle of legal personality – were systematised by the canonists of the 12th and 13th centuries. And the first English statute to regulate “bodies corporate” dates back to 1461, when the term “corporation” was already in widespread use.
Then treasurer Wayne Swan presents the December quarter 2011 national accounts figures during a press conference at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Ray Strange
But until the 19th century, charters bestowing incorporation were issued at the discretion of the Crown or through specific parliamentary statutes – with discretion bringing rampant cronyism, and pandering for favours, in its wake.
It is therefore no accident that the great liberal reforms that made incorporation generally available on a non-discretionary basis – William Gladstone’s Joint Stock Companies Act of 1844 and Robert Lowe’s landmark legislation of 1856 and 1862 – aimed not just at stimulating economic growth but at curbing corruption and the abuse of public power.
Nor is it an accident that those reforms sought to limit corporations to the purposes set out in their founding documents, and notably to what eventually became known as the goal of maximising shareholder value.
Narrowly defined goals made it easier for investors to monitor companies’ performance, allowing ownership to be separated from day-to-day control – a change that promoted Lowe’s objective of democratising corporate ownership. But additionally and importantly, prohibiting activities that were “ultra vires” reduced the risk that corporate resources would be diverted to political ends.
So long as corporations remained strictly within their legally sanctioned purposes, the reformers argued, they would have no need to court the favour, or fear the ire, of politicians.
No doubt, the regulatory state’s relentless growth – with all the incentives it creates for rent-seeking – dinted that hope. It is, however, the recent elevation into dogma of the notion that corporations must earn a “social licence” that has dashed it completely, muddying the waters to the point where anything goes.
Shareholders are preparing to confront “some of Australia’s biggest companies” over their support of the Voice to… Parliament, says Sky News host Sharri Markson. “The Australian Shareholders Association predicts shareholders will be asking many companies who support the Voice, whether donating to the ‘Yes’ camp will do anything to More
If Australia’s corporate leaders have flocked to the opportunities that creates, it is partly out of self-interest: lavishly support the right causes and governments may nobble your competitors in return, as Qantas’ dispensing and securing of favours so starkly proved.
But Adam Smith, who certainly knew about rent-seeking, thought the motives underpinning corporate fawning were far worse than that. “What the ambitious man really pursues,” he wrote, is “not ease or pleasure” but to be honoured and flattered by the best people; that is, those who “count”. Like the puppy that “fawns upon its dam”, the parvenu “endeavours by every servile attention to obtain good will”.
Give the parvenus half a chance, Smith said, and their unquenchable self-love will trounce even self-interest, with the self-love coming wrapped in an aura of self-righteousness. In turn, that ardent desire to be adored, which is “the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments”, leads them to parrot the conventional wisdom of the day – and makes it impossible “to reason and dispute with them”.
It is not just shareholders and consumers who suffer when that process undermines liberalism’s hard won distinction between politics and business. As Weber’s great disciple, Talcott Parsons, argued in The System of Modern Societies (1971), the depoliticisation of business meant people with widely different political orientations could readily work together, learning through their interactions to respect one another.
In that way, the separation of spheres, with its confining of politics’ angry passions to the sphere of collective decision-making, fostered what Parsons called the sense of “common belongingness”: of being if not friends, neighbours, with the obligations that imposes of mutual toleration. Neighbourliness does not imply any deep attachment; but as Parsons stressed, it buttresses that fragile virtue of respectful coexistence without which polities cannot survive.
That is why liberalism tries to keep politics in its place: not because it doesn’t matter, but because it matters so intensely to so many that it poses a constant threat to civility, with which the tumultuousness of democracy has always struggled to walk hand in hand. A society in which politics is omnipresent can only be one riven by tribalism and perpetually at war with itself.
Good fences do make good neighbours; tear them down and – as the blowback against Qantas shows – new furies storm in. With Australia’s largest corporations rushing headfirst on to the political barricades, those furies will haunt us for years to come.
HENRY ERGAS COLUMNIST
Exactly.This pretty much sums it up -
Barely a decade ago, Wayne Swan, seething in a rage worthy of the Greek furies, denounced “highly misleading campaigns” funded by “industry deep pockets in an attempt to influence public opinion”. Unless “this poison” was excised, he argued, “the voices of the majority (would be) drowned out by a well-funded handful”.But now, as the Yes camp unleashes its torrents of corporate dollars, yesterday’s filthy lucre has, it seems, been washed of all sin. “Pecunia non olet” – money doesn’t smell – said the Romans; and, in one of those curious reversals that marks our age, no one could agree more heartily, at least in this instance, than the usually censorious left.Whether investors share that view is another matter. After all, company directors rarely stand for election on the basis of their political preferences: what they proffer is their commercial acumen, not their convictions about social justice.
When Labor are in the unions are looked after, which isn't necessarily the same as the workers.by inferring when Labor are in the worker is looked after,
When Labor are in the Govt and their mates in the union are looked after, because the workers have no leverage.When Labor are in the unions are looked after, which isn't necessarily the same as the workers.
When the Coalition is in, business is looked after, which is definitely not the workers.
Even a bigger jokeOr if China will respect the Voice in the constitution.
Why aren't there any penalties awarded for their wrong doing? I think it's time they defund ABC as it clearly shows a one sided veiw.
It's inevitable that the ABC will go one day. The original point of it was to get information to the community throughout Australia but now everyone has a smartphone and can access news from anywhere anytime it's irrelevant. It's a self licking ice cream like much of the public service. At best it should be defunded and commercialised. Even the Leftards don't like it now because Speers is a presenter asking harder questions.
I occasionally watch 4corners on ABC these days, and I don't really watch much of Sky channel other than the feeds that turn up on y-tube. You watch one on the voice then google profiles you and get them turn up in your youtube feed automatically. I fact check most things in anycase. Many Australians are still voting yes on the fact that labor is advising them to, when you ask them for any details about the voice they can't answer anything. I think the worst is still yet to come with all of this.I never watch Sky News, but I watch ABC News24, and they run almost continual propaganda for the Yes side.
The number of interviews they give to pro voice people versus the No case is palpably one-sided and not appropriate for the national broadcaster in my opinion.
It's inevitable that the ABC will go one day. The original point of it was to get information to the community throughout Australia but now everyone has a smartphone and can access news from anywhere anytime it's irrelevant. It's a self licking ice cream like much of the public service. At best it should be defunded and commercialised. Even the Leftards don't like it now because Speers is a presenter asking harder questions.
Has been a one-sided provider of information for years. just look at the live export tradeI never watch Sky News, but I watch ABC News24, and they run almost continual propaganda for the Yes side.
The number of interviews they give to pro voice people versus the No case is palpably one-sided and not appropriate for the national broadcaster in my opinion.
I think these numbers under represent the no voters.
I wonder who will be the first to challenge Airbus when this fails.
View attachment 162234
Support for the Voice to Parliament is in “freefall”, having dropped 5 per cent in a month, and is now below 40 per cent in every state except Victoria.
The RedBridge poll, taken in the first week of September after Anthony Albanese announced October 14 as the referendum day, found only 39 per cent of people said they planned to vote Yes for the constitutional amendment, while 61 per cent planned to vote No.
RedBridge’s results for the Voice are particularly stark because, unlike other pollsters, it forces respondents to make a choice between Yes and No, rather than saying they are undecided.
But these results are almost identical to a Freshwater Strategy poll taken last week that found the No case ahead 59 per cent to 41 per cent when undecided voters were excluded.
According to this poll, 15 per cent of voters still could not say which way they would vote, or which way they were leaning. But it found 50 per cent of voters declared they planned to vote No, compared to 35 per cent who planned to vote Yes.
I just think they should put actual journalists in charge, not social activists.
PM’s voice an all-or-nothing gamble
Anthony Albanese ignored the wise steps needed for a successful referendum. Now Australia is heading towards a dangerous political showdown on October 14.
Australia is heading towards a dangerous political showdown on October 14 – the referendum on the voice should never have been advanced in this manner, devoid of formal political bipartisanship and with a conga line of elites lecturing ordinary people on a scale unmatched since World War II.
Anthony Albanese has broken every rule in the book on how to prevail in a referendum. The Prime Minister has done so with much cheerleading from the political class, media and corporates. Given that since Federation Labor has put 25 referendums for 24 defeats it is extraordinary that Albanese was not more astute than to dismiss virtually every prudent step necessary for success.
We are finishing in a bad place. The contrast with the unity surrounding the 1967 referendum could hardly be greater. Yet we have had truckloads of time. It is 16 years since Liberal prime minister John Howard pledged constitutional recognition of the Indigenous peoples at the 2007 election.
The divisions today are greater than ever on a question of supreme consequence. The voice is marked by legal and political uncertainties and partisan dispute with history suggesting these are harbingers of a referendum defeat. The project, inspired by goodwill, has been mismanaged; the fear is it finishes in a train wreck next month.
There is distinct on-the-ground resentment at the corporate, finance, celebrity, educational, professional and sporting forces – an alliance of elites – talking down to people, patronising them, signalling the voice as the morally superior choice for the nation. If the voice is defeated, this campaign by the elites will rank as one of the worst political own goals in Australian history.
Consider the two scenarios.
If the referendum is carried it will be a razor-thin margin. The divisions will remain. At that point the real task begins – constructing the voice in terms of its functions, composition and procedures, a daunting job. It means building, from the ground up, an exclusive Indigenous political institution, created to represent one group of Australians, yet required to win legitimacy within the operations of government and parliament and acceptance by the wider public. The challenge for our politics and national life will be immense.
Indigenous leaders and the Albanese government will feel vindicated in victory – a victory riven by disunity. Yet the ongoing dispute over core principles will be an ominous circumstance for the voice’s creation.
Any referendum defeat, on the other hand, runs the grave risk that the wrong conclusion will be drawn, namely that the public has withdrawn its goodwill, rejected recognition and Indigenous aspirations, as distinct from rejecting a contentious model. The danger is the Yes camp, having misjudged the referendum, might then misjudge why it was defeated. If the voice goes down, the Yes camp must reflect upon itself, not the voters.
If the voice is rejected, that will be driven by two overwhelming factors: the defects in the constitutional proposal and the uninterest in pursuing bipartisanship. These problem were obvious from the time Albanese spoke at Garma in July last year, yet they have been subject to denial for 14 months by the Yes campaign and its supporters.
There were many different versions of the voice on offer, virtually all less radical than the chosen model. Father Frank Brennan pointed out 18 versions of the voice were put to the 2018 parliamentary committee. It was always possible to legislate the voice first, a sensible approach that would have transformed the atmospherics by putting the constitutional question at the end, not at the beginning. That was vetoed.
The parliamentary committee concluded the model for the voice was not settled and “more work needs to be undertaken to build consensus on the principles, purpose and the text of any constitutional amendments”.
Bipartisanship was seen as essential – but that view was ditched.
Brennan said for the past five years, “both sides of politics seem to have given up on bipartisan co-operation”. More recently, he warned Albanese, tried to get the proposal modified, and was scorned.
‘The fundamental changes it embodies to the principles of Australian democracy will last forever.’
After Albanese became Prime Minister and decided to press ahead he saw no need for a wider forum or a convention to bring together Indigenous, non-Indigenous and cross-party MPs. He believed the voice could be carried on Labor support, elite funding and a more progressive country than voted in same-sex marriage. That judgment is on trial next month.
Such confidence underwrote the critical decision – the model for next month’s vote. It involves the creation of a new chapter of the Australian Constitution, so the voice sits adjacent to the parliament, the executive government and the judiciary as the fourth arm of our system. Constitutional recognition of the Indigenous peoples “as the First Peoples of Australia” is achieved through the voice, thus fusing the two concepts. It is a group-rights political body designed to pursue the interests of one section of the Australian nation, defined by ancestry, yet empowered to make representations to the parliament and any element of executive government about proposed laws and policies of Indigenous interest and of the general interest. It will exist in perpetuity. The fundamental changes it embodies to the principles of Australian democracy will last forever.
Contrary to the repeated claims of the Yes supporters, this model is neither modest nor simple. It is filled with complexity and unknowns. There are myriad grounds for objections in terms of principle and practicality. All aspects of the voice’s appointment and operations will be decided by parliament. That’s essential. It means, however, much remains unknown, thereby giving the No camp an automatic pitch: “If you don’t know, vote No.” Surely the government should have rolled out a fuller picture of the voice.
Let’s be honest. A referendum of such import needed to be bipartisan. Former chief justice Robert French said the voice was “a significant institution in our representative democracy”. The late and great barrister David Jackson said of the voice that it meant “we become a nation where, whenever we or our ancestors first came to this country, we are not all equal”. Such a change to Australia’s governing principles and social compact – in the cause of Indigenous recognition – should not have been put without significant cross-party support.
This means if bipartisanship was not available then the referendum should not have been proposed in this form. There were other models and approaches available.
We know why this didn’t happen. The Indigenous leadership, influenced by Noel Pearson, insisted on the current model. Indeed, they would accept none other, a calculated and understandable judgment. Indigenous leaders, battle-hardened after decades, saw their chance and went for the big, bold, breakthrough. They bet the house.
Pearson, it seems, hoped Howard would climb aboard. But it was never going to happen. Albanese signed on the dotted line.
Albanese walked, eyes open, into the trap. He put the preferred Indigenous leaders’ model. He didn’t negotiate them down as Paul Keating did with native title. That meant Albanese was locked into a model the Coalition under Peter Dutton was never likely to accept and was always going to struggle. If Albanese had made concessions to the Coalition he would have lost the Indigenous leaders and he couldn’t propose a model that didn’t have their consent.
This was not just Albanese’s dilemma. It is Australia’s dilemma on the issue of recognition. It will remain the dilemma after any defeat of the voice. Contrary to what is being said now, the debate about recognition won’t fade away. It will merely take another turn. But any recognition proposal needs Indigenous authorisation. This raises the existential question for the future: can agreement be found between majority public sentiment and Indigenous sentiment?
Unsurprisingly, Marcia Langton said this week that if the voice was defeated she would not work with Dutton on a second, different referendum to achieve recognition.
Indigenous leaders are focused on the big prize. Hence, the “all or nothing” mentality surrounding the October vote. Langton has called on the Albanese government to sketch an alternative future if the voice does down.
Appearing this week at The Australian’s voice debate in Sydney, Pearson provided the most effective reframed case for the voice so far. Shifting the rhetoric, Pearson returned to the central proposition he has argued for decades – the future of the First Australians is about locking rights and responsibilities together. This is his vision for the voice.
Going to the principal task, he said: “Unless we take responsibility, they’ll be no turnaround in closing the gap.” This is how Pearson sold the voice. Frankly, it should have been the overarching message from day one but probably arrives too late in the day.
The trend favours the No camp but the contest remains open. This week Newspoll showed No in front 53-38 per cent, with 76 per cent of Coalition voters saying No. Every age group from 35-49 and upwards was voting No. The vote in the regions was 61-31 against the voice.
The Essential poll published in Guardian Australia showed a tighter contest with No leading 48-42 per cent. It showed the hard No vote leading the hard Yes vote 41-30 per cent. It had young and female voters still in play.
The issue for the Yes campaign is how far it changes tactics to reverse the trend. The John Farnham promotion reveals the sustained effort from the Yes side to recast the voice as an agent of goodwill and positivity.
Pivotal to the struggling position of the voice is the Coalition’s opposition to enshrining the voice in the Constitution. This is not new. It was opposed by Tony Abbott, rejected by the Turnbull cabinet and opposed by Scott Morrison as prime minister. This position has been known for years. That Albanese felt it unnecessary to address this obstacle was extraordinary.
The government seemed to assume the Opposition Leader could be intimidated into ditching an established Coalition stance, betraying Coalition voters and rolling over to Labor’s position. Albanese didn’t create a process that would force Dutton to negotiate.
Options to proceed could have included a constitutional convention, a more limited voice model or a legislated pathway. The Indigenous leaders insisted on their model. But Albanese has the power of the prime ministership – there is only one conclusion: the voice being put is the model that Albanese wanted.
Any defeat of the voice, therefore, will reflect serious misjudgments by Albanese. His launch of the voice campaign in his Garma speech in July last year now reads like a trip in an unreality bubble.
ASX top 20 companies on the Voice
COMPANY STANCE ON THE VOICE ANZ Yes Aristocrat Leisure Neutral BHP Yes Coles Yes Commonwealth Bank Yes CSL Neutral Fortescue Metals Neutral Goodman Group Neutral Macquarie Bank Neutral NAB Yes Newcrest Mining Yes Rio Tinto Yes Santos Neutral Telstra Yes Transurban Yes Wesfarmers Yes Westpac Yes Wisetech Global Neutral Woodside Energy Yes Woolworths Yes
In this speech – conspicuous for its elegance – Albanese pledged to implement the Uluru Statement from the Heart “in full”. He said “the country is ready for this reform”. He declared “the tide is running our way” and “the momentum is with us, as never before”.
Albanese felt the country was on a roll – “as never before” – the implication being Australia’s heart would open to the project.
He branded the proposed change as “momentous” but also “simple”. Even at the time the contradictions were obvious. Albanese said the voice was nothing more than “simple courtesy” – yet it was a body that would have “the power and the platform to tell the government and the parliament the truth about what is working and what is not”. That’s power. Indeed, he said enshrining the voice in the Constitution meant it “cannot be silenced”. That’s power.
But at the same time it was just a “courtesy”, nothing more than an expression of respect.
The point, of course, is that this referendum was always about representative power.
Albanese’s claims became too delusional to ultimately assist the government or the Yes case. It is extraordinary, however, the extent to which influential figures accepted this mantra at face value, repeated it, tried to claim “nothing to see here” and then became indignant and resentful when the No case highlighted its multiple problems and contradictions.
Albanese invoked the voice, the role of Makarrata, treaty-making and truth-telling. Conspicuously, he was in a hurry.
He rolled out three suggested sentences for the constitutional change along with the proposed question to be put to the people. He wanted the question settled “as soon as possible”.
As Brennan said, Pearson was instrumental not only in proposing the voice but in removing all other options from the table. Labor endorsed this big-stakes play. Pearson had always seen a voice as a conservative concept, only advisory, and hoped to win a significant slice of Coalition support. But he misjudged.
In his appearance at The Australian’s forum Pearson came to grips with the ultimate dilemma raised by the voice: it infringes the principle of classic “equal before the law” liberalism, now the central idea in our polity (though it long excluded the Aboriginal people).
On the other hand, recognising the Indigenous peoples as the First Australians must demand a new category of special or separate Indigenous rights and the task then becomes the need to fit these idea together.
Pivotal to the voice debate is the role of Indigenous leaders – senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and Nyunggai Warren Mundine – spearheading the No case.
This shows that Indigenous Australians don’t speak with one voice and don’t have one view. The fact Price, an avowed opponent of the voice, was sitting in the Nationals partyroom at the time of this debate became decisive.
Price has waged a relentless campaign, appealing to the deepest instinct in the Australian psyche.
“We are being divided,” Price told the parliament. “We will be further divided throughout this campaign. And, if the vote is successful, we will be divided forever. I want to see Australia move forward as one, not two divided; that’s why I will be voting No.”
Price has made the critical pitch: saying the voice is about separation, that it will divide rather than unite the country.
If the public instinctively accepts this view, the voice will be voted down comprehensively; the states won’t matter, the national majority will sink the referendum. The No case essentially argues Australians accept constitutional recognition but oppose the voice.
There is a further elemental force at work: every element of power is loaded against the No case. The actual question is loaded. Whether it is financial clout, celebrity endorsement and institutional backing, the Yes side holds a commanding position. One side is advantaged against the other.
The risk for the Yes side is this backfires: that more Australians will kick back and assert their independence.
Since World War II there have been five successful referendums. Each referendum was successful across the entire nation, carried in all six states. The national vote varied from 54 per cent to 91 per cent. But in four of these five successful referendums the lowest national vote was 73 per cent in favour.
The lessons – if you win, you win big; and you don’t win in a divided polity.
PAUL KELLY
EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Pretty much dead and buried going by the trend (never fight a trend in trading) so big political win to Dutton saying No, it will be interesting how voters treat Dutton down the road if they dump him like Abbott another No campaigner on everything but no vision on future requirements.
Oh well I guess no progress on Aboriginal matters I wonder where Labor goes now since it has paid a political cost for no result trying to make a change to help.
Meanwhile tax payers will keep pouring money in not knowing where or who to while the gap report continues to punch out stark numbers each year.
PS pat yourself on the back eh.
so big political win to Dutton
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