Business gets its absolutes out of order

Critically, of all sectors of the community, business surely has the greatest reason to fear centralised power. By definition, powerful government is ambitious government and ambitious government is big government. The less restrained an Australian government became, the greater would be its temptation to regulate all inconvenient aspects of life, including those relating to business.

In this context, one perceives the delicious irony of the turkeys voting for an early Christmas. In its headlong pursuit of an increasingly centralised Australia, business is attempting to create the ideal conditions for its own future constraint and regulation.

History provides some interesting insights here. After all, it was a national government which in the 1940s attempted the decidedly business-unfriendly manoeuvre of nationalising the banks. What stopped it? The Chifley Government was defeated by the federalism of the Australian Constitution, which denied it the necessary power.

The reaction by those such as the BCA to this sort of argument tends to be twofold. Some of our corporate reformers seem not even to have heard of the Chifley Government. Those who have reply condescendingly that those days are past and that in a globalised world no future Australian government would dare assault its business community.

There is a wealth of naivety in this position. It is based on a Fukuyama-like confidence that in the free-market philosophy of the early 21st century, Australia has reached the endpoint in its economic and political development.

The reality is that there is nothing as fluid as politics. Any number of events from catastrophic terrorism to natural disaster to unforeseen economic collapse could produce fundamental change in the types of government seated in Canberra. In a world that did not foresee the fall of communism or the rise of jihadism, how can our business leaders be so confident that neither Chifley nor Whitlam will ride again?

One thing is absolutely certain. Were a monolithic commonwealth to turn on its erstwhile business allies, it would be too late to devise new strategies for the division of power. Power must be divided in anticipation of its misuse, not afterwards.