The Business Council of Australia has left open a larger, coordinated interest group campaign to square off against progressive activism, in the lead-up to the next federal election.
Meanwhile, GetUp has accused the BCA of attempting to build a “$26m election war chest” to “drown Australia’s democracy”.
The BCA says its advocacy body, Centre Ground, which is running the For the Common Good campaign, is a non-partisan policy driven unit, aimed at tackling what it calls “anti-business forces”.
Company records list the former Liberal party acting federal director Andrew Bragg, who has been engaged by the BCA, as a director.
Last week, in Senate hearings, the BCA chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, was unable to answer whether or not Bragg had had dealings with data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica .
After tweets from Labor senator Kristina Keneally, the BCA was unable to confirm that Cambridge Analytica was not involved in the advocacy group, although data will play a role in how it targets its message.
In Senate hearings last week, Westacott acknowledged that she & Grant King met with Cambridge Analytica. She said they didn’t have any relationship with them now and denied using the company in the SA election.
— Kristina Keneally (@KKeneally) May 1, 2018
But she dodged a question about whether Andre Bragg met CA.
On Tuesday it did not respond to whether that data role would be played in-house, or through a third-party agency.
The final 15 days of the South Australian election was used as a “trial campaign”, targeting bricks and mortar store trading hours, a campaign it said reached more than 200,000 people in three electorates.
Establishing an advocacy group to act as a foil to progressive groups such as GetUp has been discussed within conservative circles for some time but has been stymied by competing interests.
For the Common Good is being viewed as the business community going it alone, although the BCA, which currently is the sole funder, has not ruled out joining forces with other groups in the future.
In launching the campaign earlier this year, the BCA said the business community had become “an easy target” that had resulted in “a wave of populist policies and proposed new laws that have, and will continued to have, business impacts”.
“Our well-resourced critics are seeking to capitalise on this and further erode the reputation of business,” the BCA statement said. “There’s limited appreciation of the positive contribution of business to the nation and people’s lives.”
The ABC reported it understood the business lobby was asking its members to contribute $200,000 towards the campaign. GetUp took that figure and multiplied it by the BCA’s 130 members to come to its $26m figure.
Tanya Plibersek was quick to dismiss what she called a “so-called grassroots campaign” when speaking to ABC radio on Tuesday morning.
“I think it’s also astroturfing when rich companies pretend to run grassroots campaigns,” she said. “And look, they’ve got every right to make their case, but don’t forget the BCA wrote to its members and said we’d love you all to sign on this letter to the Senate saying please give us $65bn and if you do we’ll employ more Australians, we won’t offshore, we’ll create more jobs, we’ll increase wages, we’ll pay our taxes.
“And the members wrote back, they got out the red pen, and said sorry couldn’t agree to that, couldn’t agree to that, couldn’t agree to that.
“They actually have already made public the fact that this big business tax cut won’t lead to more jobs, higher wages, more jobs in Australia. It won’t even lead to these companies actually paying their taxes. So I don’t think anybody is going to be fooled by a campaign from rich companies saying rich companies deserve a tax cut.”
The Turnbull government has been frustrated by the business community’s lack of advocacy for its policies, urging employers to “fight back” against union-backed campaigns.
The BCA is funding the advocacy arm through its members, which have given their approval for the move.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Westacott said it was “not and never will be a partisan organisation” and its commitment remained to “good policy, not politics”.
“We’ll fight our opponents on their turf but we won’t sacrifice our integrity,” she said. “Those attacking business have no realistic alternative plan to grow our economy and quite often they assume money grows on trees.
“The truth is, no matter what their excuse is today, they will always belittle the role of the private sector because for them it is ideological.
“Unfortunately many people in the business community have given the critics material to work with and I’m frustrated and disappointed by that, but I will not allow retrograde, backward-looking anti-business attacks to stand unchallenged.”
