A few months ago I was in Townsville to conduct some focus groups of local men and women for a client interested in, among other things, their attitudes to corporations and corporate power. The last time I’d set foot in Townsville had been three years before when I had wandered around the town from shop to shop, cafe to cafe, fell in love with it a little like I do when I visit pretty much every country town.
In those three years, however, it is clear Townsville has changed. It’s one of those regional towns where the drug ice is causing enormous problems. There are intense community concerns about crime and mental health. Employment insecurity, always pressing issue outside the big cities, had become even worse, not helped by the collapse of Clive Palmer’s Queensland Nickel.
I posed a question to a small group of Townsville men about corporate tax. Would they like to see governments pursue more vigorously corporations to make them pay their fair share of tax? Absolutely, sure.
Do they think a policy like that is something any government would pursue in earnest? It might be ideal but was it realistic? They were cynical. One man, a former hospital orderly in his 40s now working security, put it his views succinctly:
I can’t see it happening only from the standpoint that it is a vicious circle. The politicians and the people around them look to the corporations for jobs when they get out of politics.
He saw no difference between Labor and Liberal here. Regardless of party ideology, you were likely to want a golden parachute from political circles to corporate life so why would you punish your future employers by pursuing them for more tax?
This week’s Essential report shows that, at a general level, the voters don’t think there’s much daylight between Labor and Liberal on a whole range of issues and behaviours (has a vision for the future, has a good team of leaders, clear about what they stand for).
However, when it comes to perceptions of ties to big business, there is a distinction in the public’s mind, with 35% of voters agreeing that the ALP is too close to the big corporate and financial interests compared with 69% of voters who agree with that statement vis a vis the Liberal party.
My 40-something orderly from Townsville may well have been quietly surprised about the recent budget, where a Liberal government was prepared to impose a significant tax on the banks. We know from previous Essential reports and other polling data that this part of the budget has been met with a round of applause by the electorate. While they may well see it as populist and a little illogical (why single out big banks as opposed to other big corporates raking in the dollars?) they figure that, at a time of low wage growth and high cost of housing, you might as well grab some cash from the people who have profited enormously from our nation’s long stretch of affluence.
It seems voters are prepared to embrace a policy measure aimed at hurting the banks even if it turns around and bites them on the bum as a result. A whopping 78% believe the direct result of the bank levy will mean higher fees, charges and interest rates. This reflects the community’s black view of how banks operate (“any excuse to raise fees on ordinary customers”) but also may be evidence of their willingness to accept a personal impost if it means they can send a loud and clear message to the banks about cleaning up their act and caring for their customer base.
While the results of this week’s Essential report indicate there is plenty of resentment in the community about bad corporate behaviour, it’s not at the top of our list of concerns.
Survey after survey shows that the issues of health, education and job generation remain at the apex of our interests. Among the policy measures Bill Shorten announced in his budget reply, it was investment in Tafe and employment of apprentices that outclassed continuing the deficit levy and opposing the company tax cut.
If Australians want corporates to pay more tax is not because they are intent on big business bashing. It’s because they want those taxes to fund the social and employment infrastructure we need for a better future.
