Big business reconsiders image, message after election pounding

DAMON KITNEY
July 29, 2016
The Australian
The Business Council of Australia plans to make its messages to the community “more digestible’’ and its economic contribution “more visible’’ after the nation’s peak business group was roundly criticised for a lack of impact during the recent election campaign.
BCA president Catherine ­Livingstone, who retires from the role in November, also said the council needed to work with its membership base on the poor public perception of business ­following a spate of scandals, ­especially in financial services.
“I think we certainly need to work with our members on the perception of business … to make what big business is doing and what its contribution is to the economy making that more ­visible,’’ Ms Livingstone told The Australian’s inaugural Creative Country conference in ­Melbourne yesterday.
The conference heard from some of the country’s leading company executives on the challenges and opportunities of making Australia more ­innovative. They included NAB chief executive Andrew Thorburn, ABC managing director ­Michelle Guthrie, NBN chairman Ziggy Switkowski and leaders from Google and Microsoft as well as from academia and arts.
Last week the Governance Institute of Australia’s inaugural “ethics index” revealed a damning mainstream Australian view of the banking, finance and insurance sector, as having the poorest ethical standards, most affected by lavish executive ­salaries and bonuses.
At the election Opposition Leader Bill Shorten campaigned against the government’s planned big business tax cuts and proposed a banking royal commission after Labor research showed average Australians were anti-big business.
During the campaign the BCA ran television advertisements for the first time, with the theme of “Strong Business, Strong Australia”, but the effect was negligible.
The council also was ­criticised for failing to explain how the broad populace would benefit from proposed Coalition company tax cuts.
In February, Victorian ­Liberal Party president Michael Kroger launched a vicious attack on the BCA and chief executive, Jennifer Westacott, after Malcolm Turnbull dumped plans to consider increasing the GST. Ms Livingston yesterday suggested the BCA would break down its reform push into more “manageable’’ portions.
“If we look at the whole concept of the BCA as a proponent for major reform I think we will stick to that longer term perspective but actually, if you like, chunk it down into more manageable suggestions and recommendations in a policy sense.
“Because I think that’s taking smaller steps towards the bigger goal rather than assuming that we’ll work on the bigger goal of getting innovation-led growth and getting the proverbial ­budget repair.’’
Last week’s Governance Institute survey found the top five issues for big business ethics were corruption, tax avoidance, misleading and deceptive advertising, bullying and pay.
Banking and finance ranked among the worst-regarded ­sectors in the survey rankings, while telecommunication companies ranked just ahead of real estate agents.
Ms Livingstone said business had been rightly criticised for what she described as “unfortunate experiences’’, but warned against tarring all of big business with the same brush.
“To attribute to all of business those failings is actually to undermine the role of business in the economy … So I think if we do that we undermine a major ­element of the economy.”
Alan Noble, Google’s engineering director for Australia and New Zealand, told the conference there were many examples of businesses “not embracing some of the challenges and the disruptive threats as forwardly as they should be doing”.
Microsoft Australia chief executive Pip Marlow said it was up to companies to “build a ­culture in an organisation where you can fail fast, frequently and frugally’’.
“You don’t want it to cost you your company, but you have to embrace it.’’