Almost 40 years ago, on September 3, 1983, a large group assembled for lunch at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney. Among the 200 national leaders were cabinet ministers, state premiers, leaders of the ACTU and ambassadors of a score of countries. They were there to launch the Business Council of Australia.
Not for the last time they were outmanoeuvred by the existing association bureaucrats who were at the centre of the cosy centralised industrial relations system. They failed to achieve change, and years later they were again outmanoeuvred by the existing association establishment. The new organisation was built on the existing Australian Industries Development Association, which started its life in 1919 as the Australian Industries Protection League. By the early 1980s it was pursuing a more open economy and a progressive policy agenda through its pioneering research-based advocacy.
In 1985 the then-president, Sir Roderick Carnegie, and I visited 80 CEOs around the country to ask them what their most important issues were. Overwhelmingly they nominated rigidities and constraints imposed by the centralised industrial relations system.Led by Carnegie, the BCA levied several million dollars on member companies to establish a long-term campaign to review the system and consider alternatives and influence policymakers.
Unlike, for example, the United States, where political funding creates leverage, the BCA depends on influence and persuasion rather than power. This influence in part depends on access to political decision makers. One Labor treasurer noted that the BCA’s role “as policy pacesetter” made his job of economic management easier. He said its budget advocacy was helpful to curb the ambitions of spending ministers.