KEY POINTS:
On an Australian interstate flight recently, a Federal Labor frontbencher was seated next to a senior figure from the Business Council of Australia (BCA). The Labor MP made the point that the BCA's ads on workplace change had been hurting Labor. With a smile, however, he said that
if Labor were to win the election, the BCA could expect a dressing down from the new Government which would last some 10 minutes, then "it would be business as usual".
That's useful background as the 2007 Australian general election opens.
For the campaign is well and truly launched. As of day one, A$34 billion ($40.5 billion) in promised tax cuts rained down upon the electorate courtesy of the Howard Government. Labor's response is awaited with some anticipation.
This campaign will be one of the memorable ones in Australian politics. It's already noteworthy because an incumbent Government starts 12 points behind, in two-party preferred terms, under Australia's exhaustive preferential voting system. Given the country's prosperity, this is unusual. Given also the fact that the Labor Party is the frontrunner and that Labor has only twice won from Opposition since World War II (in 1972 and 1983), then you have the elements of an historic clash.
My favourite campaign story is actually American. In the year 1948, President Harry Truman, also trailing badly in the polls, criss-crossed the United States in the presidential train, the Ferdinand Magellan, accompanied by a contingent of press men.
The President was a keen poker player and, most afternoons, there was a game going aboard the presidential carriage. Members of the press normally joined in.
This led to Doug Short of the Baltimore Sun achieving a campaign record by managing to lose US$400 to Truman in a single afternoon's play. This money was gradually recovered over time as Short padded his expense account with his newspaper to make good his losses.
This anecdote appears in Timothy Crouse's classic account of presidential campaigns, The Boys on the Bus. When I talked to a senior member of the Canberra Press Gallery a few days ago about Crouse's book, he replied: "Stephen, I lived the story of The Boys on the Bus."
So to this campaign and the issues of relevance to business.
First, regardless of who wins on November 24, little will change in the way the economy is managed. There is a broad consensus between the Howard Coalition and Rudd's Labor that running budgets at a surplus while endeavouring to maintain interest rates at low levels (governed by the policies of the Reserve Bank) constitute common policy touchstones. And at the moment, the Treasury's forward estimates for growth, according to The Australian, have been revised from 3.75 per cent to 4.25 per cent per annum. Jobs growth is also anticipated to rise to 2.25 per cent from an anticipated 1.5 per cent this year.
What's more, a far greater estimate of government receipts - now expected to be A$59 billion (NZ$70 billion) more over the next four years than predicted in the May Budget - enabled the Coalition to begin the campaign with a kick-off well down-field.
The Prime Minister and his Treasurer Peter Costello, who privately loathe each other, worked well in a double act announcing the A$34 billion in tax cuts. This pushed economic management to the fore, which remains a Government strength according to all the polls. Whether the strength will carry the conservative parties across the line is another matter.
For the Coalition's greatest weakness also falls under the label of economic management. This is WorkChoices, the Federal Government's deregulation of the labour market, which has been confronted by a huge advertising campaign by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and then made the subject of a counter-attack by the Government's Workplace Authority, advertising to the tune of A$121 million. All this was before the campaign formally started.
The workplace remains at the core of the differences between the parties. The Coalition has softened the hard edges of WorkChoices, introducing fairness and no-disadvantage tests. Labor remains committed to abolishing WorkChoices, while allowing for individual contracts under common law and grandfathering changes over the next few years.
No one envisages a return to a heavily regulated labour market. The arguments are about how to maintain flexibility with more fairness.
WorkChoices has hit the Coalition hardest among those voters who switched from Keating Labor to John Howard in 1996. They stayed for the ensuing three elections but moved across the column and back into the Labor camp when the impact of WorkChoices on matters such as penalty rates and loadings became obvious. To date, they have remained in the Labor constituency. If this holds on polling day, the Coalition is in trouble in many outer metropolitan seats, especially in Sydney.
Climate change is the other issue which most sharply differentiates the parties. The Government has embraced a modest emissions trading framework, essentially grouping together the different state programmes. Labor will be making an announcement during the campaign, but it is very probable that its emissions trading proposals will be far bolder. Rudd has made it clear, as well, that a Federal Labor Government will endorse and sign the Kyoto Agreement, committing Australia to reductions in emissions as part of a global environmental strategy.
The Government has pursued clean coal technologies and the alternative of nuclear power. While Labor is not unsympathetic on clean coal, it rejects nuclear power while embracing renewable energy, from wind through to solar power.
The implications for business are obvious, from costs of energy and investing in the new technologies through to global carbon trading, especially if Labor moves to strike a price for carbon.
Connectivity also looms large, especially among younger Australians.
Currently, broadband technology and a national broadband roll-out is the subject of endless brawling between the Howard Government and Telstra. Labor's option of drawing upon the Future Fund to roll out broadband has been stymied by the passage of preventive legislation.
While that can be repealed by a future Government, there is also a degree of private sector interest, including initiatives that embrace Australia's universities.
While this is a secondary issue, it is emblematic of a problem which the Coalition faces. Among younger Australians, there is an even greater preference for Federal Labor than normally appears to be the case at election time. Broadband technology is but one reason for this.
For business, the issues of WorkChoices and climate-change politics are of concern. But even in these hot-button topics, the differences tend not to mean chasms. No one expects either party to throw shoes into the cogs of the engine driving Australia's economic growth.
This confirms stability and certainty in Australian political life and in the markets. No one is complaining.
* Stephen Loosley, a former federal president of the Labor Party and Australian senator, chairs business advocacy group Committee for Sydney
