Among the many losers of the 2016 election, big business is near the top of the list, which might teach them that you cannot outsource leadership.

Corporate chiefs have virtually vacated the field when it comes to having a meaningful role in our political debate.

They have delegated discussion to the various over resourced industry groups and lobbyists who have been shown to be as ineffectual and impotent in the new political order as the timid chieftains they are paid to represent.

Of course not all executives are represented by the BCA, ACCI the Bankers Association, the Mining Council et al; but the instances of worthy individuals speaking out on national issues that can’t be classified as self-interest, is becoming rarer.

Yet across board and dining tables they privately loudly bemoan the lack of leadership in politics without seeing any irony in their own sector’s leadership deficit.

They belittle the lack of communication skills of the political class oblivious to the fact they are masters of spin and frustrating business speak and delegation.

The Business Council of Australia for years has been the voice of corporate Australia and tussled with various governments both Labor and Liberal. But, in their jargon, it is a new paradigm.

During the last election the ALP was branded as being hostile to business, even the most anti-business party ever.

But business, like many media and other pundits, failed to see that the bigger threat across the world is actually coming from the other side of politics which is anti-elite, anti-trade anti-globalisation anti innovation – pretty well anti everything which underpins the top end of town.

Their precious corporate tax cuts could be the first casualty, as will hopes of meaningful IR reform even in the corrupt building industry through the ABCC legislation.

Any discussion of the new economy is back behind closed doors.

And while the major banks might have avoided a royal commission, for now, the big four CEO’s o will be hauled before the House Economics Committee for a grilling at least once a year in our version of the Wall Street “perp walk”.

How did it come to this when they held out such high hopes for one of their own, an ex Goldmans boss and self-made millionaire?

It was only last November that BCA chair Catherine Livingstone lauded the new PM at the annual dinner gushing at “the new optimism” in the country.

“You have given us the permission to have conversations about things that matter to people” she gushed.

(For the record she was talking about “innovation” and that conversation by Malcolm Turnbull is being blamed post-election by Nats among some, as one of the factors that lost voters in the western suburbs of Sydney).

A month after the BCA dinner, the Australian Financial Review named Livingstone the 2015 business person of the year for “calling out political failure in Canberra and pushing the Government to adopt the innovation and disruption agenda”.

(They’ve certainly got their disruption agenda now looking at the new Senate cross bench led by the four One Nation senators and three from the protectionist Xenophon party).

December 2015 was the peak of the honeymoon because in January began the abortive push for major tax reform, namely a rise in the GST.

It was a BCA dream but the polls showed a voters nightmare and the idea was ditched amid bitter recriminations from the PM to Treasurer to even the BCA itself.

In February Victorian Liberal President Michael Kroger launched an extraordinary attack on the Council calling for CEO Jennifer Westacott to be sacked and claiming the BCA had “no idea how to sell the tax debate” nor anything else. Former Labor PM Paul Keating agreed.

As the broader tax debate continued to run off the rails and anger grew at multinational tax avoidance, the tone deaf BCA continued its call for corporate tax relief.

The much promised tax reform package never actually eventuated and instead business was given a sop in the May budget with corporate tax cuts but only after ten years, or in another three governments’ time.

By half way through the election campaign the PM seemed to be distancing himself even from that.

Recriminations continue on all sides and go back further than this election.

The pro-Abbott forces recall that despite his declaration on election night 2013 that Australia was “open for business”; the corporate leaders ignored the message and failed to open their wallets and back the new Government with new spending.

Instead the boards continued to use excess funds for unproductive share buybacks to keep up their stock price and remuneration packages while whining about stalled economic growth.

The lack of desire to put their hands in their pockets continued into this election campaign with Liberal supporters complaining bitterly of the difficult in raising funds from their traditional supporters. Even the cashed up tech sector were reluctant to pony up for their pro-innovation PM.

The only major businessman willing to back Malcolm Turnbull strongly was in fact Malcolm Turnbull himself to the tune of some $2 million apparently.

(This is not the first time he’s been forced to back himself apparently. Fellow Republican Mark Day claimed on my Sky Friday Show that Turnbull did the same thing during that losing campaign).

So where to from here for the big end of town, which has been noticeably quiet since the shock result?

Well they’ve been noticeably quiet for decades now to be honest. It dates back to the Keating government when they were called out for speaking out and indeed in my Business Sunday days last century there were no shortage of people willing to talk on a range of issue.

I recall in the midst of the Yannon share scandal involving then Coles Myer chair Solomon Lew that Rupert Murdoch told me live on air “”The most improper, thuggish sort of behaviour has been engaged in by the leadership of Coles.” Imagine that today?

There are still some business “leaders” willing to speak out, but they are often seen as curmudgeons like Maurice Newman or Gerry Harvey rightly declaring Australia “ungovernable” after the election but then calling for “a dictator like in China”.

For the record, I welcomed Livingstone’s boldness, as did many others underwhelmed by previous toadying BCA chairs. However, subsequent events as outlined here might prove that outspoken business figures often retreat at the first whiff of grapeshot.

Take serial board director David Gonski, the man who gave his name to the Gillard Government’s grand education reforms but has remained silent in the debate ever since. Then again as chairman of the Sydney Theatre Company he even urged other arts organisations to stay silent on the Brandis budget cuts.

(In an interesting aside, the Australian’s business gossip column ran an item on the day that the PM and Treasurer were upstairs announcing the crackdown on bank chiefs, that Lucy Turnbull was downstairs having coffee with ANZ Chair David Gonski).

For now business will probably stick to debt and deficit warnings, which are much needed but still not much heeded.

And so the vacuum will be filled by real people, talking real words to other real people. They will be loud and brash and not necessarily economically literate, but the Hansons and Trumps will win real votes.

Janine Perrett is a presenter and panellist with Sky News Australia.

 

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