Should Dick Pratt be giving Australia Day addresses and getting feted by politicians after recent court shellackings? Don Boredwalk doesn’t think so.

It’s just what we all want; being lectured by a billionaire about what governments should do and what the community should be wanting and asking governments to do. Spend our money and go into debt.

Yep, I know that billionaires are just like you and me, as Richard Nixon famously said years ago that everyone (men that is) stands at a trough and *** the same. Sorry to be crude but that was Richard Nixon, the idol of Mark Latham.

But his sentiment came to mind on reading Richard Pratt’s exhortation to the nation on the occasion of Australia Day. This is how it was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday.

Here a couple of choice quotes:

Debt is good, business leader Richard Pratt said last night. And Australian governments should drop their “narrow obsession” with the notion that there should be no new government debt.

Mr Pratt said the nation needed to go into debt to build or rebuild ageing infrastructure, or soon face major blockages and failures, “not just the occasional power blackout on hot days”.

Inspired aren’t you by this missive.

Pratt also called for the annual migration intake to be lifted from the present 120,000 a year to 250,000 and for Australia to aim for a population of 50 million, something he has been saying for several years now. Check out an edited version of the address here. Here’s an edited version of the Pratt address.

Everyone it seems has an opinion but I find it a little disturbing that when rich people call on governments and the community to do more, especially spending, then its the community’s money, that will be spent.

The billionaires like Pratt, Lowy and Kerry Packer spend their money on their companies, try to minimise their tax and exhort the rest of us to do more.

After spending years lecturing us for spending too much when Government debt was high, and now worrying about the level of personal debt, along comes rich Richard Pratt to urge us to borrow more and spend more.

It is not surprising that policies which will help Pratt’s company are called for, without any recognition of the benefits to the Visy group from higher spending on water (a current bugbear of Pratt’s), roads, transport.

His Thorney Investments arm has hundreds of millions of dollars invested in a wide range of companies in many industries. It is a form of seed capital and has done a good job, but like all seeds, they will germinate into something bigger with the required fertilisation. That would be higher government spending.

Likewise, more immigrants mean more economic activity, as would higher government spending (now would that mean higher interest rates to keep inflation in check. Dick didn’t mention that). Higher economic activity would mean more demand for boxes, plastics and all those other products from his Visy empire.

Will he invest any higher sales or profits in more infrastructure, for the public good? Pratt’s Visy group has a big paper mill at Tumut on the NSW South-western slopes. The plant cost $400 million and the NSW Government contributed millions in incentives.

These incentives for Visy helped the plant to go ahead. In the interests of providing the government with more money to be spent on infrastructure, will Visy now return its incentives to the Statel Government?

Visy wants to expand the mill but is lobbying against plans by the NSW Government to sell off the state-owned pine plantations around Tumut in a privatisation. Visy is arguing that private ownership of the plantations put the expansion of the Tumut plant in jeopardy.

But income from selling off the tree plantations could allow the NSW Government to spend more on infrastructure. Do I detect a note of hypocrisy here in the Pratt/Visy argument?

There’s a rule for Government(borrow and spend more) and one for me ( don’t do anything that would lower my returns and profits). A case of do what I say, not what I do?

Calling for higher migration levels also seem to be at odds with his belief that Australia has a water crisis.

Pratt is in the camp of big pipes, trenches etc to ship water across Australia. The fanciful ideas of shipping water from Lake Argyle in Western Australia to the southern half of the continent. More dams and turning the coastal rivers on Queensland and NSW inlands, without any consideration of the environmental and social damage that would do to the coastal communities and farming industries, the Barrier Reef or the seas off NSW.

The article from the Sydney Morning Herald quotes NSW premier Bob Carr as almost eulogising (Pratt isn’t dead, I must point out) about Pratt and others from Central Europe who came to Australia in the 30s, 40s and 50s and how Australia would have benefited from more like Pratt and Frank Lowy (Westfield).

But Mr Carr is also on record as saying immigration levels should drop or stop, that we are facing a water and environmental crisis and yet he speaks glowingly of a man who calls for a more than doubling in the annual migration intake and a population target of 50 million people. Do you get an idea that consistency of ideas is not a big issue for some people.

Finally there’s the track record Visy has with the competition authorities. Late last year the company was fined half a million dollars and later became embroiled in the allegations of a box cartel that emerged from its rival Amcor.

Visy has denied any knowledge and the ACC is investigating. But read this short piece from the ABC’s AM program last December for background and from the Sydney Morning Heraldwhich also has details of the $500,000 fine imposed on Visy over a separate offence involving anti competitive claims.

Here is what was reported on the $500,00 fine in a law firm Speed and Stracey’s newsletter called Trade Practices Weekly:

Visy fined for boycott attempt

On 8 October 2003, the High Court of Australia held by 5:1 majority that Visy Paper Pty Ltd, has contravened s 45(2) of the Trade Practices Act (1974) (Cth). The matter was remitted to the Federal Court to consider the issue of penalty which took place on 6 October 2004.

On 18 November 2004, Sackville J imposed penalties of $500,000 on Visy and further penalties of $25,000 on two senior executives for trying to stop a competitor, Northern Pacific Paper (NPP), from buying paper waste from a particular supplier . The ACCC alleged that Visy made a contract which contained an exclusionary provision which attempted to induce NPP to boycott customers or potential customers of Visy.

The aim of such provision was to pressure NPP to become a supplier of Visy, rather than a competitor.

Although the fine imposed was much smaller than the $1.85 million that the ACCC was seeking, Sackville J said Visy’s behaviour warranted a “substantial pecuniary penalty”.

In my opinion, judgements like these call into question the appropriateness of Richard Pratt to be involved in Australia Day addresses.
Competition law is one of the bulwarks ordinary consumers and small and medium businesses have against being ripped off and exploited.

Isn’t it important that those selected to make largely symbolic public speeches on occasions like Australia Day, have a track record of supporting the public good and concepts like competition?

After all, imagine those people involved in the above case. What do they thing of Richard’s Pratt’s exhortations? Somewhat simple and shallow, based on their experience in the legal process that reached the High Court in their case?

A fair point I would think!