One of the reasons that JobKeeper is now dogging the government and Josh Frydenberg — whose political future is starting to look rather grim — is that it is the sort of issue that confirms people’s existing biases.
Explain that the Liberal Party is the party of big government in Australia — as Crikey has been doing for years — and it never gets any traction because it contradicts, not confirms, people’s biases. Labor is the party of big government, regardless of the facts.
But explain that the Liberal Party is handing billions to its business mates, and that confirms an idea that even Liberal voters believe: that the party is too close to big business. And Frydenberg is stuck with it. On current polling in Victoria, Frydenberg faces a difficult reelection fight, and his once-assured status as Scott Morrison’s successor is crumbling rapidly as Peter Dutton burnishes his strongman image in contrast to the weak, passive Morrison.
It’s now possible to imagine a scenario where the government’s poor polling continues and Morrison makes another major stumble, creating an opportunity for Dutton to seize the leadership. The only thing that will prevent that would be an early election.
But the reputational damage from JobKeeper goes well beyond politics. This week, Roy Morgan is promoting new polling that shows that Harvey Norman has entered the ranks of the 20 most distrusted brands, along with Google, Twitter, Amazon and Crown. The pollsters explicitly blame JobKeeper as the reason behind Harvey Norman’s decline, despite Gerry Harvey belatedly repaying a small proportion of the payments received by the group.
Again, confirming bias is important: Gerry Harvey is one of the highest-profile and — despite the protection racket run for him by the newspapers he props up with his advertising — most despised business leaders in Australia, with a long track record of annoying the public with his views on philanthropy (“just wasted”, “helping a whole heap of no-hopers to survive for no good reason”), the disadvantaged (“society might have been better off without them”), the unemployed (“too lazy”), the Australian Shareholders Association (“piss off”), Joe Aston (“he should be hung [sic] or he should be stripped and flogged”) and many another topic.
The fact that even Harvey was shamed into repaying a fraction of his group’s JobKeeper payments shows that Roy Morgan is right about reputational damage.
It’s not just Gerry Harvey’s problem. There’s now a widespread perception that greedy businesses have ripped off taxpayers, with a bill running over $10 billion. At the same time, business collectively are demanding a rapid reopening of the economy, as backed by the NSW and Morrison governments. As Elizabeth Knight at The Sydney Morning Herald pointed out, many are also demanding the imposition of vaccine passports and seeking to mandate vaccinations — areas where the federal government is refusing to lead.
Business has been unsuccessfully attacking lockdowns and border closures for 18 months, urging that the virus be allowed to run free so that businesses could stay open. But now the real test is coming: whether government plans to let the virus circulate in order to open up can withstand the surge in hospitalisations and deaths that will result, and whether leaders of states like WA, Tasmania and Queensland that are coping perfectly well without the virus should be forced to allow the virus in in the name of reopening borders.
Business goes into the coming argument badly wounded. Who will give heed to businesses that have been given tens or hundreds of millions of dollars by taxpayers when they demand that they be allowed to reopen no matter what the cost in lives? The fact that so many have lifted profits and kept JobKeeper undermines their argument about the urgency of reopening the economy.
It continues a pattern throughout the pandemic of business persistently and often ostentatiously putting its own interests ahead of the community, especially of those more likely to get sick or perish from the virus. As the hospitalisations surge and the deaths spike in coming months, standing up for the rights of the rorters of JobKeeper is going to be a difficult position to maintain.
I’m surprised how many headlines mentioned Harvey Norman repaid jobkeeper when they only repaid a fraction. They still have good friends in the media, including the ABC, it seems.
Yes, that intrigues me too. And when one points out in Online comments that HN only repaid 30%, it doesn’t get printed.
If you look at the pages and pages of HN ads in the print media, you might suspect a conflict of interest.
Is Ita still there?
Yes. But Ita also needs government funding to operate.
I understand HN head office did repay some funds. However, the franchisees are mainly independently owned separate entities operating under the banner of HN. This is where some of the confusion about ‘who should repay’ begins. A similar situation may exist with franchise chains such as McDonalds, Hungry Jacks and the Jims (Mowing etc) Group.
That just reminded me of how many companies in Australia have complex structures that end up taking profits offshore. I wonder how much taxpayer money ended up lining the pockets of foreign shareholders.
And how little tax if any (News Corp I am mentioning you) they pay at all.
Every time I even begin thinking about the magnitude of the scale of crony capitalism in this country and how little political will there is to do anything other than exacerbate it, I fall into despair.
By the people of the people for the shareholders…
It’s remarkable how some remarks from Gerry Harvey quoted above paraphrase or echo to some extent the views of a certain German political party that was in government there some eighty years ago; those memorable phrases about ‘life not worthy of life’ and ‘ballast lives’ that weigh on the rest of society, and, more to point, are a drag on business. What a charming old rogue he is.
I prefer a greedy thieving dirty rotten scoundrel myself but that could be just me. ; )
Methinks you miss the rat’s tongue in cheek. Perhaps it was the sun shining off Gerry’s gold tooth.
Agreed. So many threads lead to that same kind of thinking in current political climate.
Thought that myself, but at least he is more the benign form of UK eugenics based round class and character versus the US/pre-WWII German form which was very much about race and ‘solutions’.
I want these ‘business leaders’ (and pollies) to nominate WHICH member of their family they are prepared to sacrifice to Covid to facilitate opening up … any takers???
Depends where you are JB. Up here in the NSW Northern Rivers we haven’t had a case for well over a month, and that was some wanker from Sydney ‘looking at real state’ a loophole deemed necessary by dear Gladys’ govt.
Yes do fell sorry for you. It seems ‘nuanced’ lockdowns are only possible in poor migrant communities where conditions are harsher!
Offer up their 1st born.
What about old Gerry himself. After all he’s just a parasite that’s fed off the workers for decades. I’ve never shopped there and probably never will, it’s up there with Amazon for me.
Harvey is that oily tick who lobbied for the Government to force GST on All goods purchassed with the big on-line shopping paltforms. I could accept GST on new items, but not on second hand stuff. I boycott the bastard. He won’t be getting anymore of my money other than what he extorted through Job-Keeper. He’s worth something like 1.6 billion. What a greedy nasty uncharitable individual.
I’ll pay more for something on-line than buy it from him.
Morrison is desperate for an early November election.
Gladys is helping Morrison along by talking up an early opening.
As for Dutton his days are also numbered, he will never be Prime Minister.
Absolutely disliked by all.
Frydenberg, what a disappointment he has been, a novice just like his boss Morrison.
Josh simply hasn’t got what it takes to be a Treasure, let alone a future Prime Minister.
All in all, we could be rid of this tired lot of failures by November, if we are lucky.
By Jupiter, I desperately hope you are right – that would remove a stinking albatross from all of our necks…!!