If we didn’t already know who’s running the show in Australia, we surely do today. It’s foreign multinational corporations, major party corporate donors and their big business lobbyists such as the Business Council of Australia.
Labor has caved on its country-by-country tax reform in an embarrassing volte-face which betrays all Australians, many of whom pay more tax income tax than multinational tax avoiders who are able, via offshore related party transactions, to pay zip.
Ironically, it was the transparency reforms of the Abbott/Hockey regime which upped the ante on big business tax dodging via its MAAL and transparency reforms in 2016, delivering billions to the national coffers.
“Big business has warned the Albanese government that new tax transparency rules for multinational businesses will significantly increase the cost of operating in Australia and drive away foreign investment,” says the AFR.
Add this backdown to the secret National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), the Stage 3 tax cuts for high income earners and the failure to curb new fossil fuel projects, mostly by foreign minerals exporters, and the capitulation is complete.
A picture is worth a thousand words
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.