One of the more spectacularly unsuccessful lobbying efforts of recent years has been the Business Council of Australia’s constant demand for tax cuts for its multinational members — many of whom pay far less tax already than smaller Aussie companies. So bad was the BCA’s “campaign” for tax cuts last year that it became a punching bag for its allies in the Liberal Party, with Victorian Liberal eminence grease Michael Kroger demanding the sacking of CEO Jennifer Westacott. So now the BCA has launched a new campaign for those tax cuts. What’s different? Have they actually found some evidence from anywhere on the planet that company tax cuts do anything other than pad corporate bottom lines and shareholder returns?
Heh — no fear. This campaign is based on … retweets. “Retweet to support the #EnterpriseTaxPlan” the BCA tweeted hopefully last night. As of writing, sadly, they only had 23 retweets. Then again, it’s surprising there are even 23 people prepared to support huge handouts to the world’s biggest companies. Who were they? Well, there’s Christine Jackman, who is “Director of Strategic Comms” at the BCA. And Jared Owens, another former Australian hack, who is a junior spinner for the BCA. There’s the official account of the NSW Liberal Democrats — nice to see someone in that party can tweet without making a joke about mass murder — far-right consultant Sinclair Davidson, Michael Potter of the IPA-wannabe think tank CIS, Sally Loane of the big bank front group FSC and a couple of erstwhile Liberal luminaries, Brian Loughnane and Ian Hanke. Sadly, Kroges isn’t on Twitter — or if he is, he never tweets — so he couldn’t lend his support to this brilliant new strategy.
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