Small Business
A lot of the argument in favor of the Coalition’s attack on industrial relations focuses on the experience of small-business owners, but the Coalition doesn’t care about small businesses, except insofar as they can be merged into big businesses. Luckily, renegade National Party member Barnaby Joyce stepped up (this time) and helped defeat the legislation that would have made rapacious capitalism that much more normative. Don’t be fooled: only what’s good for big business is good for Australia, in Howard’s view, because like most successful career politicians he sold out to the corporate interests a long time ago.