Are Australia's business lobby groups past their peak?

At the BCA launch in 1983. Pictured are: Don Hughes, John Cain, Bob White, Arvi Parbo, Bob Hawke, Milton Brideland, John Bannon, Cliff Allen and Andrew Peacock. Photo: Monte Luke

The arrival of the reformist Labor government in 1983 meant business needed a strong, united and credible voice to act as a counterweights to the unions. And Hawke -seeking a business group that he could deal with - welcomed the BCA's arrival.

It was lunchtime on the second day of spring in 1983, and a glittering event was underway in the ballroom of Sydney's Regent Hotel.

As dozens of chauffeured limousines idled on George St outside, hundreds of the nation's top businessmen and politicians were dining on prawns and avocado inside.

It was an occasion equal to the grand ambitions of the body that the newly-elected prime minister, Bob Hawke, was pleased to be launching that day: the Business Council of Australia.

This new body – comprised of 60 of Australia's most powerful corporate chiefs – would not be a lobby group that would "whinge to the government about narrow interests", pledged its founding president, Sir Arvi Parbo.

Rather, it would be a non-political group that would develop "objective long-term views" in the "broad national interest". 

The BCA was, Hawke said that day, "an idea whose time has come".

That early BCA took bold, inventive positions on policy issues, being one of the first groups to propose a system of enterprise bargaining, for example. And when things became tense with the Hawke and then Keating governments, it was up for a fight; booking full-page ads in the nation's broadsheets to push for cuts to government spending.

"The BCA was a new idea; [it was about] blue sky policy making," says University of Queensland's Stephen Bell, professor of political economy and a long-time BCA watcher. "They wanted to set the policy agenda, rather than just react to it."

But times change. Listed company bosses no longer get about town in chauffeured limousines; the Regent's glitz has been refurbished and rebranded into history. The reform push of the 1980s has receded in the national memory, and the BCA is no longer regularly described – as it was throughout the 1980s and 1990s – as "influential" and "powerful".

The impression lately is that federal governments aren't all that interested in what peak bodies think

Stephen Bell, professor of political economy at the University of Queensland

Australia's peak business groups are confronting a challenging new reality, as old certainties of corporate life fall away.

It is a world of deep public cynicism about big business and its motives, where a populist backlash has emerged against the economic agendas popular with think tanks and business lobby groups.

Corporate spending on items such as business associations is under scrutiny from investors. Companies can now communicate directly with customers, shareholders and other public "stakeholders" in ways unimagined just a decade ago.

Within days, mining giant BHP will publish a long-awaited review of its membership of industry bodies, following a shareholder resolution at its annual meeting last month calling for it to quit groups where there was a "manifest inconsistency" between their policies and those of BHP.

BHP Chairman Ken MacKenzie (left) and chief executive Andrew Mackenzie faced pressure at the company's AGM.

This resolution, lodged by NGO the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR), chiefly targeted the Minerals Council of Australia. Feared and respected for its devastating 2010 campaign against the mining tax, the MCA has had a horror run of late, with its chief executive departing in September, reportedly at BHP's behest.

Iluka Resources has departed the MCA, citing cost-cutting. And Wesfarmers – an MCA member through its Queensland coal mining outfit Curragh – confirmed to Fairfax Media this week that it would end its MCA membership at the end of the year, a move it said was due to reasons of "value".

The BCA has seen its membership ranks and revenue slip, and has weathered near-constant criticism from long-time foes and one-time friends alike.

Disunity has bubbled to the surface at several business associations. At the Australian Bankers Association (ABA) there was a reported – and denied – split during the year between the big and second-tier banks as calls for a royal commission gathered pace.

There was fresh attention on AGL's departure not only from the MCA but also from the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) – which AGL said was for climate change policy reasons. This came as an apparent surprise to APPEA.

Last week, the Financial Services Council's (FSC) former policy director, Andrew Bragg, detailed the conflict within that body's membership over the totemic issue of independent directors on super fund boards.