I am not sure if you’ve noticed but Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has spent a lot of time in the last month visiting small businesses and getting on the tools.
On August 30, he was down in the outer Melbourne suburb of Monbulk at Garden City Plastics. Two days later he went to visit Austral Bricks, a company that says it will be hit hard by the carbon tax.
On September 6, he visited Brisbane window and glass door manufacturer Bradnams. Last Friday, he trooped out to one of the distribution centres of automotive retailer Repco. Yesterday, it was off to Pre-Cast Concrete Solutions in Queanbeyan.
As is traditional with many of these company visits, Abbott has donned the high visibility and protective gear and done some work. He’s produced pots, packed boxes and in the news report below, you’ll see him laying bricks at a construction company. As a construction worker, Tony makes a great politician.
{qtube vid:=v_F2g8hpxFU}
There is even a funny little blog dedicated to following Abbott on these visits, called Tony Abbott Looking at Things.
These visits have a number of purposes.
Firstly, Abbott has used almost every opportunity to ramp up his anti-carbon-tax rhetoric, using the business of the day to support his claims by getting company representatives to outline how their operations will be affected.
While it is easier to sell the idea of saying “no” to something, these visits do underline how the Coalition is easily outpointing Labor in the race to sell their carbon tax points of view.
The second benefit of these visits is that they allow Abbott to look like a man of action, in touch with the common worker – a position that has been traditionally the home ground of Labor.
It should also be pointed out that being seen to be “doing” also takes the pressure off Abbott to be seen to be thinking in terms of announcing or articulating new policy. No one is going to ask you to articulate your hazy “direct action” carbon policy when you’re making a pot or laying some bricks, are they?
The final benefit of these visits is that they do help the Coalition emphasise what they see as their heartland of the business community.
As we push closer to the 2013 election, it does appear that business-related issues are going to be more important than they were in 2010, when the Coalition refused to touch IR and both parties released relatively low-key small business policies.
This time around, IR looms as a key battleground and Abbott and his team appear to be working hard to emphasise their SME connections.
It will be interesting to see if Labor responds to the trend of Abbott visiting SMEs.
If it does, entrepreneurs might have another thing to add to the list of business obstacles such as red tape and payroll tax – pesky politician visits.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
