Pride and privilege: why Australia needs grand designs for containing corporate greed

The desire to contain greed was a crucial dimension of early 20th-century nation-building. Do we have the political will to restrain it in the 21st?

The ACTU recently identified Harvey Norman as the face of corporate greed after its refusal to pay back $22m of jobkeeper despite doubling profits to $462m during the pandemic while resisting calls for a 3.5% increase in the minimum wage. The company has not been alone in deciding not to return the government subsidy, a choice also taken by Solomon Lew's retail group, Premier Investments, which enjoyed a 90% profit increase in the six months when it received $15m in wage subsidies. A total of 25 ASX companies that received the payment have been found to have paid executive bonuses totalling $24m in the 2020 financial year.

It is tempting to imagine that allegations of greed have been an unchanging feature of the rhetoric of the left throughout Australia's history. But the real story is more complex, and more interesting.