The race is on! With 2019 expected to be an even bigger year with the Federal election, the NSW election, and the Banking Royal Commission significantly shaping the business and political landscape.
Following an expeditious review, Kenneth Hayne’s Final Report into the Banking Royal Commission will be publicly released this afternoon with strong recommendations around misconduct and poor culture (“greed”) in financial services.
While the report draws from the financial services experience, the findings will radically change the landscape for all boards – regardless of whether they’re in the corporate, not-for-profit or government sectors, and regardless of industry – as directors will be expected to lift their game around corporate governance, culture and ethics.
The Report’s timing will also coincide with the political cycle as we head into the homestretch with the NSW election (23 March) and Federal election (likely to be in May).
While Ms Berejiklian is considered a better NSW Premier than her Labor counterpart Mr Daley (according to Newspoll), the two-party preferred (2PP) vote shows that the two major parties are even, indicating that NSW could enter into minority government.
And the Liberal “brand” in NSW will need to rebuild its reputation as it continues to pay for the change in Federal leadership ousting Malcolm Turnbull in August last year; the 2PP suggests that Prime Minister Scott Morrison could lose up to 21 seats.
Against this backdrop, PM Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg have been campaigning on the Liberals traditional home ground – economics – and trying to mobilise their natural constituency of small businesses and self-funded retirees (as well as former Liberal Party members) as they announce measures such as the instant asset tax write-off for SMEs and conduct town hall meetings around Labor’s “Retiree Tax”.
The campaign hasn’t officially started, yet the Liberals have learnings from the 2016 double dissolution Federal election, the by-elections in July 2017 and the Victorian State election last November.
Labor will also be heading into the campaign with an unorthodox and big target approach for Opposition parties by announcing many of its policies ahead of the election on various issues such as negative gearing, dividend imputation and CGT policies. Will this approach see the Party go from strength to strength or be their Achilles’ heel?
Time will tell.
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