Business leaders are currently calling for political "bipartisanship", but what they actually mean is "policies they agree with". This is writ large in the penalty rate debate, writes Tim Dunlop.

One of the great code words of Australian politics is "bipartisanship". It is often presented as the great Shangri-La we should aspire to, the magical land we should aim to occupy in the name of more perfect government.

Indeed, just the other day, we had a range of business "leaders" pleading with us to enter this sainted state:

Woodside and NAB chairman Michael Chaney has called on the Labor opposition and the minor parties in the Senate to embrace a new era of bipartisanship to ensure vital micro-economic reform is undertaken across the economy. Remarking on the achievements of the Hawke and Keating era that came from bipartisanship, Mr Chaney told The Australian-Deutsche Bank Leadership forum in Perth today that: "It really needs everyone to get their head down and tail up to make those reforms." ...Telstra chief executive, BHP Billiton boss Andrew Mackenzie and ANZ Banking Group chief Mike Smith all said that while they were not surprised by what was happening in the Senate, it was disappointing.

The truth is, there is already an enormous amount of bipartisanship in Australian politics. We saw it most recently when the Labor Party joined with the Government to pass the new data retention laws.

And I dare you to get a cigarette paper between Labor and the Coalition on border security and asylum seeker policy or foreign policy more generally.

More significantly, we see consensus in regard to economic policy. Both major parties - indeed, the entire political class - are committed to an economic platform that we might broadly call neoliberal, a system that seeks to introduce market "discipline" into the workings of government. The privatisation and outsourcing done by governments of both major persuasions are indicative and well known.

Former Hawke government minister Barry Jones pointed out this week just how great this convergence - bipartisanship - actually is:

If there is a united front between the major parties on issues such as asylum seekers or foreign policy, then voters will have to be reminded that ... Australia is - like the US - becoming a state in which government and opposition are essentially two wings of the same bird. For Australian voters, it is like choosing between Coles and Woolworths. At present, Australia is ruled by a Grand Alliance, which refuses to engage in serious examination of, say, climate change, planning for a post-carbon economy, education reform, rethinking foreign policy, or securing an appropriate revenue base for an ageing society with increasingly sophisticated health needs and the shadow of Alzheimer's.

So what are people like the business leaders quoted above even talking about when they say we need more "bipartisanship"?

Well, you will note that they call on Labor and other opposition parties to be bipartisan, not the Government.

In other words, their idea of bipartisanship is that everyone agree with the Government, which is really just another way of saying that everyone should implement policies these business leaders agree with. (Which is why they also cite the Hawke-Keating era with approval.)

To state the obvious, then, if your plea is that one side of politics should adopt the policies of the other side, then what you are actually calling for is partisanship. By definition. That is, the opposite of bipartisanship.

I mean, it's not as if these concerned citizens were screaming for bipartisanship when opposition leader Tony Abbott was actively opposing everything the Gillard and Rudd governments attempted, is it?

So calls for this sort of bipartisanship (meaning partisanship) are an example what the professionals call spin. It's what George Orwell called lying. It's what most of us would call BS.

Those pushing "bipartisanship" are actually pushing a particular agenda and the thing to realise is that they will never stop pushing that agenda.

We can see this writ large with the latest campaign to get rid of penalty rates.

Over the last few weeks, a business lobby group calling itself Too Big To Ignore has been encouraging small businesses in the restaurant sector to put posters in their windows that say they can't afford to open on weekends because of penalty rates.

The campaign has been a massive failure, largely because of a backlash from ordinary people - customers of the businesses in questions. People have seen the campaign as not just an attack on pay and conditions, but as a cynical manipulation of the facts.

As Bernard Keane points out: "Far from being destroyed by penalty rates ... Australia's cafe and restaurant sector is booming and in recent years has been one of Australia's fastest-growing sectors and employers."

Such facts (and for the relevant data, click the link) put the lie to calls for bipartisanship: if you really wanted everyone to rally around a common cause, to come together over policy in the way that the word "bipartisanship" implies, you would be just as likely to call for it in regard to penalty rates as anything else.

That is to say, if the goal is actually bipartisanship, if you actually want cooperation in the name of smooth governance, then why not embrace consensus over an issue where the facts frankly contradict the claim that penalty rates are hurting businesses and the economy?

But no. Rather than concede, business leaders simply shift the argument. Confronted with the failure of the campaign and the fact that voters in general were against cuts to penalty rates, Kate Carnell, the chief executive officer of the ACCI, simply attacked the unions:

Carnell ... said on Monday some small business owners had been intimidated. Some, she said, were called names. And on top of all that, the unions ran a social media campaign. "Free speech is OK but not to claim you are going to boycott," she said.

"Free speech" is, of course, another ones of those terms - like bipartisanship - that people like to invoke when it supports their particular world view. When ordinary people exercise it in their own interests, well, that's intimidation.

So look, can we stop with the calls for bipartisanship, or can we at least make a deal with our dear leaders in the business community?

We'll all jump on your "bipartisan" bandwagon when you start calling for it in regard to issues that aren't just about making life easier for business.

And given the facts are so clear-cut about penalty rates - that they do not harm the sectors you claim they harm - let's start there.

How about you stop lobbying to cut penalty rates and ask the Government to show some bipartisanship on the matter? How about you prove you believe in actual bipartisanship and join the community in supporting the retention of existing penalty rates?

Deal?

I didn't think so.

Tim Dunlop is the author of The New Front Page: New Media and the Rise of the Audience. He writes regularly for The Drum and a number of other publications. You can follow him on Twitter.