According to someone called Oscar Ameringer, politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. However, when Tony Abbott spoke at the Business Council's 30th anniversary dinner last week, he was very much in protecting-big-business mode.

''On election night, not quite three months ago, I declared that Australia is under new management and once more open for business,'' he told the captains of industry. ''My business - the business of government - should be making it easier for you to do your business because government doesn't create prosperity, business does.

''Governments' job is to make it easier for good businesses to do their best … that's why almost everything we've done over the past three months has been to make it easier for Australians to do business.''

It's possible, of course, that Abbott didn't really mean all that. Perhaps he was just greasing up business people because they were who he happened to be speaking to. Maybe next week he'll tell a bunch of consumers he's doing it all for them.