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by Ben Potter

You wouldn't be surprised to see a cartoon depicting US President Donald Trump sucking investment out of Australia through a straw on Twitter.

But you might be surprised to see it being promoted there by the Business Council of Australia above the caption:

"Trump's pledge to cut US company tax to 15 per cent means Aussie investment & wages are at risk. Retweet to support the #EnterpriseTaxPlan #auspol."

Diving back into the fray is risky for the big-business lobby. It ran into a brick wall when it backed the Turnbull government's plan to cut company tax from 30 per cent to 25 per cent in last year's election, and the plan got flayed by Labor as a sop to "the big end of town", leading to recriminations about its performance.

Twitter spat

Sure enough, the Business Council got into a Twitter spat last week. Latte Sipping Bogan carped, "Yeah, nah... How about you guys start paying some tax now instead?", and others took a similar line. "More alt-facts from @BCAcomau," staff at think tank The Australia Institute sniped.

The Business Council batted them back with polite counter-arguments – and the odd link to a conventional, fact-filled tome on its website.

It is showing a bit more leg in its use of social media these days. Other business groups also plan to use social media and community campaigns more to try to turn around their battered public image in an era when traditional lobbying of politicians and journalists isn't doing the job.

This year isn't shaping any better. Populist politicians from President Trump to Nick Xenophon and Pauline Hanson are singing the siren song of protectionism and a slew of top executives have lost their jobs or got caught up in scandals. Business Council president Grant King has been accused of presiding over a cover-up at Origin Energy, where he was chief executive until last October, in claims the company hotly disputes.

Tin Ear

Innes Willox, chief executive of the Australian Industry Group, says business has to get over its tin ear and find a way of landing clean punches in policy debates if it is to turn around poor community sentiment.

He says business groups plan to take a leaf out of the book of social-media savvy foes such as GetUp! and argue the benefits of pro-business policies such as tax cuts and workplace reform in the wider community and on social media.

"I think you'll see over time a lot more in terms of social media and direct contact with communities. I think you'll see a lot more business in the community," he told The Australian Financial Review.

"I don't think we have but we just can not afford to have a tin ear."

James Pearson, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says the group is prepared to learn from opponents such as GetUp!, which he describes as much more well organised, well funded and internationally connected than in the past.

Take a leaf

"I am prepared to learn from those organisations that do advocacy well and take a leaf out of their book," he says.

"We are paying more attention to the way modern contemporary advocacy is done. Our presence in social media is more more pronounced, deeper and broader, than in the recent past."

Business groups have been talking to each other since the Turnbull government just scraped home in the July election.

Pearson says they are thinking more about collaboration with like-minded groups that support open economies and free markets.

Address them

Willox says they need to make more of an effort to listen and respond to opposing arguments.

"It's about getting out into the broader community and being more sophisticated in your messaging and being more receptive to arguments on the way through and addressing them," he says.

"I think you'll see a much bigger effort to put issues into a broader community benefit context.

"With the arguments you have got to bring them down to community level – what you can do for communities and geographic areas and subsets of communities. You have got to be much deeper in your arguments these days."

Gloves

He says groups with anti-business agendas such as GetUp! and unions do not always fight with gloves on. "We are not going to get down in the gutter but we have to find ways to land our punches."

The AiG is a broad industry group with roots in manufacturing, representing about 60,000 firms with more than a million workers, or about 9 per cent of the total workforce. The Australian Chamber is the broadest business group with more than 300,000 member firms with more than 4 million workers – more than a third of the workforce. The Business Council of Australia represents about 130 top firms employing about 10 per cent of the workforce.

Pearson says the challenge for business lobbies is a serious one with the emerging need to campaign continuously and appeal to a broader set of interest groups.

No rout

But he says 2016 hadn't exactly been a rout, with the restoration of the building and construction industry watchdog, the passage of the registered organisations bill for unions, and the prospect of a start on company tax cuts for small firms.

He says traditional advocacy – lobbying politicians and journalists – will still be required, but business lobbies will also need more money to conduct the new forms of advocacy.

"It's going to require a greater level of commitment including funding to win arguments that until recently were taken as given on both sides of politics."