Friendly faces in suburban banks were replaced by foreign tongues in Delhi. Computer generated voices now tell us which button to push to navigate our way to a ‘customer relations officer’ and remind us that we were being recorded ‘for training purposes’. Expletives are now the order of the day for frustrated customers.

The proposed merger between Westpac (one of the impersonal ‘big 4) and St George will see the ‘personal touch’ inherent in the St George brand disappear – the dragon will be replaced by a dinosaur!

Customers will be further alienated as they become even more exposed to bank fee increases that will inevitably be imposed on them. Economic jargon will be used to justify this unconscionable extortion.

One does not have to look far to see the adverse impact of human greed dressed up in the disguise of ‘efficiency’ in other sectors of our economy. Motorists are hostage to oil company giants who brazenly adjust the daily supply and price of fuel to maximise their profits. Service stations might have different company names but to vulnerable motorist they are regarded as a cartel and any hint of real competition is a façade.

Mega shopping centres produce mega profits for shareholders at the expense of small business victims who have no choice but to comply with their outrageous demands for compliance.

The mega cartels in the grocery industry, Coles and Woolworths, use brute corporate force to drive small competitors out of business through predatory pricing and to dictate how much they will pay struggling farmers for their produce. They control every link in the food chain. And what benefits do we see from them in Camden? Their two supermarkets are the grottiest in town!

While it says a lot for their sense of community pride – or lack of it – it is also an indicator of the what happens when corporations become so bloated that communities are regarded as commodities for tycoons in remote boardrooms.

Our welfare system which was supposed to provide a social safety net for the disadvantaged was being widely rorted and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Low income workers who wanted to break the cycle of unemployment and poverty were unable to do so because they had to work to union rules or suffer the consequences. They had no choice.

The election of a coalition government allowed us to break the cycle of union domination, workplace intimidation and welfare dependency. Under John Howard’s leadership and Peter Costello’s stewardship business leaders and employees were offered choices that rewarded productive work.

Over the next 10 years we paid off our $80 billion dollar overseas debt, ended the monopolistic reign of militant waterfront unions, brought inflation back under control, reduced unemployment to a generation low and ended many of the rorts in our welfare system.

One of the major contributing factors to this economic success was the reform of out taxation system. These reforms were bitterly opposed by Labor and the unions at the time but their predictions of impending doom and gloom never transpired.

An untintended consequence of successful economic management by the Howard government is complacency. We now have a generation who has never experienced recession or economic hardship. Some are ‘relaxed and comfortable’and take our economic prosperity for granted. Others realize we live in a highly competitive global economy and must continually strive to improve. Ray Croc, the Founder of McDonalds, once said ‘you are either green and growing or you stop and you rot’.

The future belongs to those who want to embrace change and the power of choice is a right that should not be denied to those who wish to do so. Neither government nor unions have a right to deny people the opportunity for success in whatever field they choose. Federal governments have a responsibility to ensure that the vulnerable in our society are protected through the establishment of a workplace authority and the introduction of regulations to ensure employees are treated fairly.

The threat of the Labor government to wind back the clock on these vital industrial reforms and re-empower militant unions will send a shiver down the spine of those who can remember the bad old days of rampant inflation, high employment and economic vandalism.