What have corporations done for us??

To paraphrase John Cleese, not as much as the Romans, despite their claims to the contrary.  Any business impacts our economy in only three ways.  They employ people, they pay taxes and they impact on the flow of currency between Australia and other countries - this is usually referred to as our 'terms of trade' or 'balance of payments'.

They employ people, directly and indirectly.  There are some 11.5 Million people employed in Australia at any one time.  Always bear that figure in mind when industries claim how many people they employ.  For example, black coal mining employs 25,000 throughout Australia.  That is 0.2% of total employment.  Industries also claim 'indirect' employment.  This varies from industry to industry and is always difficult to quantify.  Generally it is somewhere between 3 and 10 times the total people employed directly.  However, these indirect employees would only be affected if a business or an industry closed without there being another business or industry to take its place.  A good example is when BHP closed down their steel mill in Newcastle.  That steel mill provided between 5% and 10% of all employment in Newcastle, yet, with careful planning, staff were retrained, new businesses opened up and Newcastle handled the transition very well.

They pay taxes to the different levels of government.  Corporate tax to the Federal government, payroll taxes and resource taxes to State governments and Rates and charges to local governments.  Off setting these taxes paid are the costs that the government incurs in supporting a business.  Looking after the health of their employees, providing roads and rail to help them move their goods, water, sewage, power to enable them to operate day by day, etc.  Also offsetting those taxes paid are the 'externalities' that are a cost to the government.  The main externalities are pollution and waste.  The additional health costs from smoking, pollution of waterways from mining, increased greenhouse gases leading to climate change, etc.  The amount of tax paid and the offsetting costs vary greatly from industry to industry.  Farmers selling organic products to local people will have minimal offsetting costs.  The car industry, coal mining, etc have substantial offsetting costs.   Sadly these offsetting costs are rarely specifically quantified to individual industries.  Which is a shame because it could be quite telling on the true benefits received from those taxes that are paid.

Finally, every business impacts on our balance of payments.   The vast majority of businesses impact negatively.  That is, they have to import more than they export.  This is why, for many years now, our overseas debt continues to climb.  This primarily has an impact on our exchange rate - though no one fully understands how, nor do they fully understand the long term ramifications of continually increasing overseas debt.   The main industries that are beneficial to our balance of payments are in mining and agriculture.  But their figures do have to be taken in context.  The miners, in particular, are always going on about how much export income they bring into the country.  Some people think this export income goes directly to the government - and the way the miners portray it at times, you would think that it does!  Any export income that a company earns goes straight into their bank account.  But offsetting that income is the money they then have to pay overseas for their purchases.  Most of the operating costs of a mine, excluding labour and utilities, will be for manufactured product, and we all know what has happened to manufacturing in Australia over the last few decades.  Even when the miners purchase from local businesses, those businesses will also have to import product from overseas.  Then there will be further payments made overseas in the form of dividends to their overseas shareholders and interest paid to their overseas borrowings.  Sadly, there is no data identifying these outflows of our currency to specific companies or industries, however I would be surprised if less than 75% of their export income goes back overseas again, directly or indirectly.

Corporations are a long way behind the Romans when it comes to what they have done for society.  So let's keep it all in perspective.