AT LEAST one man in the conservative ivory towers has made an effort to delineate the problems caused to our social fabric by business.

NAB chairman Ken Henry has spoken out about the failure of business and the business political parties to address our most fundamental issues.

Ken asserts that business must "accept responsibility for the social and environmental outcomes” of business activities.

I had to read this twice to then proceed to see if he was going on to change his political allegiances to Labor or a new socialist party.

Alas no! He had been doing some "soul searching” so that businesses can be more effective in the lives of employees and customers and their families, thus "improving the wellbeing of our community”.

Ken's solutions (predictably) reside in taxation reform that he believes will direct us away from unsustainable paths we have been on for too long.

Under all the tax reforms he suggests, it is business again that gets the benefits, not the poor.

We need a better, more inclusive approach for a more just and equitable society and it will never be business that delivers it.

Ken can pontificate to the four winds but this will not change the greed-by-profit motive and the inbuilt structural inequalities created and maintained by our business class. Ken has simply again made us aware that we are subject to the tyranny of privilege.

MICHAEL HENDERSON

Maroochydore