The Premier of New South Wales, in an unwise fit of populism, has implicitly threatened Westpac that, if they dare to offshore some of their operations then this “would be taken into consideration” when their contracts are up for renegotiation.

This sort of threat is both bad for business generally, but also bad for New South Wales – even the threat means that companies will have to price in some political risk if they are to do business with the NSW government in the future. Having a government trying to make companies make business decisions on the basis of politics is unwise, at best.

See finextra or the

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