The Victorian Employers’ Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) has long been a crusader for “free market” policies. Its website champions deregulation, privatisation and increasing the powers of business and the police to trample over community opposition to projects like the East-West toll road, as well as the anti-picket “move on” laws.

It also favours “reducing red tape”, which in many cases means removing safety protections for workers or other rules that unions have fought for to help workers.

A recent internal dispute inside this bosses’ organisation, however, has led to some very interesting document leaks which show that, while the VECCI may love subjecting others to the whims of the market, it is highly dependent on government contracts and government assistance.

According to VECCI budget papers, the organisation receives $15 million a year in state government grants; it has taken $140 million in contracts since 2003.

If it wasn’t such an outrage, the irony of government subsidies to a group campaigning against government spending would be hilarious.

If VECCI is going to keep calling for smaller government and an end to “waste”, it could start by refusing the tens of millions spent funding sizable pay cheques for its executives.

But for the VECCI, “small government” really stands for “government for the rich, by the rich”. It stands for transferring public wealth and service provision to private hands, allowing corporations to extract profit while most of the risk is carried by taxpayers.

And it expects the rest of us to fund its advocacy work.