John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 276-77, under the heading “Workers Party.”

The Workers Party was started because it was necessary. There is no other political Party in Australia, in Government or Opposition, dedicated to reducing government to its proper function of protecting individual rights, to reducing taxation and regulation, and to fighting for freedom for all Australians.

The Workers Party is essentially anti-State, but is pro-government. It seeks the rule of law, rather than the rule of men. It totally rejects the idea that the function of government is to distribute privileges, and rejects as meaningless such bromides as “the national interest” and “the public good”. It believes that people function best under the positive incentives of freedom, rather than the negative incentives of fear. It believes that the freedom to trade is as much a part of freedom as the freedom to engage in activities that have been termed “victimless crimes”.

The Workers Party does not want government power in order to dictate how Australians should live. It does not want to dictate taste, economic conditions, lifestyles or what anyone may choose to do in voluntary co-operation with others.

The Workers Party seeks to abolish most governmental power and governmental activity. It seeks only to provide a framework of government sufficient to protect the rights of all individuals — male, female, black, white, rich, poor, sick and healthy.

However, it does not believe that protecting the “rights” of one person can or need be done at the expense of violating the rights of another. It does not believe that one person’s need gives that person a moral claim on another person’s life or property.

The fundamental principle underlying the position of the Workers Party on all issues is that “no person or group of persons has the right to initiate the use of force, fraud or coercion against any other person or group of persons“. That is the basic non-interference principle of the Workers Party. It believes that its platform is a consistent application of this principle. It fully recognises that in many areas consistent application of this principle leads to unpopular and misunderstood conclusions — for example, on the issue of drugs, education, immigration, roads and welfare.

However, unlike the Liberal/N.C. Parties, the Workers Party does not determine what it believes by counting votes (which is probably just as well) and is more concerned with the truth rather than votes — with what is right rather than what is popular. It further believes that what is right is practical in the long run. It is practical because it is right. Nature does not tolerate contradictions and so it is not possible to make a wrong idea work in the long run.

Other Australian political Parties may dress their proposals up in fine humanitarian terms, but their results tell a different story. They are killing our economy, our standards of living, and our freedom. They are all, intentionally or unintentionally, laying the groundwork for a totalitarian State. The only difference between them is how long it will be before it arrives.

The Workers Party seeks to put commonsense and principle back into politics, in place of short-sighted, self-interested pragmatism.

Contrary to popular belief, the Workers Party is not the hand-maiden of big business. There is probably nothing our institutionalised corporate elites fear more than the open competitive market, and the elimination of all privileges, both of which the Workers Party advocate. The Workers Party is not a conservative fascist Party either. It has no desire to enforce any form of victimless crime legislation, bust commune dwellers, or force people to live “respectable” lives.

The Workers Party believes that mixed economies are a long-run impossibility, numbers games are inherently immoral, and welfare Statism is anti-humanitarian.

Cynics will say that if the Workers Party was elected to political office, it would just behave as any other political party. The Workers Party would reply that it would have to do what it says it would do. If it didn’t it would be guilty of such enormous and blatant hypocrisy that no voter would support it again. It could also be said that any organisation’s basic strength is in the people who are in it. If enough decent and honest Australians join the Workers Party in order to achieve the stated Workers Party goals, it will be done. If not, it won’t.

Australians have for many years been weaned onto the State. It will, no doubt, take many years to wean them off. The basic tool of peaceful change is education. The initial function of the Workers Party has been to toss new ideas into the ring, and to promote discussion. This discussion is part of the process of education and the changing of ideas.

Change will be gradual, but even the longest journey starts with the first step. We cannot say whether the Workers Party will succeed or not, or even whether it will survive, all we can say is that its principles must survive if Australia is ever to realise its potential. Whether those principles are implemented by the Workers Party or any other Party is an absolute irrelevancy.