John Singleton with Bob HowardRip Van Australia (Stanmore: Cassell Australia, 1977), pp. 153-55, under the heading “Liberal/National Country Parties.”

The platforms of these two parties are as much a sick joke as that of the Labor Party. They have the same high sounding, non-specific, and hence very dangerous phrases, the same types of errors and contradictions.

From our point of view, however, the errors of these two parties are more dangerous than those of the Labor Party. The Liberal/N.C. Parties are the traditional defenders of property rights and free enterprise in this country, and so their errors not only discredit their parties, but far worse, discredit both these concepts. Bad defence of a proposition is worse than no defense at all.

The situation of the Liberal/N.C. Parties is even worse than that, for not only do they defend these propositions badly, they don’t even really believe in either the proposition or the defence. They profess to believe in rights, but support taxation, conscription, land resumption, fractional reserve banking (fraud), all manner of restrictions on voluntary trade, censorship, sexual repression, discrimination, persecution, redistribution of wealth, and victimless “crimes” to name but a few. Every one of these violates the rights of individual citizens.

They profess to believe in free enterprise, but apparently without any knowledge of free market principles. They support tariffs, subsidies, coercive monopolies, wage legislation, price controls, trading restrictions, licensing, coercive collectivisation of industries, foreign investment controls, quotas, legal tender, central planning, coercive redistribution of population and industry, State run industries and services, and a host of State run marketing bodies, and industry boards, councils and committees, again to name but a few.

Just like the Labor Party the Liberals and the Country Party believe it is a function of government to dispense privilege. The only disagreement is who should cop the privilege. The businessman. The farmer. The process line worker. The artist. The bum.

The contradictions in the policies of the Liberal/N.C. Parties almost defy belief. How can the National Country Party, for example, with a straight face, say on the same page of its platform that is believes in media “free of government and political interference” and then call for “maintenance of a dual system of both national and commercial radio political controls” (our italics)? How can the Liberal Party seriously state that it believes in a free enterprise manufacturing industry operating within a mixed economy? How do both Parties propose to ensure the right to equality of opportunity, or the right to free education, or adequate health care, without violating the rights of some other people (particularly their property rights) to provide them?

One can only assume that the written policies of these Parties are cynical window dressing to cover what is simply a desire to obtain and hold political office. Certainly, the record shows that they have progressively, and most effectively, sold out on their supposed principles, and have blown with the political wind in their unprincipled chase after votes. Their record in the defence of genuine free enterprise and individual rights can only be described as deplorable, and it’s high time they were exposed for the charlatans that they are. They will talk all day about their fantastic ideals, but in the end lack the courage to actually do anything except sell them out.

The Liberal/N.C. Parties have yet to realise that if you go from A to point B in a thousand steps over twenty years, the end result is the same as if you did it in five steps over three years.

All three political Parties — Liberal, National Country and Labor — agree, when all is said and done, in the ultimate superiority of the State over the individual. The only real difference is that the Labor Party is a little more honest about it, and intends to get it over with quicker.

If you don’t believe it, read the Labor, Liberal and National Country Party platforms.