Bert Kelly, “A touch of Fred’s anarchy,” The Bulletin, July 19, 1983, p. 118.

Ever since I quoted that Centre of Independent Studies article by Neville Kennard about the debilitating effect of government intervention on business, I have been inundated with other examples. In desperation I took a carton of correspondence over to Fred for him to winnow through and, as usual, he came up with one of his really practical solutions. “Pass a law outlawing all government, Bert,” he said wisely. “Most of our troubles begin and end with governments.”

I have so many examples in front of me that I don’t know where to start. Perhaps we should begin again with Kennard because the government iron has really entered his soul. Kennard hires out equipment of all kinds to builders and other people in Sydney. He wanted to import some shipping containers for use as storage units on building sites and he found a Japanese shipping line with containers to sell. So, after some haggling, a deal was done and containers began arriving in Melbourne and Brisbane with Kennard paying the 30 percent duty and everyone happy. Or perhaps Kennard was not altogether happy but he paid the duty and was brave about it.

Then the containers began to be landed in Sydney and the Customs people stepped in and told Kennard that they could be imported only if they were paid for before arriving in Australia. Puzzled by all this, he asked if it would be all right if he were to reload the Sydney containers on a ship, take them out to sea again, pay for them there and then bring them back? “We think that that would be permissible,” was the weighty bureaucratic reply.

Fortunately Kennard wrote to the then Minister for Business and Consumer Affairs, Vic Garland, and, after describing his position, ended with this poignant sentence: “I hope you can resolve the situation before your department really starts to look silly.” Fortunately, the minister took the hint but what would have happened if Kennard had not been pigheaded?

Here is another case. I quote from a letter from Barry Hughes, of Hughes Engineering, in Southport, Queensland. He says: “Last year our company bought $120,000 worth of steel. We could have bought the same Australian (BHP) steel from New Zealand for $95,000, including freight there and back.” It should be noted that the freight and handling charges to and from New Zealand would be the most expensive in the world. I do not say that government made this arrangement compulsory but certainly the way the government has stifled steel competition has encouraged this stupid behaviour.

It is not only Commonwealth governments who get their clumsy paws in the business machine and it seems that Liberals are as eager to do this as are socialists, although they are always proclaiming their distrust of government intervention. Yet, when Liberals were in power in South Australia, they allowed supermarkets to sell chicken meat on late shopping nights while refusing them permission to sell red meat. You can imagine how this made the red meat producing farmers see red, particularly as they were feeling the competition from chicken meat very keenly. Evidently this was done to stop butchers having to compete with supermarkets on late shopping nights.

The Liberals did the same with bread. Some supermarkets began cutting bread prices, foolishly thinking that the Liberal Government, being dedicated to competition in the market place, would be glad. But instead our people quickly put an end to the price war on the grounds that there would be less bread delivered thus putting some bread carters out of work. If they had thought of it, they would have probably demanded that bread carters go back to using horses and so create even more employment.

Adelaide is notorious for having too many petrol stations. A petrol price war sprang up but the Liberal Government put a stop to that, saying that price cutting would force some stations to close, so putting some people out of work. Yet surely it is Liberal philosophy to encourage competition — or so we are always saying.

The Victorian Liberal Government stopped supermarkets and other groups from selling beer cheaply because this competition was unfair to hotel keepers. My poor heart bled for them.

However, I have to report that the British are ahead of us in this matter of government intervention. In that country, first class mail is delivered before second class mail. A friend in Wales told me that his postie gave him a second class letter and then asked to have it back so that he could deliver it to him later. However, we are determined to catch up and we are working on it.