Lang Hancock, “Viewpoint: Time for Truth!” Sunday Independent (Perth), unsure of date and page number. (With thanks to the legendary John Zube and his LMP.)

I notice you are particularly concerned about the future of small business.

I must confess that I am more concerned about the survival of free business, because this is the environment which best fosters small business but which does not penalise big business just because it is big or profitable.

We need businesses of all sizes and freedom will produce this diversity.

My business is mining and I have been involved in many small mines.

The definition of a small mine has changed over the years. Once a small mine was one which had only one or two partners and one or two miners.

Now a small mine is one which has only one or two corporate lawyers and one or two tax consultants.

As a leader of the American mining industry said the other day: “Our industry is like a robust giant being tied down by a million silken strands. Each strand has its narrow explanations and its vocal advocates. But who is looking out for Gulliver?”

It is ironic that representatives of small business have to gather in Canberra to discuss their future. If you want to see the problems of independent business all you need to do is look out the window.

You are surrounded by a vast overhead of public and private lobbyists whose chief preoccupation is with getting a larger share of the cake for themselves and their supporters.

No politician or lobbyist can increase production, except by the speed they get out of the way.

No government can make the community prosperous. Government can only redistribute.

In the short term it can share the poverty. In the long term, redistribution of the surplus production of the efficient will ensure there is no more surplus production generated.

This increases the poverty to be shared.

If you don’t believe that, go to any country from any part of the political spectrum where the government runs the industry, and you will find people putting in time. As the old Russian proverb says: “They pretend they are paying so we pretend we are working.”

You will understand my scepticism about the good that will come from the creation of a new bureaucracy, The Canberra Development Board.

To me that sounds like trying to cure a sick man by giving him a stronger dose of the same medicine that made him sick in the first place.

I imagine that this new bureaucracy will promise to provide low interest loans and other financial assistance to “small” business.

Which group of Australians can expect higher taxes, charges or interest rates to provide these subsidies to the chosen few?

It will also probably promise to provide training and advice to small business. Will this be another “free” service provided by government “experts”? If so, it will probably be worth even less than what it costs.

The new board may even promise to investigate the problems caused by small business by other government departments. Judging from past performance, their first act will be to hire expert staff and send out a long compulsory questionnaire to every business in the country.

They will then hold public enquiries and produce voluminous reports at our expense. These will be filed. Nothing more will happen.

This is not the solution; it is the problem.

This new Trojan horse should be strangled at birth, together will all the other electoral gift horses from previous governments.

When I received your invitation to address this seminar I was amazed to read that your organisation believes that there have been heavy cuts in public spending in the Canberra area.

According to the Commonwealth Statistician the total outlay of all public authorities has never gone down in any year, at least for the last decade.

In the 1970s the figures are: 1970 $10 billion; 1971 $11 billion; 1972 $12 billion; 1973 $13 billion; 1974 $16 billion; 1975 $23 billion; 1976 $28 billion; 1977 $32 billion; 1978 $36 billion; 1979 $39 billion (estimate).

I see no evidence of cutbacks here. There is also no fall in Commonwealth outlays or in the number of public employees.

To my knowledge, there has never been a year in which the expenditure or the number of public employees in any Australian government authority has fallen.

Thus your problems stem not from a cutback but from a moderate reduction in the rate of growth of goverment spending.

This is the typical withdrawal symptom of an addict — you are addicted to the drug of government funds.

I recently read a book called A Time for Truth by William Simon, who was secretary of the US Treasury from 1974 to 1977.

Simon paints a graphic and frightening picture of the growth of taxes, regulations, deficits, inflation and unemployment, in the world’s largest democracy.

He explains how all these ills can be traced to the actions of the expanding state.

You have probably heard of my Wake Up Australia flight. William Simon sent a personal message to that flight. In closing my address I can do no better than repeat Simon’s closing words:

My earnest advice to you in Australia is this.

Remove the shackles from your productive enterprises and people and let the proven miracle of the free market be put to work.

Be outspoken in your support for those individuals and organisations who understand the unbreakable connection between economic and political freedom.

Withdraw your support from those who prefer the philosophy of increased state intervention into your lives and your pockets.

Honour those who strive to save, to invest, to build, to produce, to invent, to hire, to fire, to resist coercive impediments, to trade, to risk, to profit and to grow.

Free trade and freedom of opportunity are still ideals which run can arouse the imagination of our children.