Tim Dare, “The Hancock solutions cause stir,”
The Sydney Morning Herald, March 8, 1978, p. 13.

CANBERRA. — Mr Lang Hancock, the mining magnate, yesterday proposed wholesale development of natural resources, wide-ranging tax cuts, and across-the-board reduction of the Public Service to combat Australia’s economic difficulties.

He told the International Press Institute:

The aim of reducing inflation is to try to get the Australian cost-structure down to a level where Australian products can be sold throughout the world.

In the supermarket the Government should bring in a negative sales tax equivalent to the rate of inflation — for the wage earner, the same thing.

He proposed abolition of income tax north of the 26th parallel for at least 20 years.

Mr Hancock said newspapers were filled with a “ghastly concern” about nuclear power, but it was his first choice as an alternative energy source. Next was tidal power in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

He had offered to bury the world’s nuclear waste in his own backyard because it was safe and would be valuable when reprocessed later. Nuclear fuels lost their critical power in 10 years and civilisation would “crash” if “econuts” had their way.

Mr Hancock, owner of the National Miner, was virtually a catherine-wheel of novel suggestions in a speech before about 200 people at the Lakeside hotel.

He voiced doubt at one point whether he was getting through to his audience; some were amused; some appeared embarrassed.

‘Not a democracy’
Among his comments and proposals:

  • There is no shortage of fuels, and nuclear power is the cleanest energy yet discovered. Coal should be the third source, after nuclear and tidal power.
  • “Work is something that Australians don’t agree with.”
  • “We need less government, if you know what is good for you.”
  • “Australia is not a democracy. It is controlled by the Public Service, communist-controlled unions, and the manufacturing lobby. The media is readily subject to these forces. The Prime Minister is powerless to unwind such a dominance of power in Canberra. This is why West Australians say their only course is to secede.”
  • Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra are Australia’s “Bermuda Triangle.”
  • The “black fella” had been the perfect ecologist and had the perfect birth control method. “The Aborigines hit the picanniny on the head.”

Later the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Anthony, was asked about Mr Hancock’s offer to take nuclear waste. Would the Government grant an import licence?

Mr Anthony said that Mr Hancock said many things on many matters. He did not feel the need to comment on every one.