These six Bulletin letters to the editor — one by Paul Hogan, one by Duncan Yuille and four by Ron Manners — reinforce each other, so here they are together:

Paul Hogan, “Inflation for all,”
The Bulletin, March 15, 1975, p. 30, in response to The Bulletin’s request for readers to send in their thoughts about Labor.

The Labor Government’s greatest achievements have been that they’ve:

  1. Helped bring inflation into the reach of the average working man.
  2. Rekindled an interest in our historic past. Example: brought back the bread and drippin’ sandwich.
  3. Kept Billy Snedden in Opposition.
  4. Kept sex and violence off the streets and in Parliament House where it belongs.

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Ron Manners, “Dependants created,”
The Bulletin, March 15, 1975, p. 33, in response to The Bulletin’s request for readers to send in their thoughts about Labor.

The Whitlam Government has been successful in creating a class of people who are permanently dependent. In doing so they have proved that the free-market law of “supply and demand” applies to their compulsory welfare programs — i.e. if you supply the demand for welfare recipients, the supply of welfare recipients will rise to fill that demand!

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Ron Manners, “But who pays?,”
The Bulletin, July 2, 1977, p. 8, as a letter to the editor.

Combing the newspapers for any elusive good news (this is the only hobby I can still afford!) I noticed the success story of the growth rate of our Social Services Department in Canberra.

The “good news” was their expansion by an additional 375.

It only goes to show that the old law of supply and demand still applies: “If you increase the demand for welfare recipients, the supply will rise to meet that demand.”

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Ron Manners, “How to suck eggs,”
The Bulletin, July 16, 1977, pp. 5-6, as a letter to the editor.

My laughter muscles were unexpectedly triggered when reading in “Personnel Management News” (B, June 3) of a politician, the euphemistically-titled Minister for Productivity, Mr McPhee, advising businessmen how to run their businesses more efficiently.

Presumably the advice would be based on the government’s own outstanding running of such things as the post office which, unlike any other business, doesn’t have to pay taxes, and the railways (no taxes either).

Most businessmen are receptive to ideas as long as they come from organisations with good track records, but it is hard to imagine that one of the legitimate roles of government should be to advise businessmen.

If politicians can be allowed these flights of fancy into the business world, perhaps some of us mere commercially-oriented entrepreneurial types could have a month’s crack at running government departments (with some startling innovations like “balanced budgets” and personal accountability for errors).

I am sure that, just for the sheer hell of it, there would be even more takers than there are government departments so it may be necessary to run a contest, perhaps tied in with the lodgement of income tax returns (why not inject a little humour into this soul-destroying chore?).

Each tax return could include a section: “Please enter me in the ‘Run Your Own Government Department For A Month’ contest. My reason for wanting to take over the — (write in name of department) for a month is (complete in 25 words or less). You may add $1.00 to my tax assessment as an entrance fee.”

What sort of luck would I need to draw the tax department as a prize and what would I do with it?

My only worry is whether I could do enough damage in one month, to save the country and emerge as a national hero!

RON MANNERS
Kalgoorlie WA

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Duncan Yuille, “Medical monopoly,”
The Bulletin, April 19, 1975, p. 7, as a letter to the editor.

The only flaw in Peter Samuel’s exposure of The Medibank Guessing Game (B, March 29) was his statement that “the doctors are organised into particularly arrogant unions with outrageous monopoly powers to control the supply of medical services and to rig their own incomes.”

The statement might give the impression that it was the doctors who gave themselves monopoly powers; in fact, it was governments which created the monopoly:

  • By controlling the supply of doctors through the monopoly State education system.
  • By controlling the licensing of doctors.
  • By introducing graded privileges for doctors through the artificial Specialist Register and Differential Rebates Scheme which, together, have caused the shortage of doctors in general practice.

It was big government stupidity which caused doctors to organise themselves into “unions” just as all other groups and individuals have had to organise lobbies to protect themselves against governments and their bureaucracies.

However, Samuel was correct in stating: (a) that L-CP governments made terrible mistakes in formulating the current unsatisfactory health (insurance) scheme; and (b) that people do not need expensive government insurance cover for “every fiddling consultation.” What they need is insurance against catastrophic illness, similar to that provided by motor-car insurers, who do not provide cover for minor scratches, routine servicing and the like.

In his budget speech of September 17, 1974, then Treasurer Crean estimated that in the current financial year he would rip an average of $1200 in taxation from every man, woman and child in Australia ($4800 from the average family of 4) and that a third of that amount would go toward the provision of wasteful and inadequate government health and welfare services.

Australians should ask themselves:

  • What they can obtain in the way of proper health, life and superannuation insurance with an extra $400 in their pockets for every single year of their lives (in addition to the money they pay for “health care” to State governments and current government-controlled medical and hospital benefit funds) — especially if the Federal Government was not permitted to cause inflation.
  • How much more they will have to pay for the socialist pipe-dream of Medibank.

Australians should also inquire why it is the government is the only advertiser permitted to indulge in totally misleading advertising — such as that Medibank will be “free.”

DUNCAN YUILLE, MB, ChB
Hon Secretary
Workers’ Party
Darlinghurst NSW

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Ron Manners, “Licence to mislead?,”
The Bulletin, June 7, 1975, p. 9, as a letter to the editor.

In Dr Duncan Yuille’s letter (B, April 19) he raises the question of the government indulging in misleading Medibank advertising.

If, as a businessman, I used equally misleading, and vaguely comforting advertising phrases, I would be open for legal attack under the Trade Practices Act 1974.

When I put the question of this dual standard to the Attorney-General’s Department I received their written reply, from which I quote: “The Trade Practices Act 1974 does not apply for Australian Government Departments or instrumentalities.”

The inference is that the government has been given the only legal licence (i.e. a monopoly) on misleading advertising.

R. B. MANNERS
Kalgoorlie WA