Bert Kelly, “Mavis to the rescue,” The Bulletin, November 6, 1984, p. 140.

Last week I said that our centralised wage system, with its fundamental plank of comparative wage justice, was making it impossible for our unprotected industries, who live in the Rough Cruel World (RCW), to prosper. Eccles says that you can always tell a man who is dining out on an expense account by the enthusiasm with which he summons the waiter. The protected industries, particularly the metal manufacturers, are usually the first to give in to extravagant wage demands because they know the export industries will have to pick up the tab. Most thinking people agree with us, but the question this week is: How do we get this fact through to the ordinary citizens of the Living in the Past (LIP) city? They have been reared under the present wage system, they have been told for years that it was one of the laws handed down cut in stone tablets to Moses. How are we going to make the LIP people even start questioning our present system?

Eccles said that he was willing to give them a series of lectures entitled, “The Sombre Facts of Life in the RCW,” but we quickly ruled this out. There is little prospect of anyone being awake at the end of one of Eccles’ lectures, let alone after a series. Fred volunteered to climb in over the LIP tariff wall and give anyone who disagreed with him a thick ear. We ruled this out because we thought it would take too long. Then they all looked expectantly at me. John Stone said, “You tell us what to do, Bert. You should know how the common people think, being one of them yourself.” I didn’t quite know how to take that. However, I said I would give the matter my deep consideration, which is what politicians say.

The next day I left the RCW wilderness headquarters and went home for the weekend. I told the others that I was going so that Mavis could wash my clothes, but my real reason was to consult her about how to get through to the ordinary people living in LIP. I know that some people think that Mavis is a bit simple just because she starts ironing my striped trousers whenever she gets emotional, but all the same she has a lot of shrewd political sense, far more than has Eccles. The other day I was at a meeting when someone suggested that we ought to have another economist join our group. “Where would Bert be without Eccles?” he asked. A bloke at the back said, “In parliament!”

When I spelt out our problem to Mavis she thought for a while and then said, “It is no good giving them lectures, dear, no good at all. You must tell the leaders of the various groups in the LIP that, unless the country can cook a big economic cake, then there will not be big slices to hand around when the cake is cut up.” She meant that I must tell the LIP people that, unless we can get our economy functioning well, we cannot afford to do all the good things that good people want done. She says that I will have to tell the welfare state advocates, the CSIRO scientists, the school teachers, the university chancellors, even the greenies, that they cannot expect to get a bigger slice of the country’s wealth unless we create more wealth, and the same message must be preached to all the people who are always clamouring for more money to be lavished on their pet projects. But we cannot do this while we are dragging our economic chain as we are doing.

I am certain Mavis is right. When people demand more money be spent on their particular causes and I express doubt whether we can afford it, I often hear them say, “Of course we can afford it. We are a wealthy country, we have immense natural resources. If other countries can afford it, so can we.” It is true that we do have great resources but we are not using them so we are not a wealthy country. And one of the reasons why our economic performance is so lamentable, why the other countries in our region who do not have anything near our resources, bound past us up the economic stairs while we stand placidly on the economic escalator, is that our wage fixing system is too inflexible for today’s world.

Mavis says that it is no good talking to ordinary people about the economy, they just switch off as soon as it is mentioned. “Tell them that they cannot get a bigger slice of cake unless we can cook a bigger cake. They can understand that kind of talk.”

So I must go back to the RCW wilderness headquarters and give this simple message to the good and great assembled there. I feel a bit nervous about doing this. I am not frightened of the others, but I have to admit that I am rather frightened of John Stone. I understand that he does not suffer fools gladly. I wonder how he and Mavis would get on.