Bert Kelly, “Taken for a ride — to nowhere,” The Bulletin, September 1, 1981, p. 147. Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982), pp. 203-06, as “Charabanc (b).”

Last week I told you that, after Sir Phillip Lynch had warned the occupants of the Australian Car Industry charabanc that he was not going to do any more back seat driving because the previous government interventions had proved so disastrous, he took his hands away from his over-riding steering wheel in the back seat and released his handbrake and away we went. I was impressed with the smoothness of our take off until I realised that we were just coasting down hill. When I expressed surprise about this, I was told that the car industry had been going down hill ever since about 1964 when the government started interfering. Evidently our charabanc was only built to go down hill.

We had only gone a few miles down the track when there was a great commotion in the front seat where the five manufacturers sat. After a lot of threshing around the Chrysler driver jumped out, to the great satisfaction of the other four who were pleased to have more elbow room so they could swing their steering wheels. Then Mr Mitsubishi quickly climbed in to take Chrysler’s place so they were as crowded as ever.

There was a great deal of indecision about where they wanted to go. The G.M.H. man always tried to head for a place called “World Car” and every time we passed a signpost to there, he would try to wrench his wheel around. This met the loud approval of some of the bigger people in the next compartment, those component manufacturers who felt strong enough to stand on their own feet rather than on someone else’s feet. The other component people agreed with another front seat driver called Ford who wanted to steer to some place called “Wallop the Commercials”. Japanese drivers didn’t say anything, they just bent low over their steering wheels and concentrated on cutting corners. The others remaining in the second compartment seemed to hate all the others equally. There was a lot of shouting about 85% plans, some wanting more and some less. The only thing about which everyone could agree was that all past government decisions had proved wrong and what they now wanted was some right government decisions, only there was no agreement at all about what these should be.

The union officials in the third seat announced as soon as we had started that, wage indexation being finished, they were going to apply for an increase in their award. The manufacturers immediately said that such a wage increase would make them even more uncompetitive than ever so they would have to be protected by even higher trade barriers which would make their cars even dearer. “So what?” was the unions reply, “Make those sods (pointing to the car users) pay more.”

The car users burst into tears at this. “We are already subsidising you at the rate of $1,000 million a year or about $15,000 for everyone employed in making cars and components,” they protested angrily. Then one of the sharper ones who had read the Industries Assistance Commission draft report, said that the government practice of continually making cars dearer was limiting the demand for cars so that every year there were less people employed in making cars in spite of the lavish protection the industry receives. Another chap pointed out that there were twice as many people servicing cars as there were in making them and if people really wanted to help employment in the industry, it would do better to lower the price of cars by reducing the tariff on cars. This display of economic logic quietened the unionists, but only for a minute or two. Then they grabbed their coshes and hammered hell out of the cars users which is a kind of knee jerk reaction with them.

The State ministers quarrelled fiercely among themselves as we went along. Those from Queensland, W.A., Tas. and the N.T., whose citizens have to pay extra for their cars but whose state did not have big car plants to gain some benefit, were hopping mad. The N.S.W. man was more nifty and agreed with almost everyone. The ministers from Victoria and S.A. said that it was the duty of every loyal Australian to keep buying cars even if it ruined them. “Where’s your patriotism?” they angrily asked the car users. “But it won’t help employment in the car industry,” the car users wailed, “You have tried all those solutions before and they have all failed. Surely you can see how disastrous all your past interventions have been. And haven’t we got any rights? What about your fine Liberal philosophy about freedom of choice? You remind us of Henry Ford who told his customers that they could have the choice of any car colour they wanted as long as it was black! We can evidently have the choice of any kind of car we want as long as we are prepared to pay an extra $2,000 for it.”

All this time Sir Phillip was lying back in his back seat, chewing his cigar. He looked very wise and strong but perhaps he was just trying to make up his mind.