by a Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly],
“But please don’t use my name old man …,”
The Australian Financial Review, December 2, 1977, p. 3.
Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982),
pp. 49-51, as “Boatbuilding.”

Some readers of this column have been critical of Eccles and me when we claim that the tariff burden is both real and big. They say:

All this talk about $4,300 million tariff cost is only an economic theory. Only academics really believe that tariffs impose a cost on other sectors of the economy.

Fred gets angry when he hears this kind of talk.

Once upon a time he thought that a tariff was the charge for bed and breakfast in a hotel in the city. He knows differently now and I suggest that some of the high protectionists try telling him that the size of the tariff burden is all in his mind or is a creature of Eccles’ twisted economic theories.

Fred used to enjoy being angry about tariffs, but not any longer.

Now, with the meat very close, indeed, to the bone, with costs overtaking any small increases in prices for his products, he says that it’s about time that other members of Parliament who claim to represent farmers in Parliament came to the assistance of Eccles and me in our efforts to get the tariff burden lightened just a little instead of being increased all the time.

Still, in spite of all Fred’s urgent admonitions, I sometimes privately wonder if Eccles isn’t getting me in a sweat about something he’s just thought up.

But when I start thinking in this fashion, along will come some factory owner who claims that his profitability and employment giving opportunities are being diminished by the operation of the tariff system.

He will point out that he is the user of some heavily protected raw material, the cost of which is made a great deal dearer by the tariff. I often hear him complain:

If only I could buy my raw materials cheaper, then I could compete with imports.

Please do what you can to get the tariff of my raw materials reduced then I will be able to compete with imports and so employ more people.

Then, unfortunately, he almost always added the rider that he would be grateful if I didn’t mention his name or circumstances when pressuring the Government on this question. He says:

It isn’t really that I’m frightened, but I like to keep in with the good and the great in the Government.

Besides, the Chamber of Manufacturers doesn’t like it if someone steps out of line. And I have to buy and sell in the market and people get rather nasty if I get out of step.

So do what you can, old man, but please don’t use my name or let the media know the details of my case.

So it was with some interest and relief that I saw the Four Corners program on March 19 in which a boatbuilder spelt out the damage of the tariff on fibreglass and other boatbuilding materials to his business.

His employment giving opportunities had been damaged by the much vaunted tariff system which is said to do the exact opposite. I quote from the script supplied by the ABC:

Boatbuilder: The main problem really is the duty on the imported material against the duty on the imported boats. For example, we are paying an average rate of about 40 per cent on our raw materials. Yet you can import a completely built up boat for about 15 per cent duty. So this makes it almost impossible to compete.

John Temple (interviewer): Why do you use imported material?

Boatbuilder: The Australian material is still more expensive. For example, fibreglass. We are paying an average of 20 per cent more for Australian material so it is still cheaper to import than use Australian.

John Temple: It sounds as though you are telling me that the Australian tariff structure is going to be the end of the Australian boatbuilding industry.

Boatbuilder: Exactly. They changed the Tariff Board to the Industries Assistance Commission and I don’t really know what industry they are assisting. They are certainly not assisting us. We would have an advantage over imports if they abolished all tariffs. If there was no tariff on boats or imported material we would have an advantage over the importers. So something has got to happen or we will just have to give it away.

Now if Eccles or I had written that, mean minded little men would have said it was economic theory. But it isn’t.

It is the poignant plea of a battler trying to make a crust, competing against boatbuilders in other countries which do not weigh their boatbuilders down with tariff burdens designed to help but which more often hurt the secondary industries they are said to serve.

Further reading for Economics.org.au readers, especially relevant to our title: Punemployment: people are neither numbers nor puzzle pieces; the platitude attitude, collecting one Paddy McGuinness and two Bert Kelly columns