The Canberra Times, January 27, 1975, p. 3.

Sydney, Sunday — A new political party, which describes itself as “representing the only new political philosophy since Karl Marx,” officially was formed in Sydney yesterday.

It is called The Workers Party and espouses a free-enterprise, laissez-faire philosophy. “Government” is seen as the villain of our times.

Its President, South Australian Dr John Whiting, explained today, “If the Government laid off the backs of Australians we could be the richest country in the world. Governments can bankrupt and destroy us.”

Every Government intervention is an invasion of personal liberty.

The four other party directors (the party essentially has a corporate structure) are Dr Duncan Yuille, former secretary of the General Practitioners Society, Mr R. Howard, a mechanical engineer, Mr R. Barros, a Sydney Lawyer, and Mr Mark Tier, author of the pamphlet Understanding Inflation.

The Western Australian mining millionaire, Mr Lang Hancock, was the party’s guest of honour at its inaugural dinner at the Opera House last night, but he declined to join.

He said he would be “too much lead in the saddle.”

“I have a lot of enemies and I think I would do the party more harm than good by becoming involved,” he said.

The party is supported by Mr John Singleton, whose advertising agency produced the anti-Labor television commercials for the last Federal elections.

The party plans to run candidates in the next elections. It will concentrate primarily on the House of Representatives.

Dr Whiting said the party had a membership of more than 100.

The party wants government eventually reduced to controlling armed forces, police and courts.

This would mean no taxes, no tariffs, no subsidies or bounties, and no welfare payments.

The party also believes there is no role for the government in economics.