Bert Kelly, “Political songwriters adept at changing the lyrics,”
The Australian Financial Review, October 19, 1979, p. 11.
Reprinted in Economics Made Easy (Adelaide: Brolga Books, 1982),
pp. 65-67, as “Tariffs and the P.M.”

When I listen to speeches made by the really important people in Canberra, the ones written for them by speech writers, I go weak at the knees with envy and admiration. Let me give an illustration from a speech made in August this year at Lusaka in Africa by the Prime Minister. I quote from it with proper reverence:

The concept of economic interdependence is not without its ambiguities and is sometimes put to questionable polemical use. But when all reservations have been registered the fact remains: our fates are inextricably intertwined and in the contemporary world no society is an economic island.

You can see what I mean when I talk about the grandeur of it all. It is true I have some trouble understanding the meaning, but you have to admit it sounds magnificent.

But it was later in the same speech that I really pricked up my ears. For one thing, I could understand what was being said and, secondly, I agreed with it whole-heartedly. This time I quote with understanding and approval:

The Australian view is that there is also an inescapable link between inflation and protectionism. Each feeds on the other and each frustrates the aspirations of developing countries. There is no doubt that the adverse effects of higher inflation in recent years are largely responsible for the drift towards protectionism … Defensive protectionist policies exacerbate the situation they are meant to deal with, in that they result in an inefficient use of labour and capital resources. They are inimical to general economic recovery and put the future growth of developing countries in jeopardy.

Well, what do you think of that? When I showed it to Eccles he said “I couldn’t have said it better myself!” and that is the highest praise Eccles knows.

There was a time when I would have been wary about what appears a change of heart by the Prime Minister. I once thought that he had two speech writers, one who wrote the nonsense he used to talk in Australia about handing out tariffs to any industry that had a strident voice and a readiness to kick in the ruck. Then there was the other more educated chap who wrote sensible stuff for the Prime Minister when he was overseas. I thought that these two speech writers must have had a row or something and so they never spoke to one another. But now I am getting hopeful that Mr Fraser’s emergence as a recognised world figure has made him realise that he can no longer act on the world stage as a world statesman talking about the virtues of lowering the barriers to world trade and then come back home to practise what he has been so eloquently and properly condemning while away.

The economic experience at home would also be nudging him along the same road. He must by now have become acutely aware that there has been a steady fall in employment in the very industries that have been so heavily protected at such high cost to the economy in general and the export industries in particular. So I think the Prime Minister really means what he says now. At least, I hope so.