A Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly], “Tears on TV may soon end tariff cuts,” The Australian Financial Review, July 5, 1974, p. 3.

When the Government announced its 25 per cent tariff cut last year, there were loud lamentations from many manufacturers who prophesied imminent ruin for themselves and drew a poignant picture of thousands of people tramping the streets looking for work.

Eccles was rather sceptical at this reaction, but even he has been surprised at the smallness of the impact of the tariff cuts on employment.

It is easy, with hindsight, to say now that it was obvious that the shortages in the supply of imported goods and their increased cost would dampen down the adverse impact of the tariff cuts.

But it wasn’t obvious at the time — not to Eccles, anyway.

He keeps nagging me that I should continue to give the Government, particularly the Prime Minister, credit for a decision which has turned out to be right, and which certainly wasn’t easy.

But he also keeps warning me that things won’t always work out so well, that the time is coming when a reduction in tariffs in some areas may be the right solution for the economy as a whole, yet may create unemployment in a particular industry, and that I should prepare myself for the pressures that will come on me and other politicians when this occurs.

And, it is not hard to imagine how strong these pressures will be.

I remember how, last year, when the very reasonable and logical Tariff Board report on consumer electronic equipment (TV sets, radios, etc) was received, the industry and the unions concerned came to Canberra and prophesied immediate ruin.

Indeed, the campaign was so effective that the Government watered down the Tariff Board recommendation.

And the administration of the duties by the Customs Department has been biased in favour of the Australian industry. In other words, the pressure campaign paid off.

If so effective an exercise can be mounted in times of full employment, how much stronger it would be if unemployment were high enough to be a worry?

There would then be many powerful forces with which to contend and the most sinister of these would be the media, particularly television.

You could imagine how the campaign would be mounted: the affected industry leaders would combine with the affected unions and arrange a joint approach to the TV stations.

The cameras would come down and show the locked gates of a factory with a few bystanders appearing to be trying to gain entrance and (with luck) the media may even be able to induce some nearby kids to take off their shoes and parade barefooted outside.

And best of all, the wife of a displaced worker could appear wiping her eyes on her apron.

From then on the campaign would really get under way and we would have delegations to Parliament House and questions asked, preferably with the galleries packed by demonstrators.

And the affected union leaders would approach the Labor Party politicians, and the industry leaders would approach us, and before long you would probably see some pretty fast footwork on the part of the Government unless it has more courage than most governments.

If the Government backed down it would make a statement saying that it did so because it wanted to safeguard employment.

But the employment gained may well be at the expense of employment in other industries whose raw materials may be made more expensive by the higher duties.

Or it may be at the expense of the health of the economy as a whole.

High duties mean higher costs and these have to be paid by exporters in the end. So the high duties may weaken the economy with serious effects on employment.

These things may be plain to Eccles; he would know of the adverse effects on employment of high duties if they weakened the economy as a whole.

And he would also know that, in a particular industry, the employment gained by lavishly protecting product X made in factory A may very well be lost if factory B has to pay more for product X, its raw material.

But it won’t be easy to explain this to people.

There wouldn’t be any locked factory gates to show on the screen, and a few tears on television are more persuasive than all Eccles’ logic.

Most people can resist everything except temptation; most politicians can resist everything except pressure.