by a Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly],
The Australian Financial Review, May 16, 1975, p. 3.

“Get big or get out” was the catchcry that haunted farmers, though I have never been able to discover who started that hare.

But the Labor Government seems to have a particular sympathy for big and powerful firms which is rather surprising in a government which has always proclaimed its sympathies for the little man.

One of the most glaring examples was the decision to scrap the IAC report on passenger cars.

This meant giving a consumer subsidy of $300 million a year to the big overseas-owned car companies, compared to the IAC recommendation of $100 million a year.

If my farmers had got such a handout the media would have gone mad with rage but it is evidently all right if you are big.

Then Electrolytic Zinc, one of Australia’s big and powerful companies, with an issued capital of $36 million and which last year had a profit of $13.3 million with an earning rate on shareholders’ funds of 23.8 per cent, seems to have been given a grant or loan of $625,000, though no one seems to know for what.

I have heard that it has been promised $2 million at a rate of $72,000 a week on condition that it doesn’t retrench any employees.

This works out at a subsidy of $155 a week for each man.

But there are little businesses up and down the land which are in the same position, but because they are small all that they get is abuse.

Then Australian Pulp and Paper Mills, the only fine paper maker in Australia, with an issued capital of $44.04 million and an earning rate on shareholders’ funds of 11.6 per cent, is also getting a handout of $625,000.

No one has told me what or whether it is a gift or a loan or whether APPM has to pay income tax on it. It seems a queer way to go on, and we are behaving more like a banana republic each day.

Dr Cairns will claim that it is only money that the companies are getting and there is plenty more where it came from if he can keep the printing press going.

But you can’t help asking why it is that the money only seems to go to big companies.

I have mentioned before the favourable treatment meted out to PACI, which has a monopoly on the manufacture of sheet glass in Australia.

It has been successful in persuading the Government to impose duties to prevent the importation of glass from undeveloped countries.

Well, on April 23 the Government referred to the Temporary Assistance Authority the question of whether there should be emergency protection imposed to protect the company further against imports.

But the inquiry was programmed for April 29 and of the six intervening days, one was Anzac Day and two were the weekend, so what chance did the importers have to marshal their case?

Maybe there had been so much public comment about flat glass that the importers should not have been caught with their pants down.

But certainly the same cannot be said for the kitchen glassware section of the industry where again there is only one Australian manufacturer, Crown Corning, which is jointly owned by ACI and Crown Corning of the US.

This company has an arrangement with the Australian Hotels Association whereby those hotels who buy branded glasses from the Australian manufacturer collect a royalty payment which has the effect of giving the Australian company a great advantage against importers who have not got this advantage.

There has been no public agitation about imported kitchen glassware, so the importers must have been caught quite unprepared and unable to present a proper case to the TAA.

But you have to be big to get on with this Government.

In the case of the consumer subsidy to the car industry there was some public argument, though too much of it took place behind closed doors after the IAC report was made public.

But in the handouts to EZ and APPM there has been almost no public announcement. Nor has there been an explanation why PACI and Crown Corning should receive particularly favourable treatment.

When I told Fred about these queer goings on he was not surprised.

“Evidently you’ve got to be big — or black,” was his only comment.

-=-=-=
Appendix for mature Economics.org.au readers

Wanda Jamrozik, “The boat people of 1949 had problems, too,”
The Sydney Morning Herald, August 27, 1988, p. 1.

At 5 am on October 20, 1949, a small ship, the Amarapoora, rounded the heads of Sydney Harbour. Her crew was Indian, her officers Scottish. Just 10,000 tonnes, she had been a hospital ship for the Red Cross in World War I.

This was to be her last voyage to Sydney. Soon she would be towed away and scrapped, but not before safely delivering 598 young eastern Europeans, eager to begin a new life.

Among them was Kalman Flicker, who had returned to Poland after the war to find his home had been destroyed, his family had disappeared, and only the ashes of the centuries-old Polish-Jewish culture remained.

He responded to the Soviet offer of repatriation for all Polish citizens and went to Krakow. There he met another young man, a Warsaw-born Jew, George Rosenberg, and together they began to plan for a new life, perhaps in Israel, perhaps elsewhere.

They made their way to Germany to the immigration camps, and began the long process of obtaining acceptance from one of the many countries receiving refugees. Everyone wanted to go to America. But the queue was long and only single people were being accepted.

“I wanted to go to Israel,” Mr Flicker says. “But you couldn’t go there. It was very complicated. Some people had the skills they needed but for us it was looking very, very slim. I put my name down for whatever comes. Australia accepted me. I was ready in five minutes.”

Initially, George Rosenberg was not so enthusiastic.

“I went to the Australian Consulate. The man looked at me. He said, ‘Well, you are going to Australia?’ I said, ‘I don’t know’. I had heard Australia has black people. I thought, ‘How am I going to get married if I go to Australia?’

“So he showed me an album of how Australia looked. He convinced me that if I came to the big cities or even country towns I would not find one black person. I was a bit convinced. I saw the big buildings, the Harbour Bridge. It looked beaut. Finally I gave in.”