1. Ken Day, “Friedman was right,” The Australian Financial Review, April 1, 1976, pp. 2-3, as a letter to the editor.
2. Ken Day, “Time for progress,” Nation Review, September 1-7, 1977, p. 2, as a letter to the editor.
3. Viv Forbes, “Right on the move,” The Bulletin, November 27, 1979, p. 6, as a letter to the editor.
4. Viv Forbes, “Taxes on all but sex,” The Bulletin, October 14, 1980, pp. 17-18, as a letter to the editor.

1.
Ken Day, “Friedman was right,” The Australian Financial Review, April 1, 1976, pp. 2-3, as a letter to the editor.

SIR, Johnathan Kendall’s report on Friedmanism in Chili (Financial Review, March 22) is a classic example of how journalists can take facts and present a completely distorted view of the truth.

To suggest that Friedmanism means an unusually repressive political system would be the most blatant untruth ever, a comparison of Friedman’s book Capitalism and Freedom with Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago would show even the dimmest of people that Marxism has little to offer in the way of freedom, unless you call the murder of 66 million people freedom.

Using Kendall’s figures, a drop in the inflation rate from 700 per cent to 340 per cent or half during a period when oil prices have quadrupled and copper prices are at an all time low, should speak for itself.

Marxism didn’t exactly achieve any miracles — with copper prices at a record level and oil prices at a steady level, it achieved 700 per cent inflation even after welching on foreign debt.

Any blame for violation of human rights surely cannot rest on Friedman, his writings as well as his son David and other free market economists such as Ludwig von Mises, Rothbard, Hayek and Hazlitt would present the only political system that protects human rights.

Friedman has said many times that the cure for inflation is likened to the cure for drug addiction or alcoholism and in the short term has some nasty side effects, like less Government spending and more unemployment, the other alternative is economic and political oblivion.

KEN DAY,
Chairman,
Workers Party, NT branch,
Darwin.

***
2.
Ken Day, “Time for progress,” Nation Review, September 1-7, 1977, p. 2, as a letter to the editor.

It is about time that you found a new Darwin correspondent, one that is a little more factual and certainly a lot more in touch with the local scene (see Nation Review, August 11).

First, as the results have shown, the Progress Party could not be dismissed, after all we only made electoral history by increasing our support from 1.5 percent to 10 percent overall. This after less than seven months since we formed the new party, a swing of some 600 percent.

The Progress Party is not the Workers Party — as national president, John Whiting, will quickly tell you — but rather a party formed on January 26 this year from members of the Workers Party.

We are not right-wing at all, but rather a limited government party, a party that believe ultimately to limiting government to that of protecting people’s rights, rather than violating them.

The party has no desire to enforce any sort of victimless crime, maintain monopolies, bust commune dwellers or pot smokers or force people to live “respectable” lives.

In fact, we have nothing against socialism, we however will not let it be forced on people by the state. If you wish to be a socialist, fine but don’t force it on me, the same as I will not force free enterprise on you.

KEN DAY
NT Progress Party
Darwin, NT

***
3.
Viv Forbes, “Right on the move,” The Bulletin, November 27, 1979, p. 6, as a letter to the editor.

Congratulations for noticing at last “the growing voice of academic right” (B, November 6). New developments take a while to penetrate the southern citadels of academia and the media, but it is good to see you catch up.

Had you bothered to venture into the frontier States two years ago, you would have noticed the birth of a radical political movement called the Progress Party. You would have seen them get an average 10 percent of the vote across every electorate in the Northern Territory. You would have seen regular grass-roots support of 5 percent, 10 percent and 15 percent among the farmers of Geraldton, the graziers of Dalby, the dairymen of Gympie and the suburbanites of Mount Coot-tha in Brisbane. You would have seen a new breed of councillors appearing in Shire and City Halls as far apart as Kalgoorlie, Ipswich and Charters Towers. You would have noticed a growing philosophical confidence among the maverick spokesmen for the ratepayers, the taxpayers and the consumers.

This is not an isolated event of little import. It is a deep, quiet revolution in ideas of world significance.

In North America, the Libertarian Party has established bases in Canada and in every State of the great republic. The first of the small government men are taking their seats in local government and in the State Houses of Alaska and Nevada. Their forward scouts are prowling around the governors’ mansions and observers are established on the hills around Washington.

Over in Europe the New Philosophers have routed the Marxists from the campuses of Paris and the voice of the Taxpayers’ Party is being heard in the land. In Belgium the Radical Party is getting to the root of the problem of swollen government. The crushing taxes of Denmark have helped the anti-tax Progress Party to become the second largest group in parliament. The Norwegian Libertarians, by offering relief from the grey sameness of Scandinavian socialism, have started to seat their men in Oslo. Even in Britain, the sparse descendants of Adam Smith and William Gladstone are standing up for the beleaguered individual against the mercenaries of the unionised bureaucratic State.

The advance of the field-grey regiments of the collectivist army is shuddering to a halt. Its retreat will not be painless, or uniform or without cost, but it is surely inevitable. An army of principled ideas is invisible.

You have noted the new debate in the Australian Universities. The ragtag militia of the commonsense politicians is also in the march. Start watching for the first assaults on the ivory towers around Ill-fare City, ACT.

VIV FORBES
National Secretary, Progress Party
Indooroopilly, Qld

***
4.
Viv Forbes, “Taxes on all but sex,” The Bulletin, October 14, 1980, pp. 17-18, as a letter to the editor.

Congratulations to Mr K. Courtenay for highlighting the cancerous growth of our public service (B, September 30). Taxes are the other side of that coin.

In order to raise the taxes needed to feed these cuckoos in the nest, nothing can be omitted from the tax net. There are laws on everything that is produced or consumed, bought or sold, imported or exported, earned or spent, eaten or drunk, owned or gambled, signed or registered, driven, slaughtered or buried. They’d even put a tax on sex, if they could find a way.

Must we continue this self-flagellation?

VIV FORBES
National Secretary
Progress Party
Indooroopilly, Qld