A Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly], “You can lead a horse to water, but …,” The Australian Financial Review, December 6, 1974, p. 3.
[Two years later a column appeared with the same title, by the same author, in the same newspaper — “You can lead a horse to water, but …,” The Australian Financial Review, September 17, 1976, p. 3 —,  but it’s different.]

Leo the Labor man is getting querulously critical of the economy. When Mr Whitlam was sitting uncomfortably on the economy’s head a few months ago in an attempt to control inflation, Leo sat around criticising any tendency to inconvenience the horse.

“Just make out you are being responsible, Gough,” Leo advised, “but if the horse struggles, let him up. We want him to love us. You mustn’t act like a statesman and take unpopular action. That may help your image in the history books but we’re more interested in how many votes you can get for us at the next election.”

So Mr Whitlam has ceased sitting on the horse’s head, having learnt the hard way that this position, necessary though it may be for the safety of the people in the trap and, sometimes even of the horse, doesn’t endear one to the horse. So the horse is now on his feet with Mr Whitlam furiously feeding it economic oats in the hope that it will start to kick up its heels again.

Leo and his mob are peering round the stable door offering advice, “Give him more feed, Gough, give it anything it wants,” they say. “Make its coat all shiny again, it doesn’t matter if later it kicks in the front of the trap. That may be a bit uncomfortable for those in the front driving seat, but we’ll be all right in the back. Feed the brute anything it wants, at least till the election’s over. Things are sure to get better soon, now we’ve got a new Treasurer.”

But things aren’t getting any better, nor will they while inflation goes galloping on. Leo just can’t understand why the economy is so sluggish — why the horse won’t work well, no matter how much oats it eats, and how well it’s groomed.

The sad truth is that few people would want to risk their hard-earned money investing in Australia at the moment, though almost everyone is willing to invest the other chap’s money, if they can get their hands on it. Leo thinks that this unwillingness to invest is all port of a capitalistic plot on the part of big business and the press.

But this is not the root cause of the trouble. It is far more deep-seated. For instance, before people make any considerable investment in the future, they want to do some planning. Yet how can you plan for the future with an inflation rate of about 20 per cent? Thus, each week’s delay in beginning the Red Cliffs Project in South Australia increases the cost of housing the workers by $40,000, the cost of the loading jetty by $25,000 a week and the pipeline by $150,000 a week. It is not easy to do wise planning with this kind of cost escalation upsetting all the arithmetic.

And investors know that they would probably have to deal with militant union activities when they do get going. The restrictive practices of many of the unions would make the activities of any capitalistic monopoly look bland indeed. If you want to invest in building a factory you know that the cost may go up by 30 per cent in many areas and you may well have to contend with a stoppage during a concrete pour which would cost thousands of dollars.

If you succeed in doing your planning properly and the unions become responsible again, you know that you would have to contend with the Prices Justification Tribunal, and hope that you could charge enough to make a profit out of the process. You might well get treated like BHP.

But if you do make a profit it would have to be discounted by the 20 per cent inflation. And you know the stock you are holding will have to be replaced by much more expensive purchases so your book profit will be artificially high. And you will pay tax on your book profit.

But you know that if you weather all these storms and eventually you succeed in clambering up the ladder of success with infinite effort and considerable risk, the Government will be waiting for you at the top to grab a lot of what you have made, in taxes.

And you know too, that if you don’t make the effort and sit around in the sun of unemployment relief or are a professional student, you will get looked after by a benign government, because you are a failure. So what is the sense in making the effort to look after yourself? The government will if you won’t.

That’s what’s wrong with the economic horse. You can give it all the oats in the world and you can groom it until your arm aches, but it won’t work unless it has to, or is encouraged to.