John Singleton, Nation Review, January 13-19, 1977, p. 303.

The good thing about the return of the “free enterprise” Liberal/Country Party government is that it has had nothing whatsoever to do with the return of free enterprise. Which is pretty natural seeing that free enterprise has never been allowed to exist in Australia in any event.

But the thing that isn’t natural is that instead of even returning to some fake-phoney system at least closer to free enterprise than the previous Labor rabble the Liberal hayseeds are taking us from worse to worst.

And almost every company meeting I sit in on these days centres around the effect that something we say might have upon the trade practice legislation.

The whole act is so vague and Mickey Mouse that in the end it has been best defined for me by one of our most eminent QCs: “If they want you they can have you,” which is very reassuring for no one in their right mind, as well as being against the whole principle of justice.

How can you rationalise guilty until proven innocent for anyone: even a businessman. And almost every day we pick up the papers and see the Big Brother government trying to demonstrate that the Trade Practice Act is there to encourage competition when it’s really just there to make sure the government gets to run the lot.

Last week for example we saw the Act deal with that most important and essential of all consumer products: BEER. We saw the judgment laid down that from now on when we go into a pub to drink the piss we must be able to have all brands of piss. It doesn’t matter if you own the hotel and you own the brewery and you want to sell your beer in your shop; the government won’t allow it unless you sell your competitor’s piss as well.

And if your competitor happens to sell the piss at a price that will put you out of business too bad.

How can all that benefit anyone?

And all us poor mug drunks are conned into the fact that all the millions of dollars involved in all the legal crap that goes on before such judgments are made are for our good.

No one cares to realise that we would have really competitive selling of the piss only if anyone could make the piss and sell the piss to anyone who wanted to get pissed any old time and at any old place. That would be too logical and we might finish up with civilised drinking conditions. Anyway, that is typical of our “free enterprise” government’s understanding of free enterprise.

They tell us who can sell the piss and when and even if. And we get shithouse bloodhouses open at the wrong time. Terrific. And all in the name of free enterprise.

So then we move right along from grog to travel and we find our very own government of principle and courage threatening the entire travel industry with jail sentences for executives of airlines or travel agencies that dare to offer a discount to the poor mug customer.

The argument is that because the government (again) has decided to run an airline (Christ knows why) called Qantas, pricecutting might hurt its profits (if ever they make any).

The facts are that many overseas carriers can bring pretty full planes to Australia, but then they fly out pretty empty because us Aussies prefer Qantas. So the only way we are going to fly Air Frog or with any other dubious mob is if it’s cheaper. Natural.

But to overcome this law of nature our government has decided that it is illegal for you and me to be offered cheaper fares. ILLEGAL. . . All prices are the same. Or else. And not just a fine.

Straight to jail. And every financial paper out this week spells out the details.

I mean, if the government was logical it would see that the greatest advantage for us poor servants of the state would come from folding down Qantas and getting on with things we can make a quid out of. Or flogging Qantas off to some individuals who are prepared to compete price and all, boots and all.

But no! Our free enterprise government has now resorted to threatening jail to any executive of any competitive airline who dares cut a price. And that was the week that was.

Now we can drink any brand of piss we want in the pubs whether the man wants to sell it to us or not. Whether we give a stuff or not, which we don’t. Which means we’ll pay more for beer.

And at the same time the first prosecution up and coming against an airline for daring to offer you and me cheaper travel.

Isn’t it nice to know we are being so well looked after.

Qanfuckingtastic.