Bert Kelly, “A drug on the free market,”
The Bulletin, February 15, 1983, p. 99.

At a recent council meeting of the South Australian Liberal Party, the parliamentary leader, John Olsen, made his first speech in his new job. We listened to him with close attention and some anxiety. But I have known Olsen or years, so it was no surprise to me to hear him make a first-rate speech which went a long way to heal some of the recent election wounds.

I was particularly glad to hear Olsen speak very decisively about the philosophical differences between the Liberal and Labor parties — especially as regards government intervention.

Getting help from the government is like taking a drug: you soon come to rely on it.

I have often illustrated this tendency by relating what happens to the bears at Yellowstone Park in the United States. These are fed so lavishly by passing tourists during the spring, summer and autumn that they are likely to starve to death when the tourists stop coming in the winter — so special measures are necessary to care for them.

Olsen conveyed the same message by quoting a passage written by English economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill more than 200 years ago. He said: “Every function super-added to those already exercised by the government causes its influences over hopes and fears to be more widely diffused and converts, more and more, the active and ambitious part of the public into hangers-on of the government or of some party that aims at becoming government.”

When Olsen sat down, we all clapped enthusiastically.

I was sitting next to Mrs Laidlaw and she clapped even louder than I did. Her husband, Don Laidlaw, had just been elected our State president so he is even more important than he was when he was recognised as one of our industrial princes in this State. But it was Don Laidlaw who was recorded as an observer when the State Development Council made its critical comments on our State’s past reliance on tariff protection. Laidlaw told me then, when I questioned him as to where he stood on this matter, that he simply could not make up his mind.

When we stopped clapping, after Olsen had finished his stirring speech condemning government intervention, I wrote out this question: “How does our new President, Mr Laidlaw, reconcile this distrust of government intervention so eloquently expressed by Mr Olsen with the direct government intervention when the government intervenes to give tariff protection to one industry to the damage of other industries?”

While I was trying to screw up my courage to ask this question, I passed it across to Mrs Laidlaw. She read it and said: “If you ask that, Bert, I will stick my hairpin in you!” So, I didn’t ask the question.

I don’t think Mrs Laidlaw really meant it; she is too nice a lady for that. Besides, she wasn’t wearing a hat. Still, as is well known, I am of nervous disposition and the question remained unasked. I ask it now: “How do people square a belief in free enterprise with a belief in government intervention in the form of tariffs?

Politicians quickly become adept at sidestepping dilemmas of this kind. Our fast footwork keeps us out of trouble except when our consciences trouble us in the still watches of the night. But the high protectionist leaders of secondary industry are not so fast on their feet and they don’t even seem to realise that they appear rather ludicrous when they take up opposing points of view in successive paragraphs.

I wrote recently about a speech by Harold Aston, a recognised secondary industry leader. He demanded a continuation of tariff protection and then said: “It is about time the traditional supporters of free enterprise stood up and defend manufacturing industry and made their views known without hesitation.” But how can you believe in free enterprise and government intervention at the same time?

Neil Walford, a weighty protectionist indeed, in an ABC interview on November 8 last year, after making an impassioned appeal for the continuation of tariff protection for his and other industries, demanded of the Labor Party that, if business leaders were to vote for it at the next election, Labor would have to promise that there would be no government interference in free market forces in Australia.

The odd thing is that these intelligent people do not seem to see that you cannot properly despise government intervention while asking for tariff intervention.

I guess this is what is troubling Laidlaw. I wish his wife would stick her hatpin in him.