Two Bert Kelly columns warning against miners flirting with politicians:
1. He’d soon have his feet in a bucket of champagne (November 17, 1978)
2. Governments sometimes act like Ginger at the war (November 24, 1978)
Plus a fun exchange: Senator Michael Tate and then Bert’s response:
3. Mt Lyell aid is a very good risk (December 5, 1978)
4. Tasmania and secession (January 4, 1979)
And some further links at the end and in the trackbacks

1.
A Modest Farmer [Bert Kelly], “He’d soon have his feet in a bucket of champagne,” The Australian Financial Review, November 17, 1978, p. 3.

It is not surprising that the ordinary citizen gets confused and then angry about politics.

Everything used to seem plain enough to me when I was up to my ears in it but it isn’t now, and I find that I am getting as confused as everyone else.

The Labor Party used to believe in socialism but some right wingers now express some doubts even about this.

The Country Party used to believe in protecting farmers but then they went in for protecting manufacturing industry instead.

I think they found it easier to collect funds that way. So McEwen House was built and they changed their name and now they have only one firm conviction, which is that no one is going to pinch their seats, no matter what principles have to be sacrificed to that end.

The Liberal Party used to believe in free enterprise and whenever we had a meeting we used to worship at that shrine. Indeed, we still do but the incantations now sound rather hollow.

The easy way in which principles are so effortlessly sacrificed was seen recently when the Government announced its decision to have a much bigger say about the price at which mining companies could sell their export minerals.

This was a considerable departure from the Government’s previous policy yet it was not even thought necessary to discuss the change with the backbenchers, who were expected to quietly agree.

There are many reasons for being critical about the way the new policy was announced, but much more serious was the nature of the policy change.

Yet another sector of the economy has fallen under the control of the Government. No wonder the Labor Party hailed the change with such enthusiasm.

“It’s what Rex Connor would have wanted,” they crowed with delight. “This is what we have been telling you to do all the time.”

I know that a case can be made out for government intervention in this matter. We are told:

The Japanese are playing off one mining company against the others, so the price for minerals is unnecessarily low and our export income is diminished. If the Government could control the negotiations this would not happen.

I agree that the Japanese may have been successfully playing one company off against the others, though this is a lot easier to say than to prove. But even if this is so, surely enlightened self-interest would eventually bring the miners together to present a unified front.

Why it was thought necessary for the Government to get into the act in a bigger way I do not know. But governments now seem determined to try to save fools and firms from their folly, yet it is the weeding out of the weak and foolish ones that made capitalism the dynamic engine it once was.

But I fear that Liberals are now somewhat ashamed of capitalism.

And we see again the pathetic belief that the Government must know best.

Politicians should have burnt on their breasts or on some broader part of their anatomy, the message that any servant of the government who can correctly foretell the supply and demand situation for any mineral for even one year ahead is not for long working for the government; he is shortly sitting in the south of France with his feet in a bucket of champagne.

I have said this many times but it doesn’t seem to have sunk in.

Sad though it is to see how easily political parties can jettison their principles, it is even sadder to see the pathetic attitude of many of the miners.

Far too many seem to have a deep longing to feel around themselves the everlasting arms of the government, bearing them up lest they dash their footing against a stone or something.

But these comforting arms have a habit in the end of strangling initiative and enthusiasm, let alone investment. It won’t be long before these companies come whining to us complaining about government domination.

When I was discussing this question with Fred, he said he thought that too many mining companies seemed ashamed of being miners.

They may have been listening too attentively to these queer people who see something sordid about digging holes in the ground and extracting minerals.

This makes the companies nervous and inclined to be subservient to governments. He says that he would behave as they do if he was ashamed of being a farmer.

He thinks that many of the miners deserve to be treated as they are. That is not a nice thing for Fred to say.

~~~~~
2.
A Modest Farmer [Bert Kelly], “Governments sometimes act like Ginger at the war,” The Australian Financial Review, November 24, 1978, p. 3.

Last week I wrote about the Government’s decision to have the final say in the export price of minerals.

I hinted then that it was hard for the ordinary citizen to understand what principles guided political parties, and what principles there are seem to be quickly sacrificed on the altar of political advantage.

But at least this decision applied in a muddled kind of way across the whole mining field and so did not apply to one particular mineral, let alone one particular company.

But the assistance being given to the Mt Lyell Mining Company in Tasmania is different because particular advantage is being given to a particular company.

I have been puzzling about which principles guided the Government in this case, and after reading the Parliamentary debates on November 7 I am even more confused.

When Ginger was asked in 1914 which arm of the services he preferred, he replied “the infantry,” and his reason was that he feared that one day the retreat would be sounded and then he wouldn’t want to be hindered by any plurry horse.

It seems that, in this Mt Lyell case, the Government is not being hindered by any old fashioned political principles.

Mining is always an uncertain occupation, but one thing is certain — once you start digging ore out of the ground, you inevitably come closer to the end of the life of the mine.

I know the feeling well; I have reached the stage of life when, as each day goes past, I mark it off metaphorically in my mind as one day nearer my inevitable end.

When Mt Lyell starting mining in Queenstown early this century they knew that the time would come when the better ores would be worked out and the mine would have to close.

This is the stage the company has now reached. So the company asked the Government for assistance, the Government asked the Industries Assistance Commission for advice and this body said that assistance was not justified.

The Government did not accept this and decided to subsidise the company to the amount of about $1.6 million. Giving such a large amount of money to a particular company sets a serious precedent, so we must ask what principles guided the Government?

There clearly must be some, otherwise the Government would have to give its milk down to any person passing by who patted it.

Perhaps Mt Lyell got its hand-out because it was poor.

But how does the poverty plea square with the fact that Mt Lyell is a subsidiary of the large and powerful Consolidated Gold Fields Australia Ltd and this group does not seem to be actually withering on the vine? I quote from a report of their annual meeting:

Consolidated Gold Fields Australia Ltd is actively seeking areas for expansion of the group’s activities. The CGFA chairman, Mr S. L. Segal, told shareholders at the annual meeting in Sydney today that the company was “very liquid” with cash resources of around $20 million.

This placed CGFA in a position to expand its operations when opportunities presented themselves and which, said Mr Segal we are actively seeking.

So perhaps the justification wasn’t poverty. Perhaps the Government expected the price of copper to rise enough to make the mine profitable again.

That may have been the Government’s opinion but evidently CGFA did not think so or they would not be looking around for profitable areas of investment.

Perhaps the justification was that the company employs a lot of people. But if this is to be the basis for subsidisation, where does this kind of thinking end?

Does it mean the more labour intensive an industry is the more it will get assistance paid for, in the end, by the more profitable capital intensive industries?

This is the kind of thinking that justified the old butter bounty; there were a lot of dairy farmers so we encouraged them by subsidy to keep on dairying when they and the rest of us would have been better off if they had been encouraged to produce less butter rather than more.

Eccles says he thinks that Mt Lyell is getting its hand-out because it is located in Tasmania and so is entitled to a particular place in heaven. If that is so, I would like to hear WA members explaining the position to their constituents.

We are becoming increasingly cynical about the principles that political parties claim as their own. But, as I said last week, the miners are starting to look a bedraggled lot also.

Principles are funny things. You always have to pay a price for departing from them and the mining industry is paying this price too often.

Its much vaunted private enterprise principles are looking more moth-eaten each week.

~~~~~
3.
Michael Tate, “Mt Lyell aid is a very good risk,” The Australian Financial Review, December 5, 1978, p. 3, as a letter to the editor.

SIR, Your “Modest Farmer” is neither factually correct nor philosophically comprehensive in his remarks on Mt Lyell aid (Financial Review, November 24). In particular two points made by me in the Senate need answering.

The first was that the aid provided is on a very good risk. At the last annual meeting directors were able to report that cash-flow was such that the break-even point in operations was approaching.

In fact, no claim has been made for this available subsidy in each of the last two months.

Would the “Modest Farmer” have destroyed a community and associated workforce of 2,000 people rather than give the psychological support which the repayable grants represent?

Second, I pointed out that the standard of living in Tasmania would skyrocket if we imported manufactured products from our very considerable overseas earnings. Indeed, there is a strong body of opinion in Tasmania that we ought to be a duty free State. I am inclined to that view myself. But so far we have decided to recognise that we are part of a federation with the south-eastern States requiring a protected manufacturing sector to provide employment opportunities.

Occasionally, as with Mt Lyell, we may require support for our mining or primary industries to maintain employment during a downturn in world prices. This is simply part of the Federal deal — in this respect, a straightforward matter of mutual benefit and support.

I reject entirely any suggestion by your columnist that the parliamentary vote of funds represents mindless politics. It is an example of the federation working as it ought. If it did not respond to the needs of a State like Tasmania I can assure readers that talk of secession will become more prevalent.

SENATOR MICHAEL TATE,
Parliament House,
Canberra, ACT.

~~~~~
4.
Bert Kelly, “Tasmania and secession,” The Australian Financial Review, January 4, 1979, p. 3, as a letter to the editor.

SIR, Senator Tate, when criticising the Modest Farmer’s article on the Mt Lyell arrangements (FR 5/12) referred rather grimly to the possibility that Tasmania would consider secession if this and similar deals were not done. Should we regard this as a threat or a promise?

BERT KELLY,
Adelaide

PS: Bert Kelly later wrote two articles on Tasmania and secession: “Tassie should cut the painter,” The Bulletin, March 8, 1983, p. 100; and “An answer to island woes,” The Australian, January 12, 1987, p. 7. Two other Bert Kelly columns on Tasmania are: “If you want to be loved, go to Tasmania,” The Australian Financial Review, August 27, 1976, p. 6; and “An election must be looming!,” Stock and Land, November 29, 1979, p. 15.