Viv Forbes, “Mine control,”
The Australian, May 4, 1979, p. 8, as a letter to the editor.

Your editorial (25/4) concludes that federal export controls are necessary to prevent us selling our minerals on the cheap.

What makes you think that politicians and bureaucrats will be better guardians of our resources?

Have they the motivation? No. Neither their jobs nor their profits are on the line if they make an error.

Have they a track record for thrift and good management? No. It is surely a sick joke for a government which gives away about $600 million per year in foreign aid to make pious noises about husbanding resources. Moreover, their domestic spending is more than five times larger than our total earnings from mineral exports. Surely what is needed is more private control in Canberra and not more public “control” in the mining industry?

Adam Smith had some appropriate advice for our concerned servants in Canberra:

Let them look well after their own expense and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the State, that of their subjects never will.

VIV FORBES
Progress Party,
Indooroopilly, Qld

*****

Viv Forbes, “Growing big — a public service?,”
The Weekend Australian, June 2-3, 1979, p. 12, as a letter to the editor.

SIR — Congratulations on your editorial call for reducing the scale and cost of big government (The Weekend Australian, May 26).

However, on the same page was an expensive advertisement placed by the Department of Administrative Services for a publicity officer for the Public Service Board in Canberra. This will cost taxpayers $17,000 a year in salary plus about the same in overheads. The job is to develop a recruitment campaign for the already overblown Public Service. I thought we were pruning, not recruiting.

This made me a bit mad, so I looked further in the same paper.

I saw taxpayers were going to pay for a legislative assistant for Sam Calder and a Curator of Contemporary Arts for Mr Wran. They would pay $19,000 per year for a lucky boffin to study pigs, ducks, buffalo and crocodiles in NT, and $15,000 per year for a museum site survey officer in WA. NSW wants a development control planner. Victoria wants a town planner and Tasmania would like a Commissioner for Transport. Victorians are critically short of a chief executive for the State Film Corporation and the industries of Thursday Island are stagnating because of the lack of a member for the Island Industries Board.

The Department of Productivity would like to do its bit by adding a $22,000 per year project officer to the national overheads. Northern Territory wants a director of water at $30,000 per year. Experience at rainmaking is not specified so I assume his job is to hose out the last of those wicked foreign bureaucrats from Canberra.

In one single newspaper there seemed to be around 200 jobs on offer with an average salary of well over $10,000 a year, funded wholly or partly by taxes. The vast majority of these jobs involve administration and regulation, not production. The conscripted taxpayers will be lumbered with the cost whether or not they like or want the service.

VIV FORBES
National Secretary
Progress Party

*****

Viv Forbes, “Political gifts,”
The Australian, August 27, 1979, p. 8, as a letter to the editor.

An old proverb says “Beware of politicians bearing gifts.”

The Small Business Development Corporation proposed by the Queensland Government is no exception (The Australian 16/8).

This new bureaucracy will provide low interest loans and other financial assistance to “small” business. Which group of Queenslanders can expect higher taxes, charges or interest rates to provide these subsidies to the chosen few?

Moreover, the new “corporation” is to provide training and advice to small business. Will this be another “free” service, provided by government “experts”? If so, it will probably be worth what it costs.

Finally, the new department plans to investigate the problems caused for small business by other government departments. Judging from past performance, their first act will be to hire expert staff and send out a long compulsory questionnaire to every business in the State.

They will then hold public enquiries and produce voluminous reports at our expense.

These will be filed. Nothing more will happen. This is not the solution — it is the problem.

This new Trojan Horse should be strangled at birth, together with all the other electoral gift horses from previous governments.

VIV FORBES
National Secretary
Progress Party
Indooroopilly, Qld

*****

Viv Forbes, “Better idea,”
The Australian, November 21, 1979, p. 8, as a letter to the editor.

I note that Mr Bob Hawke wants a quarter of the positions in Federal Cabinet filled by people not elected to Parliament (The Australian, 19/11).

I have a better idea. I suggest half of the positions in federal cabinet not be filled at all. This would greatly improve the quality of government.

VIV FORBES
National Secretary
Progress Party
Indooroopilly, Qld