A Modest Member of Parliament [Bert Kelly],
The Australian Financial Review, May 23, 1975, p. 3.

I hope the Senate will defer the Australian Government Insurance Corporation (AGIC) Bill so that we can have a long look at it.

For once Eccles, Fred and I are all agreed that we should see that the Government does not get its sticky fingers on the insurance industry.

I think Fred summed up our feelings when he muttered sourly, “I wouldn’t let this mob run a pie-cart!” I could have used a more felicitous phrase, but not a truer one.

Some people hoped we would throw the bill out immediately but there is a sound reason for not doing so. The bill contains one redeeming feature, its provisions for insurance against natural disasters.

This has immediate electoral appeal, with the memory of the Brisbane and Darwin disasters fresh in our minds.

When disasters happen there is an immediate welling up of sympathy for the sufferers and we all make eloquent speeches about a natural disaster fund to meet such situations.

The only justification for having AGIC is that it purports to tackle this pressing problem.

But it doesn’t really bite on the bullet; the Government simply says that AGIC will be an agent for an adviser to the Government on disaster insurance.

So AGIC is to work out a disaster policy, but you don’t have to set up an AGIC to do this.

Why not set a group of competent people the task of working out a sound policy, and having done so, either set up a Government authority to do this narrow task or give it to private enterprise to do?

The Government has said that AGIC will tackle natural disasters on a non-commercial basis, or in other words, this section of the Government insurance will be subsidised by the taxpayers.

Would it not be better to channel the same amount of taxpayers’ money through the present insurance industry? But as they would be using taxpayers’ money, they would of course have to follow the guidelines that the Government laid down for disaster insurance.

But whether disaster relief is a function of the Government or private enterprise using some taxpayers’ money, we should not delude ourselves that a proper policy will be quickly evolved.

It is easy to be eloquent about setting up such a fund, particularly after a disaster has struck, but how is it to be administered, who is to be helped?

Is it to be for big disasters or all disasters?

If a chap gets burnt out in a big bushfire, one that burns out 100 square miles, he would be helped. But if a man with a square mile farm gets burnt in a 2 square mile fire, will he be entitled to assistance?

This may not be regarded as a disaster though it certainly would appear so to the farmer concerned.

And if there is a big fire, is assistance to be given to the farmer who insured his stock and fencing, and conserved fodder so that he doesn’t have to buy it?

He isn’t usually helped but not to help the man who helps himself is not much encouragement for him and his neighbours to help themselves in the future.

And what about floods? Not all districts are liable to flooding. If the taxpayer is to subsidise the premiums of people who live in flood areas, we would encourage people to live in places liable to flood damage. That doesn’t seem sensible.

So disaster insurance is pregnant with problems which still have to be worked out. I would hope that the present insurance industry can evolve solutions that would help without hurting and be just to all sections. And certainly it will now have an added incentive to do so.

Nothing clarifies the mind of a man, they say, like the knowledge that he is to be hanged in the morning!

But even if we should have an AGIC in the future, which I contest, we certainly don’t want to have one now.

The private sector is being bled white and frightened to death and private investment is falling in an alarming way. To add this alarm to the private sector just now seems stupid.

To give this column a surprising air of erudition, Eccles gave me this Latin quotation: “Quem vult perdere Jupiter prius dementat” which he tells me means, “He whom the gods would destroy they first make mad!”