Ben Jasper, National Miner, February 3, 1975, p. 2, 16.

The birth of a new political party is never easy.

No matter what its direction, detractors surface immediately and with them come the tags — “They’re dirty commies,” — “They’re fascist pigs,” etc,

While the Workers Party, which emerged last week, attracted a fair share of names in private discussions, its platform drew little public stone throwing — which seemed odd considering the party’s radical, but old-fashioned ideas.

Its name in fact seemed enough to incite condemnation from leftist quarters. (What right have businessmen and doctors got calling themselves workers. Only blue collar men can claim that distinction in Australia.)

Why then the relatively mild reaction to the new party?

Conscience could be the answer where “workers” are concerned.

Its conviction to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work could have struck a nerve at least among public service “workers” and union officials.

As the state of the economy has deteriorated, placing jobs in jeopardy, cracks have appeared in their front for money for less work.

Several businessmen have actually noted increase in productivity and industrial unrest has fallen off markedly.

The lack of reaction from industry executives probably stems from two thought patterns.

First, some believe the party is just an extremist arm of the Liberal Party and has little chance of success, so is hardly worth discussing.

Second, many have already indicated a preference for a government run along free enterprise lines, but are not willing to put their names to as hard a line as the Workers Party advocates.

Its policy to abolish social services in favour of private charity is a bitter pill to swallow for many, but the plan to cut out tax would have helped them digest it.

No tax would have great appeal to all forms of industry. As the quarterly tax payments eat into lifeblood cash flows several businessmen could be looking at some form of discreet support to the scheme.

But the outward reaction to the new party is probably best summed up by the consensus of a few leading businessmen:

“While there is room for another party capable of influencing government, it needs to be considerably more conservative than the Workers Party to gain credibility. And above all it needs a well known figure of high repute in both government and business circles to lead it.”