IPA REVIEW ESTABLISHED in 1947 by CHARLES KEMP, FOUNDING DIRECTOR of the INN1TFUTE OP PUBLIC AFFAIRS Vol
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
IPA REVIEW ESTABLISHED IN 1947 BY CHARLES KEMP, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE INN1TFUTE OP PUBLIC AFFAIRS Vol. 46 No. 4, 1994 Low Turnout Undermines ATSIC 8 Asia Pacific in an Era of Trade Blocs 58 Ron Brunton Derek Parker ATSIC cannot claim to represent the majority of ASEAN provides a more promising path for Aborigines. Australia than APEC. Time to Raise Parliamentary Standards 12 How Capitalism Converted the Pope 60 Anthony D. Smith T.C. De Lacey Last year Mr Keating Catholics can go about their business in good faith. guillotined debate on 80 per cent of legislation. Republican Cause Falters 15 Peter Reith — Letters 2 The Turnbull Committee avoided the hard questions. IPA Indicators 4 Shifting the Blame 17 The tax system is biased against families. Rudolf Plehwe From the Editor 6 What has become of ministerial responsibility? Rescuing shipwrecked youth. Shear Determination [^- 20 R• f• Around the States 10 Graeme Haycroft Mike Nahan After a long battle, reform An accolade for Tasmania; has reached Queenslands a lemon for the Commonwealth. shearing sheds. Letter from America 23 The Crisis of the Welfare State 27 Harry Gelber Michael Novak In foreign affairs, the US lacks direction. The welfare state is corrupting and diminishing us. Moore Economics 25 How to Reform Australias Des Moore Social Security System 32 Economic rationalists are misunderstood. Michael James Alternatives to state welfare. Strange Times 36 Ken Baker Playing with Fire 38 A whole new meaning for occupational training. Nathan Stirling Overseas programs provide hope for Australias Down to Earth 54 street kids. Ron Brunton Aboriginal policy is on a separatist slide. Central Planning, Anyone? 41 Roger Sandal! IPA News 63 Linked by birth, separated by ideas. The Full Employment Project is founded with the Governor-General as patron. Are Women Benefitting from Economic Development? 45 Frances Perkins • Editor: Ken Baker Evidence from Asia indicates that they are. Design: Bob Calwell Associates. Production Assistant: T Seto. Advertising: Barry Teller Media, Ph (03) 563 6602, Fx (03) 563 6641. A Meeting of Cultures 50 Printing: Wilke Color, 37 Browns Road, Clayton, 3168. Lucy Sullivan Published by the Institute of Public Affairs Ltd (Incorporated in the The influence of great cultures is not confined to a ACT). ACN 008 627 727. ISSN: 1030 4177. single race or time. Editorial and Production Omflce: Ground Floor, 128-136 Jolimont Road, Jolimont, Vic, 3002. Ph: (03) 654 7499; Fx. (03) 650 7627• Nailing a Feminist Myth 56 Subscriptions: $40 per annum (includes quarterly Facts). Andrew McIntyre Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed. However, potential con- tributors are advised to discuss proposals for articles with the Editor. Do women really get Views expressed in the publications of the IPA are those of the a worse deal than men? authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute. LETTERS Anti-Employer Ethos their own particular sacred site as, quite literally, the centre of the universe. Is it ROFESSOR WOLFGANG KASPER altogether coincidental that such (IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3) makes peoples often have ethical codes that many good points about unemploy- are extremely ethnocentric? ment, but along with many other Fourthly, Brunton quotes Stanner to economists, fails to emphasize a most the effect that many Aboriginals actually significant underlying factor. migrated voluntarily away from their It is a truism to point out that the lands onto white settlements and mis- existence of unemployment indicates sions. This flagrantly contradicts the that too many people want employment Aboriginal Values politically correct piety that the nomads and not enough people want to employ had a primal bonding to their land. them. ON BRUNTON has challenged some Could it be that their wandering, But stated thus, the truism directs Rof the well-intentioned stereotypes nomadic lifestyle actually encouraged attention to the fact that Australia (and which underlie aspects of the Mabo voluntary abandonment? They had little the Colonies before 1901) have decision and related initiatives (IPA to hold them to their place of origin developed under an ethos which sees Review, Vol.46 No. 2,1993). We are told except the sacred site; and its role was employers as essentially greedy ex- endlessly that Aborigines have a special substantially the pragmatic one of ploiters and employees as innocent vic- bond to the land. For me, this claim making the earth bear fruit and game. If tims. "Employer — bad; employee - raises a number of questions. the white man seemed to promise better good" is our local version of "the rich Firstly, did Aborigines really have a practical prospects, why not head off in get richer and the poor get poorer." unique relationship to nature? No his direction? In Australia sympathy for the under- doubt they had a sense of the numinous David Elder, dog is always taken for granted, wealth in nature, and a sense of place and tradi- Grange, SA. is assumed to be ill gotten, and the less tion. But they were scarcely unique in well off assumed to be deserving of a this. They had sacred sites, but so did better deal. many other cultures. And in such cul- The entire history of our industrial tures nature is often treated with Progress and Regress relations reflects this attitude and the reverence within the sacred area, but is ALP found the very basis for its exist- treated as a secular resource outside of enjoyed your editorial, `The Am- ence in it. Trade union power, incon- it. Aborigines seem no different in this biguities of Progress (Vol. 46 No. 3, ceivable elsewhere, depends on the respect — they burned, hunted, I1993), probably because I agreed with endless reiteration of it, and its adop- gathered and sometimes even mined for most of it. But you twice raised my tion by teachers in the public education mineral ores for cosmetic purposes. ageing hackles. systems in all States does much to per- Why, then, should Hugh Morgan neces- You write: "...regarding some petuate it. sarily turn their world upside down? things, todays Australians have become In Australia, it is morally a bit Secondly, Aboriginal religion and too tolerant: their predecessors in the suspect to be an employer. What `conservation were indeed closely 1950s would not have tolerated 11 per everyone wants is a nice steady job. And entwined. This is seen as a Good Thing. cent unemployment, for example." no wonder. Hordes of capable people Is it? That corresponds to a period in No? I grew up during the Depression are occupying jobs which do not our own history when both theology and when Australians `tolerated massive demand their highest endeavours be- natural history were fairly undeveloped unemployment. I do not remember the cause the whole cultural climate en- — and in which all naturalists would Australians of the 1950s being much dif- courages them not to undertake the have been expected to adhere to the ferent — after all, people then tolerated more demanding (but also rewarding) nominal religion of their culture. As an the massive growth of the public sector role of starting businesses. So when Anglican and a biologist, this does not and the welfare trap, both of which you structural adjustment to the global trouble me, but I hardly expect all of my rightly find have been deleterious to economy becomes necessary, un- fellow naturalists to agree! That Australias progress. employment results. freedom would certainly not have been Now had you said that Australians of It is almost as if part of what it means extended to them by the first the 1950s would not have tolerated doc- to be an Australian is preventing us Australians. tors being paid to kill at least 80,000 from making the adjustment. We are Thirdly, much is made of the as- unborn Australian babies a year, or the faced with real cultural change. There is sociation of Aboriginal tradition with Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, I for one no quick fix. particular, fixed sites. Is this a value- couldnt have faulted you. Witham Wentworth, neutral feature? Mircea Eliade em- But your garbled syntax that really Towamba, NSW. phasized that such peoples often regard shook me was, "Housework has been IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 4, 1994 made less arduous by labour-saving Pure Maths family, etc.) well illustrate the gulf be- devices, and thereby helped liberate tween the IPA and the distinguished women from the home." "Liberate"? s all writers enjoy having their work Nobel Committee. The IPA would do "To set free"? Anyone who even sub- Arend by the public, I was flattered well to be rather more informed of these liminally regards the home as a condi- to find a part of my recent paper developments; it can do better, and it tion from which women need freeing reproduced in IPA Review (Vol. 46 must do so. has the mindset of the extreme feminist, No.3, 1993) under the title of "An Ex- If those who reproduced the portion not of the thoughtful IPA stalwart. Now cess of Econometrics?" I was, however, of my paper in IPA Review have a had you said "Labour-saving devices a bit surprised that an institution such as continued difficulty in understanding helped liberate women from much the IPA, which is directed by none other the importance of rigorous modelling, household drudgery," I couldnt have than Mr John Hyde, who emphasizes perhaps they should concentrate on al- faulted you. But you didnt. the paramount role of property rights, ternative activities where they may have You quote approvingly (and well so) chose to reproduce my paper without a positive comparative advantage. In so C.D. Kemp (1957): "...the only secure asking my permission. Integrity has a doing, they will not only enhance their foundations of material achievement are thousand mothers, but consistency ap- own economic position, but also con- the immaterial but rock-like constituents pears to be an orphan.