IPA REVIEW ESTABLISHED IN I947 BY CHARLES KEMP, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993

Elections and the National Interest 7 C.D. Kemp 57 Tony Rutherford and the IPAs Foundations Can a party which ignores vocal interest groups get Shaun Patrick Kenaelly elected? IPA Director for 30 years, C.D. Kemp brought moral earnestness to Employment Optimism 13 economics. Wolfgang Kasper How Australia can benefit from the increasing global mobility in jobs. ^r Letters Fortress Europe 19 and the Threat to Australia From the Editor Paul Johnson q Longevity has increased, but so have suicides. Efforts to unite Europe and Around the States 11 to liberalize world trade are Mike Nahan coming into conflict. The combined public sector deficit is the largest since the Whitlam era. From Melting Pot to Salad Bowl 30 Neil McInnes Moore Economics 17 Multiculturalism is a policy, not a description of a Des Moore functioning society. Although unemployment has risen, the proportion of the working age population employed has actually Drugs in Sport 33 remained the same. Terry Black The case against the ban. Debate 24 Should schools do more Immigrations Cost is Overstated 35 to teach Asian languages? Ian Mott Research attributing high urban costs to immigration Letter from America 26 is flawed. Harry Gelber Clinton is an interventionist at home, a minimalist overseas. Rethinking the Australian Dream. r . 37 Patrick Morgan mo t ;. Strange Times 28 Australians need unity to face Ken Baker pressing problems: the PM should Tortured prose from the nether world of not be adding solvents. rye J i„ sado-masochism. 50 Years Back, 20 Years On 41 Down to Earth 48 Geoffrey Blainey Ron Brunton Economic policies have hurt Australia, but cultural On the environment, the far Right and the attitudes have been even more damaging. deep-green Left converge. IPA News 63 Amidst Prosperity, the Poverty of 44 Public Debate A new report calls for fewer councils and lower rates. Austin Gough The quality of democratic life is being eroded. Editor: Ken Baker Design: Bob Cahvell Associates. Production Assistant: Tracey Seto. Unnatural Science 50 Advertising: Barry Tctfcr Media, Ph (03) 563 6602, Fx (03) 563 6641. Roger Sandal! Printing: Wilke Color, 37 Browns Road, Clayton, 3168. Resentment of science is intense in our Arts Faculties. Published by the Institute of Public Affairs Ltd (Incorporated in the ACT). ACN 008 627 727. ISSN: 1030 a 177. Not All Cultures Are Equal 53 Editorial and Production Office: Ground Floor; 128-136 Jolimont American anthropologist Robert B. Road, Jolimont, Vic, 3002. Ph: (03) 654 7499; Fx: (03) 650 7627. Edgerton discusses what makes a Subscriptions: $40 per annum (includes quarterly Facts). society sick. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed. However, potential con- tributors are advised to discuss proposals for articles with the Editor. Views expressed in the publications of the IPA are those of the Where the IPA Stands 56 authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute. LETTERS

Right and Wrong and Old Right have a common interest unemployment figures, in fact, it could in pursuing corrective policies in these well increase them — for the above areas and not just restricting themselves reason. OUR editorial `Is the Alliance to economics. That is why the Alliance The negative social impact of YOver? (Vol. 46 No. 2) must continue. reducing wages would, in the case of misunderstood the significance of the Neo-classical liberals quite correctly single-income families, plunge them New Rights part in the cultural shifts desire the reduction of government in- into poverty. In the case of two-in- initiated by the New Class (i.e. the trusiveness. Nevertheless, that "the Plan come families, it would result in recently affluent and/or influential to end the Plan" may in fact be con- widespread social dislocation. Stand- elites of the baby-boomer generation). tributing to poverty, resentment and in care-givers could be found but there Firstly, the political economy of the cultural relativism is the point of depar- is no real substitute for parental care New Right — or neo-classical liberals ture between the Australian liberal and and discipline. — shares the same starting and finishing the conservative. The political economy There are two other crucial areas Mr point as that of a Benthamite progres- of atomistic individualism is fatally un- Stone did not touch on in his article. sive liberal like Ian Macphee or Gary dermining the basic institutions that Firstly, since tariffs have been slashed Sturgess and that of a left-liberal such as curb the more sinister elements of — starting from the Whitlam era — over Anne Summers or Lindsay Tanner - human nature and promote the more 200,000 jobs have disappeared. namely that the individual ought to be noble in a public culture. This may not Australia has lost 50 per cent of its free from all restraints. The New Right be the intended effect of the New Right: manufacturing capacity since 1973. If helped to create a glut of speculative it would be surprising if the New Right further severe reductions in tariffs take capitalism and credit-hungry con- welcomed a climate and a culture hos- place, another 100,000 jobs could be at sumerism in Australia with deregula- tile towards private property, initiative risk. Therefore, tariffs should be in- tion of the financial sector. Sections of and responsibility. creased,just as Mr Menzies did back in the corporate elite were glorified ex- the 1950s to protect Australian in- Brendan T. Dairy, amples of freedom from responsibility dustries and jobs. Biiregu1ra, Vic. and shame. By the end of the 1980s, all Secondly, Mr Stone has not men- corporations seemed to have been tioned the effects of equal oppor- tarred with the same brush in the tunity/affirmative action on publics mind. Protecting unemployment trends. Research con- Not everyone in the New Right or Employment ducted in the US (and no doubt this is big business encouraged such reckless true for Australia as well) has found that behaviour or policies. For example, NEMPLOYMENr is the greatest so- as more and more women join the work- John Stone and Nobby Clark did not. cial evil of our age, but John force, unemployment also rises. Since However, the overall effect has meant StonesU solutions (Vol. 46 No. 2) were the late 1970s, when equal opportunity public, corporate and household debt, too narrowly focused. was first introduced in Australia, and a cargo cult based on freedom from Regarding wages, the truth is that around one million jobs that would have all restraints except those dictated by Australia cannot compete with traditionally gone to men, mostly male supply and demand. countries like China where convicts are breadwinners, have gone to women who Secondly, the Menzies era is ad- `employed to work for 60 cents per now are taking 66 per cent of all new mired by Old Right conservatives not hour. Australians enjoy a much higher jobs created. primarily because public expenditure standard of living than most of their Modern education enforces the view was kept at around 20 per cent of the northern Asian neighbours, hence the that women have as much right to work economy, but because it instilled virtues requirement of a reasonable wage to as men. If the expectation is that every such as love of country and heritage, fund that lifestyle. Australia, with its adult person in Australia should regard thrift, security, commonality, service small population, does not have the a career in the paid work-force as nor- and duty. The individual as a respon- economies of scale to match the large- mative, then our economy would have to sible, honest, courageous, sincere agent population-based economies of Asia. expand at a constant rate of over five per in a community of industry and reflec- Is Mr Stone serious about reducing cent to accommodate all school-leavers tion was the ideal of Menzies The For- wages by 30 per cent? Ill believe it and gradually reduce unemployment. gotten People. when he publicly announces, as an ex- This is a big task. Public expenditure grew in ample to the rest of us, that he will Present government policies dis- Australia because of the unwillingness forgo a 30 per cent slice of his income. criminate heavily against mothers. and failure of the Right (both in the After you, Mr Stone. Treasurer Dawkins recent an- Liberal and Labor Parties) to fight If wages are reduced by 30 per cent, nouncement in the Budget to raise the against welfare schemes that have been this will force virtually every married retiring age of women to 65 will further inducing poverty among the very people woman into the work-force to supple- exacerbate unemployment. Jobs will these schemes set out to help, including ment her familys budget. Therefore, it now not become available to others Aborigines, women, the homeless, is doubtful whether reducing wages when women retire at 60, but will be youth, and ethnic minorities. The New by such a high margin would reduce held over for up to five years.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 The number of jobs held over could (two were RAF). And she grievously mention? It seems so. be quite substantial. Around 140,000 lost Royal Navy capital ships in the With these glaring insults, need people retire from the work-force each Pacific. Her troops suffered bestial anyone ponder why so many British year. Women hold around 30 per cent Japanese treatment. residents prefer not to be Australian?. of all full-time jobs. This could mean Only Britain cops the flak. Who asks, My family chose to be the exception. that 46,666 jobs each year are denied for instance, whether Ireland (apart from young school-leavers or other people. very brave individual Irishmen) downed Mrs Margaret Carter, Macedon, Vic. Over five years, this represents a `loss the Nazis or came to Australias aid? of 233,330 jobs. St Patricks Day rates an annual fest If a more traditional role for women throughout the media and elsewhere; Gnostic were encouraged and mothers were St Georges Day is a non-event. This paid a decent child endowment subsidy despite the million non-naturalized Britons Fantasyland as they are in France, then this would resident in Australia, the thousands who The panorama of social collapse is encourage mothers to look after their are naturalized and the millions of held before us every night in the media own children at home, thus helping free Australian-born of British descent. and I do not presume to know the causes up the labour market and allow young Just recently, the surviving World or the remedies. The number of mur- school-leavers a chance to build a War I diggers have been honoured, as ders/suicides in de facto marriages career and a future for themselves. they deserve to be — although some surely indicate the need for a new word might suspect exploitation — for their A. Barron, in our vocabulary, defactocide. Barwon region Co-ordinator truly magnificent stands on the Western But it seems to me that a lot of the Endeavour Forum Front, following Gallipoli. But the blame must lie with the Post-Marxist Grovedale, Vic. blood of 750,000 Britons also reddened Radicals. The engine behind this new that earth. Are such allies unworthy of socialism seems to be Gnosticism Editors Note: John Stone did not himself argue that a 30 per cent cut in unit labour costs would be needed to achieve full employment in Australia, but merely referred, for the purposes of his argument, to "one estimate [to that effect] which has recently been given some currency..." Public Service Deficit Such a cut, he said, could be achieved in two ways: byculs in hourly pay rates, orby increasing output recent ABS publication shows why a job, but cut $9 billion from our deficit. at the same pay rates. He stated a strong Aa public service that is "cut to the In fact, the total of 32 per cent excess preference for the latter. bone" still costs us so much. payment, compared with average private- The average all-up cost of a public sector workers, is just about the same as sector employee in 1991192, at $38,144 the annual deficit, at $14 billion, so at this Anglophobia per annum was 32 per cent more than simple level, our entire national borrow- the average cost of a private sector ings are to cover public pay and benefits CCORDING to an Australian Finan- employee at $28,949. Both worked 1,484 in excess of commercial levels. Acial Review article of 31 August, in hours in the year, but the public servant I wonder if the Senate would dare to the context of calculating votes for and was paid for 107 more hours of leave, pass a Budget that restored the public against a republic, the Electoral Com- and the superannuation costs were sector to the same income and benefits mission estimates that one million $4,434 per annum compared with $1,196 as ordinary taxpayers as a means of British immigrants with the right to vote per annum in the commercial sector. squaring the deficit? have elected not to take out Australian So, even putting aside the generous Isnt that what Mr Dawkins wants to citizenship. But who can blame them? benefits, the pay per hour actually worked do? was 15 per cent higher. The ABS publication is Those who choose to make Labour There are about 1.5 million public Costs in Australia, 1991/92 Australia home have been systematical- (Catalogue employees who cost us $58 billion p.a. No. 6348.0). The annual cost per ly denigrated by an Anglophobic Prime On the basis of "fairness and equality", employee is based on the public service Minister. A deliberate wedge is being why not a 15 per cent cut in either pay superannuation and compensation data placed between the British and other or benefits? That would still leave them on page 25, and the cost per year on migrants. better off by 15 per cent, theyd still have page 12 for public and private. The British World War II record of leadership, tenacity, suffering and im- Public to measurable individual and national loss Per Year 1991/92 Public Private Private (%) is denied. Even on the 50th anniversary EARNINGS $31,642 $25,902 122 of 3 September 1939, let alone annually, Paid for working $25,530 $22,132 115 Great Britain rates no mention. This All Leave $4,562 $2,440 187 despite being the only nation, with its Termination Other $1,550 $1,330 117 empire, to stand up to Hitler in the Superannuation $4,434 $1,196 371 beginning and still be in there fighting at Payroll Tax $1,235 $1,025 120 the end. America wasnt. But what are Compensation $700 $564 124 our children being taught? Fringe Benefits Tax $133 $262 51 Britain is castigated for not aiding ALL COSTS $38,144 $28,949 132 Australia after Pearl Harbor. With Oncosts $6,502 $3,047 213 21% 12% backs to the wall on several fronts, she did spare some squadrons for Darwin David Bishop, East Brighton, Vic.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 revisited. One of the main charac- teristics of Gnosticism is a flight from reality. Why Companies Support the IPA Our new socialists have this in abun- dance. For example: When fund-raising I am sometimes asked why a particular The Gnostics say: the two sexes are company should support the IPA. The question is fair — indeed, the same. when soliciting funds, all questions are fair. Reality says: while both sexes The Institutes publications provide a companys management should have equal with information and arguments that are valuable in the highly- liberty, they are not politicized world in which it must operate; but IPAs publications identical and can be purchased for much less than I usually ask for. Corporate should not be subscribers, of whom there are many, must give their support treated as such. because they expect money invested in the IPA to give leverage The Gnostics say: all races are the to ideas which they believe are important. same. The resources that the IPA and its allies command are tiny when Reality says: All people should compared with the resources of those who demand more govern- have equal liberty, ment expenditure and more regulation. but every race has The IPA believes, and business people must agree, that its own special Australia and the business community benefit from public policy qualities and its debate that: own (general) lack of others • reflects values such as personal responsibility, and a proper The Gnostics say: all species have an regard for the well-being of future Australians; equal right to live, • upholds free enterprise and an open market economy; breed and increase. • defends tried and tested institutions such as the family and The Reality is: species vary in parliament; their value and must not be • encourages Australians to face up to economic and strategic treated equally; realities; and e.g. plague mice. • encourages quality in education, health-care and other public The Gnostics say: all social `lifestyles services. have equal value — homosexuality, The evidence that the IPA is effective can be only circumstan- one-parent tial, but it is, nevertheless, quite strong. Most obviously, policies families, drug we have developed and popularized have subsequently been communes, etc. taken up by one or both of the major political parties. I am careful The Reality is: that the family not to imply, however, that all of our campaigns have had the must have hoped-for success, or that we usually stand alone. paramount rights I insist, however, that the IPA is professional. This is usually in any society accepted. Business people are accustomed to employing profes- wishing to survive. sionals and they expect the IPA to have developed professionalism The Gnostics say: all people in public advocacy. The benefit in public debate of being an (including the independent voice hardly needs stating, but I state it, nonetheless. handicapped) have With these advantages, money-raising would be easier than it an equal right to all is but for one fact. It is what economists refer to as the free-rider jobs. problem. Unlike lobbyists or consultants, the IPA, a public interest The Reality is: it is no use having a advocate, offers very little of exclusive benefit to any one company. stuttering radio Therefore, particular organizations can, without much loss to announcer. themselves, leave the support of ideas to others. One could go on and on for pages. The IPAs most important appeal is to respect for the general Gnosticism borders on lunacy. At interest, in other words, to patriotism. It is that appeal, and the moment, in Europe, North America probably a desire not to ride for free, which has best served the and Australasia, it is a very powerful Institute of Public Affairs and its causes for 50 years. Iunacy. Its very absurdity must eventual- ly bring about its collapse — but only, I fear, after much damage to many people. JOHN HYDE Kevin P. McManus Executive Director Ashiela NSW.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 F R OM THE ED I TO R

The Ambiguities of Progress

Hts ISSUE of IPA Review marks 50 thereby helped liberate women from and writing problems. With the great years since the foundation of the the home. Satellites enable us to see expansion of the universities since the InstituteT of Public Affairs. Professor events overseas virtually as they hap- 1960s, the liberal ideal that education James Walter, in Intellectual Move- pen. Computers have given us the should instill not only knowledge but a ments and Australian Society (Oxford capacity to organize and sift enormous sense of moral responsibility and civic University Press), describes the men amounts of information. These are duty has also taken a battering, most of who combined to create the IPA as remarkable advances. all from student leaders and their "business progressives." They believed But the progress of Australians academic supporters who declared war in the importance to the wealth of all since the end of the War is more am- on bourgeois society. Australians of a competitive, strong biguous than these changes suggest. The working week today is shorter and civic-minded private sector and of Rates of suicide and crime have both than it was 50 years ago; Australians co-operative effort in the workplace. increased. So has divorce. Racial and spend more time at leisure; sex roles Yet at the time of the IPAs inception, religious bigotries have declined, but so are more fluid; and social relations and history seemed to be on the side of the has religious faith, and other intoleran- dress codes are more informal. But opposing view: Chifleys move to na- ces seem to be rising to fill the gap, as Australians, for all of that, are not tionalize the banks was not far off, Austin Gough argues in this IPA more relaxed. Stress has become a socialism was de rigueur among the in- Review. Moreover, regarding some preoccupation of the last decade, and telligentsia, and the doctrine of class things, todays Australians have become Hugh Mackay, one of our most obser- struggle dominated the union move- too tolerant: their predecessors in the vant social analysts, in his book Rein- ment. 1950s would not have tolerated 11 per venting Australia (Angus and The IPAs early landmark publica- cent unemployment, for example. Robertson), refers to this period as the tion Looking Forward presented a pro- Age of Anxiety. Australians feel con- gram of post-war reconstruction fused and insecure. They are con- which, it said, "should furnish a More Government, More Education fronted with changing expectations progressive and steady increase in the about their roles in family and standards of living of the entire com- The welfare net has widened, but workplace; they feel unanchored, adrift munity." This hope for the future has whereas social analysts once spoke in the turbulence of social and been largely vindicated. Despite only of a poverty trap, they now speak economic change, the extent of which, serious economic problems now facing of a welfare trap and its crippling effect Mackay argues, is unprecedented in the nation, 50 years of economic on the motivation, independence and Australian history: growth and relative peace have brought self-respect of chronic welfare the average Australian of 1993 a much recipients. Red tape and (thanks to en- "Living through World War II ... higher standard of living than that en- vironmentalism) green tape constrict was an intensely painful and joyed by his grandparents. Geoffrey private sector productivity, and many stressful experience for Australia Blainey in this issue remarks on a few of the benefits of the public sector, but it was also a unifying and notable indicators of this. There are which has doubled in size in 40 years, often inspiring experience. It many others. Modern transport is more seem to have been purchased at too created a stronger sense of efficient, more comfortable, safer and high a cost, both economically and Australian cultural identity, and cheaper than transport 50 years ago. socially. it bound the community together Advancements in medical science and The retention rate of students to with a sense of common purpose. public health have enabled us to com- the final year of secondary school has `By contrast, the present era bat diseases which for many in earlier increased seven-fold since 1948, but seems fraught with the peculiar generations proved fatal or debilitat- the quality of education has not kept stresses created by a confused and ing. Since 1950, the life expectancy of pace with the quantity. A recent federal diffused sense of identity, the lack Australians has increased by almost 10 parliamentary report estimated that up of a consistent or coherent sense years. Housework has been made less to 25 per cent of children complete of purpose, and a growing feeling arduous by labour-saving devices, and primary school with significant reading of isolation and even alienation

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 FROM THE EDrrOR

among Australians -- especially by contrast, seem lost in a sea of worlds electricity is now generated by young Australians. relativism and obscurantism, and it is nuclear reactors) would have to look to "The common cry now being they which are concerned with the inefficient alternatives or go without, heard around Australia is, Why values which guide us. Japan may not havesurrended so readi- does everything have to change so In 1957 in an editorial in IPA ly in 1945 and the Soviet Union may fast? The common complaint is Review on the launch of Sputnik, C.D. not have been constrained to the extent that individual Australians feel as Kemp wrote in praise of the progress that it was without the presence of a if they have lost control of their of science nuclear deterrent. own lives and their own destinies. "...whatever sinister portents we Sometimes governments must Australians are increasingly feel- might attribute to the Soviet make difficult decisions on such mat- ing victimized by the rate and satellite, it is impossible to deny ters. Should nuclear reactors be built? character of the changes which that it provides additional Should embryo experimentation be are having such an enormous evidence of the adventurous and permitted? Such issues must be emotional, cultural and financial unconquerable spirit of man, resolved according to the best advice impact on their lives." another astonishing scientific vic- on what will serve the public interest. tory in the long line of victories. What governments must resist, In his epic (and eccentric) history We are led to contemplate anew however, is the temptation — to which of the lifecycles of civilizations, The the almost illimitable potential of so, many around the world have suc- Decline of the West, first published in the human race if only its energies cumbed this century — to see themsel- 1918, Oswald Spengler argued that the were channelled solely toward ves as the harbingers of progress or, to spirit of the late 20th century would be constructive purposes." use Marxs phrase, the midwives of his- conducive to great feats of engineering, tory, navigating the nation towards but not to a flowering of artistic He then amplified the doubt hinted at their vision of the future—whether the creativity. People would know how to in the "if only": cradle-to-grave welfare state or the preserve great works of art, but not be "It appears that mans command Third Reich. Because governments able to create them. The criteria of ar- over the forces of Nature is far today have access to a legion of experts tistic progress are more difficult to outstripping mans command they tend to have an exaggerated con- identify and more contentious than the over himself ... It begins to dawn ception of their own powers. Govern- criteria of material progress, but per- on us that progress means noth- ments are not omniscient: they should haps Spengler is right. The compact ing apart from progress in mans be modest in appraising their own disc player has enabled high fidelty nature, in his understanding and abilities. They can ameliorate some reproduction of a quality indisputably compassion and sense of values. hardships and social tensions, but they superior to that available to earlier We begin to perceive that the cannot make their citizens happy or generations; but what of musical com- only secure foundations of good or equal (other than equal before position? Is rap music progress com- material achievement are the im- the law). For governments to imply pared with swing? Is John Cage an material but rock-like con- otherwise — and Australian govern- improvement on Stravinsky? Are stituents of character — decency ments have been guilty of this — is to Philip Glasss operas superior to and simple goodness, truthful- raise citizens expectations to an unful- Verdis? The office blocks we build are ness and wisdom." fillable level and thereby engender a huge and functional, but their design, vicious circle. Personal needs become with notable exceptions, seems aes- Because mans moral development rights which it is then the responsibility thetically impoverished. lags behind the advance of his scientific of government to satisfy. The state thus and technological know-how, progress becomes the source as well as the ob- poses dilemmas. Its effects are not al- ject of social grievances. Better off, but not better ways predictable and they may be All that governments should try to diverse and contradictory: one mans do is to provide a secure space in which Progress is thus, to an extent, progress maybe another mans regress. citizens can pursue their happiness and janus-faced: the material progress of Consider one of the most potent their salvation — their own visions of Australians in the last half-century has and ambiguous symbols of scientific progress — as they see fit. To try doing not been matched by cultural or moral progress this century: the splitting of much more than this is to risk running progress. Our lives today are longer the atom. Would the world be a better the ship of state aground or provoking and more comfortable, but they are not place if the atom had not been split? a , mutiny — a fate which, it is worth necessarily happier or more virtuous. We would not have to live with the reiterating, has befallen the worlds Reflecting this, the pure and applied threat of nuclear war, the problem of most potent myth of progress at the sciences in our universities are strong disposing of nuclear waste, or the time of the IPAs foundation: — as Roger Sandall says in this issue, tragedy of Chernobyl. On the other socialism. History is a fickle bride. there rationality, order and dis- hand, those countries which rely on cipline still matter; the humanities, nuclear electricity (17 per cent of the Ken Baker

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 Elections and the National Interest Can a political party which tells the truth and ignores powerful vested interests still get elected?

TONY RUTHERFORD

N TIME, the Federal election of 13 March 1993 may give planning major economic and institutional reform should not rise to more commentary and analysis than any other only keep absolutely quiet about it, but actively lie about it, since December 1975. The various explanations of victory until after the election. and defeat are interesting to those within the process, who It is hard at this stage to offer definitive judgments on have to fight another election at some time over the next two either argument. Perhaps the first is indeed valid in some or three years. But they are also of interest to those who might sense, at least insofar as it represents the raising to an art-form want to understand what they mean, in terms of more general of the more or less random lying, half-truth, misrepresentation implications, for democratic politics. and evasion which have characterized elections in Australia One current and popular explanation is that elections for some time now. It hardly seems sustainable over the longer can — indeed, should — be fought and won on the basis of term; may not, indeed, be sustainable for the next election in systematic fraud. This takes two forms. 1996. If elections get to the point where electors know that The first is that incumbent governments may resolutely every word spoken is a lie, they will find other ways of making lie about the state of the economy, about economic prospects, their decisions. about the costs and benefits of their election promises, and The second argument is even harder to assess. History about their true post-election agenda, and not only win, but seems to support it: after all, none of Hawke, Thatcher or then find ways of breaking most significant promises and Lange outlined their various reform programs in any clear way implementing quite different policies. before they were first elected. Those who know Victoria well This seems to hold of the Governments win in 1993. can usefully ask themselves whether Mr Kennett would have It is unlikely that the advice being received from cvnn V hP h4 in Treasury, say, last Christmas, on either general economic or detail and in advance fiscal prospects differed greatly from that being received three precisely what he has in fact months later. It is, for instance, unlikely that the circumstances done since October last which led to the commissioning of either the FitzGerald report year. An outsiders impres- on savings, or the White Paper on unemployment were not as sion is that the inevitability of clearly apparent then as after the election. It is unlikely that Labors defeat made detail the move toward enterprise bargaining in industrial relations somewhat superfluous. was unforeseen; or that the enormous political difficulty of The Victorian example Mabo was not anticipated. It is extremely unlikely that the is a very interesting one, be- gaping hole in Commonwealth revenues was not foreseen, or cause Mr Kennett has so far that indirect taxes would have to rise to fill it. maintained a more than ade- Examples could be multiplied, sufficient to establish quate lead in the polls. This calculated deceit on a massive scale. Apparently, no jour- may reflect no more than the nalists, and only a few rather old-fashioned commentators, discredit which has descend- think this either immoral or, indeed, anything other than ed on the State Opposition; entirely justified cleverness. Jeffrey Kennett: avoided detail it may reflect the fact that The second form of the argument is that Oppositions pre-election Victorians now understand

Tony Rutherford is a public policy analyst based in the IPAs Perth office.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 ELECTIONS AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST the depth of their crisis and are willing to accept some pain in of One Nation were exhausted and beyond resuscitation by the dealing with it. It seems to be the first election that is the time the election occurred. However that may be, Labors difficult one, and an economic crisis of Victorian or New appeals to the national interest appeared only in a distorted Zealand dimensions is perhaps a prerequisite to selling form, in a characteristic depiction of alternative policies as reform. The central difficulty really emerges as a widespread somehow un-Australian. reluctance, even in the face of visible economic decline, to Those who have talked about interest group politics in change any major aspect of the status quo. Australia have tended so far to talk about the obvious vested Others may, of course, succeed where Dr Hewsons interests, whose gains from influencing the political process Coalition failed. We would hardly write off Hamlet as a play are clear: unions, for instance, and other occupational monop- on the basis of a country high school performance; the next olies, and — the classic instance — the beneficiaries of in- party of reform may yet find its Olivier. Perhaps more impor- dustry and agricultural protection. tantly, it argues a very significant loss of faith in democratic Now, clearly, we have to cast the net wider than that. politics to believe that the cause of reform in the national Many of the groups potentially influential in election cam- interest will never be accepted by the voters. Or does it? paigns are not the typical, well-organized, Canberra-based lobby groups that characterized the politics of influence until the mid-1980s. Some, indeed, do not exist until they are un- Buying off Interest Groups covered in party research — the families thought to be suscep- tible to promises of extensive child-care funding might be an There is a different but closely related explanation of example of this. So a more comprehensive list might, for electoral success and failure which demands that we look instance, add to the old lobbies: closely at just that, at the relationship between elections and • the vocal interests, which would encompass large sections the national interest. This argument would explain success, of the arts community (especially writers), the ABC, quite simply, as a result of looking after interest groups. A academics, and even elements of the press gallery; version of it (which did not purport to be a theory of every- thing) surfaced, soon after the Federal election, in an article • the ideological interests, a slightly awkward category into in The Bulletin by Senator Graham Richardson. He explains: which we could fit, for example, the extremist greens; • the dependent interests, including many welfare "When Labor strategists sit down to work out how recipients in many categories, obviously, but also many to win, they divine methods of bringing together a public servants. verybroad range of interest groups to support their party. Interest groups are consulted and some That is a rough and arbitrary classification of a complex hope is always held out to them. Sometime during phenomenon, which could no doubt be broken down and the80s, the Liberals decided that interest groups refined further. The disentangling of rationale is equally com- represented very little political threat and simply plex. In many cases the nature of the interest is transparent, a could be overruled. Not only that, shadow mini- tangible benefit. In other cases it is less so, and we are dealing sters were sent out regularly to harangue and abuse with intangible benefits such as the psychic rewards of power them." or influence over the public agenda. In still other cases, the interest is more subtle, and may come from the benefits of The examples he gives seem telling: the arts community, group identity; particularly if the group finds its identity in the the sports community, welfare recipients (especially the un- perpetuation of grievance — hence the strength of some employed), the tourism industry, university students, environ- multicultural and Aboriginal groups. Often the interests, and mentalists, and so on. (There is, of course, more than a little the benefits, will overlap. disingenuity in all of this, given the wide range of linkages Putting even this preliminary list of interest groups between the ALP and many Australian interest groups. But together with the technique outlined by Senator Richardson put that to one side, at least for the moment.) And the result is sufficient to show the unpleasant consequences for the of the election makes the message even more acute. democratic electoral process. (Not only that, but also for Just as Senator Richardson nowhere alludes to the na- society as a whole: it already seems clear that there are long- tional interest, the overall term implications for content of Labors campaign nationhood and national was likewise a complex identity if Australians give blend of appeals to fear and%y "A government which their loyalty to interest self-interest rather than an groups ahead of family, unambiguous appeal to put ;=g robs Peter to pay Paul community and nation. the national interest first in a can always depend on The appropriation of the coherent plan for sus- ^•? the support of Paul." word `community for tainable economic recovery. these identifiable target This may simply reflect the f ^^t groups is entirely possibility that both the y?1 symptomatic.) rhetoric and the substance The problems will, at

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 ELECTIONS AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST least in the short term, get worse. Demand will generate After all, despite having allegedly alienated every interest supply: as more citizens perceive that group organization is group in the country, despite being saddled with the albatros- the only effective way of having their concerns heard, they will ses of GST and major industrial relations reform, despite discover their own interest groups. Many existing groups, even being apparently unable to articulate any strong vision of the though the benefits will always fall short of the promises, will national interest, despite being unable to pin the responsibility grow stronger and more vocal. At the same time, ordinary for Australias economic crises where it belonged — despite citizens who have no burning causes, who wish merely to be all this the Coalition still won 48.6 per cent of the national vote left alone to live their lives in peace, will become even further on a two-party preferred basis. And consider this: the Coali- tion won or held a majority of seats in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria, and were one short of a majority in Queensland — winning just half the seats in New There are long-term implications for South Wales would have given them government. Perhaps all nationhood and national identity the theories are just a bit too detached from the practical if Australians give their loyalty to deficiencies of party organization and the brute realities of electioneering. interest groups ahead of family, Certainly no party of genuine reform — whether the community and nation. present Coalition, or any successor or alternative — can afford to divorce the pursuit of the national interest from the neces- sities of effective campaigning. alienated from politics than they now are. Indeed, unless they live in marginal seats, and have some particular, manipulable Restoring Confidence in Democracy and identifiable need, they will tend to be entirely overlooked in the political process. It is important to note, too, that the The problem remains: how can the next party of reform inevitable failure of expectations — from giving, in postelec- which wants to avoid the charge of political deceit (and the tion rectitude, far Iess than was so cynically promised — will ensuing public cynicism) and resist sacrificing the national not weaken the process. Indeed, for some groups the disap- interest to narrow vested interests win government? pointment of expectations, by perpetuating a central A program to restore peoples confidence in Australias grievance, will strengthen the group solidarity. political processes by counteracting the dominance of parties, Some features of this scene offer particular hazards to politicians, bureaucrats and interest groups would be a sig- parties seeking to change the status quo. Although the de- nificant step toward achieving this. A promise to reform itself pendent interests mentioned earlier, for instance, are not for — including widening access to the preselection process the most part an organized group in any strict sense, they can through `primaries — should be part of such a partys election increasingly be seen as exercising a potential veto on major agenda. change. This should be accompanied by a strong commitment to Simply as an exercise in establishing the worst-case thorough-going parliamentary reform designed to make scenario, one could add up the number of voters who are transparency and accountability effective again. To the usual welfare dependents, employees of the three public sectors, agenda for parliamentary reform one could suggest a number and full-time students, and come up with some fairly disturb- of possible additions: a clear code of ministerial behaviour, ing figures — around 45 per cent of the electorate is probably stressing the basic fiduciary duties of ministers and laying not far off. Given that these classes are not evenly distributed down firm rules of ministerial responsibility, for instance, and across parliamentary seats (and given, too, that one should a pledge to limit terms, to start with. Reformers might even include, say, dependents of public sector employees), it is easy begin to air publicly some of the problems which underlie both to understand the good anecdotal reports of there being our economic difficulties and the lack of trust in our institu- equivalent figures of around 55 per cent in some individual tions — is anyone in Australia bold and sensible enough to marginal seats. That is a very substantial constituency in favour propose rules for balanced budgets? of the status quo of a large public sector and a deeply-rooted Such things — and there are many more similar - welfare state. could not only form an attractive agenda or manifesto Of course, not all of that constituency will always vote rooted in the national interest but might also make up for for their own particular version of the status quo. It is easy to the inevitable difficulties of explaining the subtleties of think of many who would not: age pensioners, for instance, economic reform. who believe their entitlements to be beyond change; senior or That manifesto should also address many other issues professional public servants who would succeed equally well congenial to a program of reform, which also find an echo in in the private sector; and so on. Moreover, electors will often the electorate: one obvious instance would be a strong and vote for the national interest over their own self-interest if the principled attack on the Australian taxation system, which is case for doing so is well presented. If it is not, even those who characterized by an unusual degree of arbitrary discretion, — like the unemployed at the last election — have most to gain impenetrable complexity and simple highhandedness. (Cur- from change will cast their vote conservatively. rent moves to reward unusually diligent tax-gatherers with a It will not do to be excessively gloomy about all this. bonus are symptomatic of how wrongheaded the whole system

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 ELECTIONS AND THE NATIONAL INTEREST has become.) The Australian Taxation Office and the Acts it and the case for microeconomic reform, in language both administers are a serious affront to the rule of law, and are accessible and appealing to ordinary voters. On the whole, the seen as such. Coalition has failed to do that; although Mr Howards Future (Reform of the tax system in the sense advocated by Directions was perhaps the bravest try of recent years. Indeed, Fightback! is, on the other hand, largely and rightly seen as the Coalition has been consistently outperformed by the beside the point. No sane voter should cheerfully contemplate Government in the rhetoric stakes for some time now - giving a strong central government access to two very large tax perhaps a consequence of its defensive isolation from bases with very easily manipulable rates; and it is a sign of how academics and intellectuals. Doing something about this in- far the econocrats who designed the package were from reality volves something of a dilemma. It is possible to hire people that they should have suggested it as the keystone of an who can clothe any program (indeed, any series of contradic- electoral package.) tory programs) in opportunistic rhetoric. It is, on the other A certain amount of thought can provide a fairly com- hand, somewhat more difficult to find a coherent system of prehensive manifesto based on these considerations. beliefs which can find: natural expression in convincing `Comprehensive need not, it should be said, include rhetoric. `detailed. One of the problems with Fightback! was the de- Perhaps in the end the Coalition Iost the last election gree to which it locked in a detailed program of economic because they could do neither? • reform which failed to take into account the possibility of any radical change in economic circumstances between the time of its drafting and the time of its implementation. 1. See Tony Rutherford, `Improving Parliament: The Essential Reforms, The next party of reform will have to be much more IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 2,1992, pp. 42-44. judicious in its blend of clear principle and selective detail. It will also have to broaden its agenda; not, as some would suggest, by competing with the Government on `soft left issues, but by explaining clearly the implications of the liberal economic agenda for the social order, and for alter- NEW PUBLICATION native approaches to some of those soft issues, such as the environment. VICTORIAS TRANSPORT SECTOR Non-Corrupting Interest Groups A New Vision That sort of manifesto may not in itself be sufficient. The A report prepared for Project Victoria by next party of reform will have to think seriously about whether, the Tasman Institute and the IPA or how, it can appeal, without compromise, to the interest groups whose perception of their own narrow interest is close enough for honest purposes to the national interest. Examples Victoria has a per capita public transport deficit are probably both unnecessary and invidious: but one con- one-third higher than NSW and four times the spicuous feature of the last election campaign was the inability size of Queensland. This Report proposes of most major business groups to make their voices heard, in policies which v ould transform Victorias their own or in the nations interest. Any reasonable agenda public transport into an efficient and effective which came these days from small business, for example, sector. would be likely to coincide fairly closely with the national "A large majority of the population has interest, and unlikely to corrupt the party of reform. spurned the Governments inadequate There, briefly, are two modest suggestions: a platform transport system for the speed and con- which broadens the range of venience of private cars. They will con- major issues which would serve tinue to do so until the quality, the national interest as well as convenience and relative costs of genuine electoral concerns, and public transport improve markedly. a cultivation of non-corrupting These improvements will only occur by S ^: interest groups. None of this will increasing the role of private do much good unless the next enterprise." party of reform makes a deter- mined effort to learn the lan- Available for $15 (inc. ph) from guage of the national interest. Institute of Public Affairs That is in part a matter of Ground Floor argument, in part a matter of 128 Jolimont Road John Howard: the language rhetoric. There are ways of put- Jolimont Vic 3002 of Future Directions was ting the cases for limited govern- Phone (03) 654 7499. appealing ment and smaller government,

10 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 414

MIKE NAHAN

States Get the Message share of GDP in 40 years. The lack of than Victoria, the States all expect private investment is the primary cause either a reduced deficit or, in the case The States t are finally coming good of the very slow recovery in Australia of Queensland, a surplus. As a result, on fiscal policy, and their timing could since 1990-91. There are no signs that the deficit for the State sector, exclud- not be better as the Commonwealth the large government deficits over the ing Victoria, is expected to decline by Government has faltered under the last three years have helped to expand 12 per cent to $6.4 billion in 1993-94. weight of its costly election win. investment spending in the private sec- 1993-94 is a year of transition in Put this down as one more example tor — except perhaps in housing. Victoria. The Kennett Government is of the benefits of our federal system of What this expansive fiscal policy did in the process of introducing a much- government. Having alternative levels ensure is that the inadequate level of needed wide-ranging program of of government helps limit the ability of private investment that did take place public-sector reform. However, as with one level to mess things up too badly. was financed from abroad. Since 1991- most investments — and the Kennett The main task confronting all 92, the public sector has more than reform package is an investment in the Australian governments in 1993-94 has consumed all the savings generated by future — the Victorian Government been to reduce the high level of struc- the household and business sectors. has had to spend money before saving tural unemployment. Experience, par- Thus, in effect, there have been no money. Thus the financial estimates for ticularly from the successful Asian domestic savings remaining with which the Victorian publicsector in 1993-94 do countries, has shown that high employ- to fund private sector investment once not give an accurate picture of the ment is not secured by pumping up the public sector has had its fill. Given Budgets impact on the States large demand but by taking measures to the tight and competitive investment structural deficit. Specifically, the Vic- make the economys supply side more climate in todays world, the lack of torian Government plans to borrow efficient. domestic savings inevitably acts to limit $1.4 billion for a special redundancy Despite this experience, Australian investment in Australia and therefore program and another S1.4 billion to governments opted for pump-priming to limit the rate and sustainability of refund moneys siphoned from the resulting in the public-sector deficit economic and employment growth. States largest public sector superan- increasing from $2.2 billion in 1990-91 With this in mind, the 1993-94 nuation fund by the Kirner Govern- to $25 billion in 1992-93. This expan- budget response should have been to ment. If these are excluded, the States sion was not only, or even primarily, a cut the deficit, to restrain the growth in public-sector deficit will actually result of cyclical factors such as higher taxes and outlays, and to accelerate the decline by 43 per cent in 1993-94, from unemployment entitlements, but process of microeconomic reform. $3.5 billion to $2.0 billion. rather of policy decisions to spend and In contrast, the Commonwealth borrow more and tax less. public-sector deficit (after adjusting Did this pump-priming help to Deficits: Good and Bad News for asset sales and extra debt quicken the pace of recovery? Not refinancing by States) is set to increase much: most growth since 1989-90 has In terms of the deficit, the States in 1993-94 by 13 per cent to $21 billion; been derived from net exports and not have, in the main, done the right thing. which, measured as a share of GDP domestic consumption. Consumption Even though the deficit of the State (five per cent), is the highest Common- has not been, nor is it, the problem; in- sector as a whole is expected to grow wealth deficit since the Whit lam era. vestment, or rather the lack of business sharply (20 per cent) in 1993-94, this is As a result of the Commonwealths investment, is the problem. Business entirely due to a series of necessary, laxity and Victorias adjustment pro- investment is at its lowest level as a one-off transactions in Victoria. Other gram, the combined deficit of the State

Dr Mike Nahan is Director of the IPA States Policy Unit, based in Perth.

1PA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 11 AROUND THE STATES and Commonwealth public sectors is Government has trumpeted its so- led the reform movement under the set to increase by 15 per cent to just called tax cuts, the fact is that it is ex- leadership of Nick Greiner for five over $27 billion in 1993-94. Again, at pecting an increase in total revenue years, continues to place heavy em- around 6.5 per cent of GDP, this will (4.4 per cent) and in tax receipts (3.6 phasis on microeconomic reform in its represent the largest deficit since the per cent) in 1993-94. What the Com- 1993-94 Budget, although there arc Whitlam era. Excluding the one-off monwealth is giving with one hand, it is worrying signs that the impetus is now Victorian transactions, the deficit is more than taking back with the other. coming from the bureaucracy rather about $24.5 billion (about 5.8 per cent In contrast, the States expect very than the Government. of GDP). modest revenue growth. In 1993-94, Clearly the best thing about the The main cause of the higher deficit State revenue is set to grow by only 2.5 1993-94 round of budgets is that, is, not surprisingly, higher spending by per cent or, again excluding Victoria, without exception, Governments at the Commonwealth and Victoria. one per cent. State tax receipts are set least promise to wind back theirdeficits Total spending by the Commonwealth to show a more marked increase at 5.7 over the next few years. Of course these is set to increase by seven per cent in per cent, which is due in large part to commitments must be heavily dis- 1993-94, which is nearly three times the sizeable hikes in tobacco franchise fees counted — as we saw with Mr Kcatings expected rate of inflation. Spending by and the full-year effect of tax increases recent tax cuts, even fiscal decisions the States is also expected to increase announced the previous year. Impor- enshrined in L-A-W mean at best by a sizeable amount in 1993-94 (6.4 tantly, few of the tax increases made by `Maybe. Nonetheless, there arc commit- per cent). However, as with the deficit, the States over the last few years fall on ments and we live in hope. State spending is biased upward by the business sector. The FitzGerald Report on Nation- one-off expenditures in Victoria. If al Savings correctly states: "the Com- Victoria is excluded, States spending is monwealth should seek to return its set to grow by a more modest 3.5 per Micro Reform Ignored overall general government budget to cent, which is still above the estimated its `natural position of surplus and the rate of inflation (of 2.5 per cent). The Commonwealth Budget all but States should seek to return to the his- ignored microeconomic reform -- a torical long term decline in their over- point missed entirely by the Senate and all general government deficit." Public Service Cuts the press. One of the hallmarks of The States are all committed to Commonwealth Budgets since 1986 reducing their deficit in a mannerconsis- One positive feature of most of the has been the inclusion of initiatives tent with the FitzGerald recommenda- Budgets, even the Commonwealths, is designed to spur on the pace of reform. tion. Moreover, they plan to achieve this the increase in productivity implied by The 1993-94 Commonwealth Budget primarilyby restraining growth inspend- the cuts to the public service. All failed to keep up this tradition. Aside ing. In contrast, the Commonwealths States, with the surprising exception of from promising a few studies, which medium-term debt reduction strategy Western_ Australia, plan to cut their were already well under way, it did of reducing the deficit to one per cent public-sector work-forces in both the nothing for microeconomic reform. In- of GDP by 1996-97 falls far short of the trading enterprises and, importantly, deed, many of the initiatives included appropriate goal of a surplus. Further- the budget sector in 1993-94. The in the Budget are retrograde, including more, the Commonwealth plans to Iargest cuts are expected in Victoria, changes to the indirect tax system and achieve its meagre target primarily by where a net reduction of eight per cent the phasing-out of the Waterfront In- raising taxes. or 14,000 public-service jobs is dustry Reform Authority under the In summary, the 1993-94 round of planned. Even Queensland, which is pretext that it had finished its mission. budgets signals a reversal of roles. In the only government to have a budget Conversely, the most promising the 19SOs, the Commonwealth led the surplus and actually contribute to na- aspect of State Budgets is that they all field in reducing the public sectors tional savings, plans to cut back its contain a clear commitment to draw on savings and in faster work-force, albeit slightly. microeconomic reform. Even South microeconomic reform. In the early The Commonwealth also plans to Australia, which has been a laggard in 1990s, the States got the message and trim its work-force by three per cent or this regard, appears finally to have now they lead the way. How the world 4,900 positions in 1993-94. Although found a sense of mission, though turns! ■ this is a welcome move, it should be Premier Arnold promises to be gentle. noted that these cuts are primarily to Victoria, however, is the outstanding be achieved in defence and the example. The Victorian Governments 1. States defined here to include the Northern repatriation services, the latter by the agenda of reform is impressive in its Territory and the ACT. privatization of repatriation hospitals. scope, pace and quality. It covers al- 2. The deficit is defined here as the net (iinanc- ing requirement (NFR) of the total public Moreover, unlike the States, the most all areas of government, is ex- sector, which includes government business Commonwealths work-force has ex- pected to be in place in a couple of enterprises, adjusted for asset sales and for perienced substantial growth over the years, and is built on the lessons, good the funds paid by the States for the refinanc- ing of maturing loans. This definition of the last few years. and bad, from around the world. The deficit provides the best measure of the im- Although the Commonwealth New South Wales Government, which pact on domestic savings.

12 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 Employment Optimism How to benefit from global job mobility

WOLFGANG KASPER

The statistics on unemployment in Australia make for a those youngsters who cannot find jobs that a double-digit un- dire litany: employment rate is here to stay, that they may not find jobs until they are in middle age. Ministers of the Crown are now arguing • The rate of unemployment in Australia now stands at over that the young should lower their sights and their career ambi- 11 per cent. In each successive recession since 1970, tions. What a prospect is that to hold out to the young? unemployment has risen, and in no year in a subsequent Australian society seems caught up in a dangerous, pos- cyclical upswing did it come down to the level in the year sibly self-fulfilling, "employment pessimism" and in a com- of the preceding boom. placency that seems nothing short of scandalous. Even with • Whilst unemployment has increased in most OECD substantial dole payments, high unemployment is a grave countries above historic standards, it has climbed by more calamity for most of those out of a job. Society foregoes an in Australia. In the US, the unemployment rate in mid- enormous amount of production that could do much good in 1993 stood at seven per cent and in Japan at 2.5 per cent. the community. High and lasting unemployment does more • The relative importance of structural and long-term un- than any other economic ill, except inflation, to undermine the employment, which tends to inflict severe material and fabric of shared, stable values and alienate people from psychological harm on individuals and their families, has democracy. The long-run social consequences of unemploy- crept up during the 1980s. Forty per cent of all unemployed ment may yet prove to be politically and socially destabilizing. men have been out of a job for more than one year. Who knows what crises we face in the future and whether • Job opportunities of low- and middle-income earners Australian democracy that so many take for granted needs seem to have declined relatively more than those of high- defending? Will the disappointed, alienated youth generation ly-educated, highly-paid employees.1 move to defend a democracy whose leaders have so obviously grown complacent about their biggest personal problem? Will • Youth unemployment rates are much higher than the Australias Constitution go the way of the Weimar Republic, average. Job prospects are particularly poor for young whose interest group deal-making and over-administration women; over a third of all women between 15 and 19 years end-of-century Australia resembles more and more? Why who seek work cannot find a job. does no-one even speculate any more how joblessness could be eliminated in three to five years? Yet, the Australian public and the key policy-makers - The prevailing "employment pessimism" is a dangerous, whatever lip service they pay to the desirability of high employ- though comfortable, cop-out. In a civilized society, a high rate ment — seem complacent in the face of these facts. Different of employment should continue to be one of the central ob- from what used to be a political dogma in the 1950s and 1960s, jectives of economic policy. I want to argue that we must be the electorate no longer punishes governments that have able to do better than we have over the disappointing past two presided over high unemployment. Indeed, many people will decades. say privately that high unemployment is the only way to control union power in Australia and to keep strike activity and wage-cost pressures at internationally competitive levels. The Jobs Have Become Internationally Footloose Accord, which was supposed to make high employment compatible with wage discipline, had eventually to be supple- Some optimism is not misplaced if one adopts a global mented by "the recession we had to have." We are now telling viewpoint. If we see Australias unemployment problem in a

Wolfgang Kasper is the Professor of Economics, Department of Economics and Management at the University of New South Wales (Australian Defence Force Academy campus). This is an edited version of a recent speech delivered to "The Class of 90 Club" in Parliament House, Canberra.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 13 EMPLOYMENT OPTIMISM

global context, we observe that some 60 million new jobs are governments were able to provide to well-connected pressure created in the world every year, eight times the entire groups in the bygone era of nationally segregated job markets. Australian work-force. Attracting as little as 1.5 per cent of Thus, emeritus guru Bob Santamaria attacks "the ultimate one single years global job creation to Australia would wipe economists dream ... international competitiveness" and sees out unemployment here! it as a nightmare for the unemployed . 4 He is joined by trade This is the correct approach because jobs are now be- unions, single-issue lobbyists and bureaucratic networks coming increasingly footloose amongst nations. Self-centred, whose power over the political process wanes in the face of purely national economic policies are increasingly irrelevant. global job mobility. It was typical for the new age of globaliza- We must realize that jobs are lost (or not created) in Australia tion that the original Mabo push was in reality not halted by if conditions here are not competitive with the job-creation political opposition, but by the simple fact that numerous climate elsewhere. The evidence shows that Australia is not a aluminium smelter jobs will not be created in Gladstone if very competitive location for new jobs, as Australian jobs are Parliament makes property and mining rights insecure. increasingly in direct competition with jobs in Asia and else- Another fact of life now is that, for the first time, where .2 Of course, Australia sometimes wins. Thus, Australians operate in a common market (CER) in which there is one independent government (New Zealand) that does exactly what attracts jobs: providing stable money, pur- suing fiscal probity and across-the-board deregulation, offer- Attracting as little as 1.5 per cent of ing businesses low compliance costs with government, and one single years global job creation providing an efficient infrastructure to industry. No wonder so many jobs from South Australia, Tasmania and Victoria are to Australia would wipe out quietly migrating across the Tasman. It is time that Australians unemployment here! rose to the new New Zealand challenge, and did so with the same commitment that we put up to the All Blacks and Kiwi cricketers!

Australians on the Gold Coast are now processing Hong Kong horse-racing bets on a minute-by-minute basis, and the grow- Globalization Offers New Job Opportunities ingoutsourcing of car manufacturers in Europe and America has led to Australian firms air-freighting valuable car com- The employment pessimists in Australia have concluded ponents half way around the world, and to do so reliably seven that the globalization of the job market will depress Australian days a week to meet the consumers stringent just-in-time wages and jobs. They say that we cannot compete with much requirements. lower wages in Indonesia, China or New Zealand. They got it The effects of the job market globalization are not uni- dead wrong. que to Australia. In 1990, US companies employed 2.8 million What matters whether Australia attracts or loses jobs is people in Western Europe, 1.5 million in Asia and 1.3 million not the IeveI of wages or taxes, but unit costs: the wage relative in Latin America, because they found the climate for to labour productivity, the tax relative to administrative ef- profitability and productivity there more attractive than in the ficiency. High-income countries like Australia can attract jobs US. Some American firms now have urgent typing work done by offering a climate of high and rising productivity and good in the Philippines and remitted back by wire. In Jamaica, 3,500 government. Moreover, the rapid rise of incomes in Asia is people work in an office park that is satellite-connected to the offering many Australians new job opportunities, if only we US to process invoices and business letters. And in Ireland, can make the home base for exporters competitive. clerks are doing the telephone bookings for US domestic This requires, first and foremost, that the unit costs of airlines when customers call during night-time in the US. production and transacting business in Australia are reduced Many jobs in Europe are taking flight from high taxes, and that those in control of the production factors that cannot regulatory overload and intransigent unions and locate in new move internationally — namely low-skilled labour, land and industrial locations. government administration — begin to act in support of The job market is now integrating globally because of world-market-oriented competitors who are located in continuing reductions in transport and communications costs Australia. This requires abandoning mental attitudes which and the improved convenience of using telecommunications. were bred by political and union domination of economic life Every year since 1950, international sea freight costs have in 90 years of isolation in favour of a competitive spirit in dropped by 0.4 per cent in real terms, air passenger costs by economic and industrial affairs that matches our pre-Olympic 2.5 per cent and international phone calls by more than 6.5 per fervour. cent annually.3 More than the removal of artificial, political- In contradiction to the policy-makers in governments ly-mandated barriers to international economic integration - and unions, most Australians now probably realize that labour such as tariffs and foreign investment controls -- the global markets will have to be genuinely deregulated if we want to transport and communications revolution has exposed trigger a general productivity breakout. Partial moves in that everyones job to global competition. direction are now evident in many industrial niches and are Many resent this. In Australia, they attack economic already turning many Australian Corms into unexpected industrial rationalism, but in reality hanker after cosy featherbeds which and export winners. The official apparat — in particular the

14 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 EMPLOYMENT OPTIMISM political and the union wings of the labour movement — has, job market thus depends greatly on whether politicians and of course, not yet accepted that genuine labour deregulation administrators are competing well by providing a transaction- will take industrial conditions out of the hands of self-seeking cost-reducing legal and administrative system or whether pseudo-judges, advocates and union apparatchiks and put they rule supreme, irrespective of what damage they do to them in the hands of the partners in the workplace — that is employment. the people directly concerned with work and job security. For A new global competition amongst socio-economic sys- that reason, Australia now appears to be losing valuable time. tems is emerging. In that setting, long-isolated Australia starts But if we are to return to high employment, wages will simply out with a handicap. Geographic distance, tariffs and foreign have to reflect skills and productivities — including regional investment controls long kept the discipline of world-market conditions of productivity and competitiveness, as the In- competition at bay and created much scope for lobbying, dustry Commission recently had the guts to point out! political favouritism and interventionism. Economic life be- It is probably also understood by growing numbers of came highly politicized. The reliance on government as the Australians that the tax system has to be rid of many disincen- universal problem-solver was based on the notion that those tives to job creation. elected somehow know how to solve all our problems. As a At least, one need not dwell any more on these important result, Australia has been subjected to extraordinary legisla- points when one discusses the basic concept of reform and job tive activism. Yet, as of the 1990s, we are becoming aware that creation. However, one other source of impediments to fast the legislators and regulators simply do not know the answers; job creation is frequently overlooked or is still treated as a for example, how to eliminate the plague of unemployment. sacred cow when it comes to changing to global competitive Australia is perceived by many owners of capital, know-how mode: Australian governments. and firms simply as a legislative and regulatory killing field for new world-competitive jobs. For the sake of job opportunities, we now have to fight Regulatory Obstacles back! This important and widely accepted strategic message was lost in the 1993 election campaign at the expense of petty Australias traditional style of governance, solving tactical and technical detail. We must fight back by streamlin- shared problems by collective means, is largely oblivious of the ing the legal and regulatory order and systematically creating requirements of the international competitiveness of jobs. It lower transaction costs. The protective walls around a distant, is the third great impediment to rapid job creation alongside isolated Australia have fallen for good. Yet, most Australian labour market rigidities and an inappropriate fiscal system. politicians radiate an air of complacency, one suspects, be- This is so, because the international competitiveness of jobs cause they want to carry on with the old game of intervening nowadays hinges as much on low transaction costs as on labour in the detail of specific market processes, fearing that they and tax costs. The costs of transport, information search, might be found out as having no clothes. It may be more negotiating and enforcing contracts, and the many other costs demanding for elected politicians and self-serving of doing business in the market place now make up about 40 bureaucrats to confine themselves to the big, strategic picture per cent of the total cost of producing the national product. of setting the basic rules — creating a stable framework, an With an increasing division of labour, that share is rising. order, a constitution for competitive markets. Instead of Economic theory tells us that the transaction costs and abolishing and simplifying legislation and regulations and risks are greatly influenced by the rules in a society — what speeding up administrative support to internationally compet- economists call the "institutions" .5 Where the rules are ing jobs, it maybe easier for those who manage the Australian simple, transparent and constant, they expedite business and political process to go on generating a complex flow of create confidence. Such countries offer an internationally specific, interventionist legislation — never mind the transac- competitive location for new jobs, because they attract job- tion costs it foists on industry. The scope for arbitrary, inept creating capital, know-how and firms. Where the rules are ad hoc intervention keeps growing, as the legislation becomes complex and case-specific, and where arbitrary bureaucratic ever more complex and the number of bureaucrats grows. rules are changed all the time, transaction costs tend to be Despite the problems and hold-ups, there are hopeful begin- high. There, many jobs are killed — or, rather, are moved nings in labour market reform. But is there any hope in the quietly off-shore. legislatory job killing fields? Job-attracting institutional rules may, of course, evolve One can see the evidence in every sitting of Parliament independently of government within society — such as cus- right there on the table: all the laws of the Commonwealth up toms and ethical norms that have proven successful and are to 1973 fitted into one metre of bound volumes; now a metre imitated. But nowadays the rules are increasingly imposed by of legislation seems to be added every few years. Geoff Hogbin the political process through explicit legislation and regula- recently documented that the Commonwealth Parliament tion. Governments thus have a key role in the international alone filled no less than 30,000 pages with new statutes during competition in the global job market: if they adhere consis- the 1980s and that in 1990-91, it generated a record 1,600 new tently and reliably to the rule of the common law and prevent legal impositions .6 This proliferation makes everyone a law- proliferating, transaction-cost-boosting special case legisla- breaker — something most people resent deeply. And it often tion and bureaucratic arbitrariness, they make a direct con- imposes high compliance costs on the citizen. Just look at how tribution to attracting internationally footloose jobs. The difficult and costly Parliament has made it to comply with tax future of employment in the Australian segment of the global legislation or open a small new business.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 is EMPLOYMENT OPTIMISM

I agree wholeheartedly with prominent Australian con- may not be clearly understood by many of those many un- stitutional lawyer Professor Geoffrey Walker, who wrote employed fellow citizens, in particular the young who are recently: suffering out there. But we might fear the day when some radical populist explains to them what harm legislatures and "Australias decline ... tends to be viewed as a administrations have been doing to them because they - purely economic phenomenon. But our economic caught up in comfortable complacency — failed to shape tribulations in large part result from the increasing better, simpler and fewer rules which are business-friendly distortion of our constitutional structures and the and job-friendly! ■ erosion of political and democratic order. People will not plan, invest and produce in an economy that lacks a balanced constitution and the rule of law, where the fruits of ones foresight and effort 1. Gregory, R.G., Aspects of Australian and US Uving Standards: Thu Disappointing Decades 1970-1990, Economic Record, March 1993, pp. can be swept away by arbitrary changes of policy 61-76. "7 or law. 2. World Competitiveness Report 1993, Geneva-Lausanne: World Economic Forum and International Management Development, 1993. The legislatory madness — based on a pretence of know- According to my own calculations, Australia in 1993 ranks a poor 19th out of 37 countries covered in that Report (Kasper, W., Global Com- all paternalism — has to stop if this country, which is well petition, Institutions and the East-Asian Ascendancy, San Francisco: endowed with so many assets, is to attract more jobs from International Center for Economic Growth, forthcoming.] other parts of the world. Many people in the community have 3. Kasper, W., Spatial Economics, Fortune Encyclopedia of Economics, now embarked on painful industrial restructuring and are New York: Warner Books, 1993, p. 84. making the necessary sacrifices. But they often find that they 4. The WeekendAustralian, 4-5 September 1993. are deprived of the rewards from the market place because 5. North, D.C., Transaction Cost Institutions and Economic Performance, government so often fails to set firm, general rules and fails to San Francisco: International Center for Economic Growth, 1992. 6. Hopbin, G., When Should Governments Regulate Markets?, IPA act as an essential support organization for globally competing Review, Vol. 46 No. 1, 1993, pp. 51.6. jobs. 7. Walker, G. de Q., Restoring the True Republic, Sydney: Centre for The connections between job creation and governance Independent Studies, September 1993, p. 11.

MELBOURNE CONFERENCE SYDNEY LUNCHEON

IPA invites you to hear

Dr William Kristol Chief of Staff to U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett (1985-88) and to Vice-President Quayle (1989-92)

on the topic: `Report from erica: The Fight for the Culture

MELBOURNE: Dr Kristol will be the keynote speaker at an IPA conference entitled A Culture for Full Employment on Wednesday, 1 December 1993, 9am-2.30pm, The Regent Hotel, 25 Collins Street, Melbourne. The cost of $200 includes pre-luncheon drinks and a three-course luncheon. The conference program includes: Mr Hugh Morgan AO, Chief Executive of Western Mining Corporation, on The Hungry Man and the Tin Opener • Mr Paul Kelly, Editor-in-Chief of The Australian newspaper, on The End of Certainty • Professor Richard Blandly, Director of the Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne, on Culture and Jobs • Professor David Penington AC, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, on Education and Its Relevance to Australia. CHAIRMAN:-Mr John Stone, IPA Senior Fellow. SYDNEY: Dr Kristol will speak at a public luncheon on 2 December at 12:30pm at the Holme Building, University of Sydney. The cost to attend is $35 per head.

For further information on the Melbourne conference, contact Mrs Helen Hyde on (03) 654 7499. For information on the Sydney luncheon, contact Ms Vera Lew on (02) 235 1500.

16 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 Z• DES MOORE

A Modern Paradox The unbalanced composition of the Prime Ministers taskforce on un- 1953-54 1992-93 employment makes it almost certain Modern society is experiencing a (i) Working-Age Population paradox: while the increasing produc- that interventionist solutions will be 000s 6,377(a) 13,791(c) tivity of modern economies requires promulgated in its forthcoming report. smaller and smaller amounts of work In reality, the opposite is required. (ii) Labour Force to produce a good standard of living, A comparison between present and 000s 3,659(a) 8,647(c) society is focusing not on the benefits past may help to give a better perspec- % of (i) 57.4 62.7 of high living standards, but on high tive to the apocalypse now vision. unemployment. In Australia, around Readily available data limit the follow- (iii) Employed 950,000 — about seven per cent of the ing to comparing 1992-93 and 1953-54. 000s 3,584(a) 7,697(c) % of (i) 56.2 55.8 working-age population (15 and over) The striking fact in these figures is that the proportion of the working age -- are actively seeking employment but (iv) Unemployed population that is employed today is cannot obtain it; and a much higher 000s 75(a) 949(c) only fractionally less than it was in proportion say they would like to work % of (ii) 2.0 11.0 if it were available. A common percep- 1953-54 — 55.8 per cent compared to 56.2 per cent. This raises an important (v) Average Male Earnings tion is that this constitutes a socio- 673(c) economic crisis and that, unless question. As the 1950s and 1960s have $ per week 29th) drastic action is taken, a permanent been widely accepted as the golden era of $ p/w (92193 prices) 272 673 `full employment, can the present situa- underclass of work-seekers will cre- (vi) Unemployment Benefit ate ongoing social instability. tion be a crisis when the proportion of those available to work who are not $ per week 2.50(e) 141(d) This crisis scenario is leading many % of (v) 9 21 to argue that, as the market is not employed is no higher today than it was 40 or so years ago? working, government must adopt even (vii) Consumer Prices Index Of course, there is one important more interventionist measures to try to (1980-81=100) 23.4(b) 219.3(c) difference. Of the 44 per cent `not `createiobs. Indeed, as a recent OECD employed (then and today), only some Report points out, the focus of politi- 2.7 per cent2 were registered as un- (a) From Butlin, M.W., A Preliminary Annual cal debate on what to do about high Database 1900-01 to 1973-74, Research Dis- employed in 1953-54 ,while 15.6 per unemployment "increasingly risks cussion Paper 7701, Reserve Bank of cent2 were registered in 1992-93. But Australia, Sydney, 1977, as published in precipitate and counter-productive does this large increase in the actively- Australian Economic Statistics 1949-50 to policy action, e.g. 1989-90, Reserve Bank of Australia. seeking-work component of the not (b) Australian Economic Statistics 1949-50 to • hasty and possibly ill-conceived employed really constitute a major 1989-90, op. cit. macro-economic expansion; socio-economic problem? Or have our (c) Australian Economic Indicator.; October • inappropriate reversal of earlier expectations about jobs been so raised by 1993. political hype that we are afflicted with a (d) Budget Paper No. 1 1992-93, p 3.110. Rate is labour market reforms to facilitate crisis syndrome if they are not met? for a person over 21 years without a depen- structural adjustment; dant. It helps to put the situation in better (e) Commonwealth Year Book 1953, p. 318. Rate • further resort to open or (more like- perspective if we recognize that the in- is for a person over 21 years. ly) disguised trade protectionism." crease in registered unemployed

Des Moore is a Senior Fellow with the IPA.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 17 MOORE ECONOMICS derives almost entirely from the But the widespread (and incorrect) worked to date). However, programs marked increase in the proportion of perception that the labour markets focused on increased training will simply the working age population that wants overall capacity to absorb the demand lead to a shuffling of the employment to work. This increase in those joining for jobs has actually deteriorated is also pack unless there is an increase in the the labour force — from 57.4 per cent an important contributor to a false per- demand for labour. Programs providing in 1953-54 to 62.7 per cent today - ception of crisis and to the calls for job subsidies are a poor substitute for adds some 730,000 people to the labour governments to "do something". allowing the market to adjust wages force in 1992-93 compared to the num- costs. Even the Swedes are progressive- ber that would have been there had the ly dismantling such programs. proportion stayed at 57.4 per cent. Had What Governments Should Do The OECD Report shows how that been the case, unemployment in much better the North American 1992-93 would have been only 219,000, Governments should indeed "do market has performed in keeping un- or about 2.8 per cent of the (lower) something". The fact that a consider- employment down. Thus, even with a labour force. ably higher proportion of the working- higher proportion of the working-age There is a variety of reasons for this age population now wants work and population wanting to work (77 per large increase in those wanting to work. cannot get it indicates that economic cent compared to Australias 74 per The changed role of women, par- policies are not allowing the system to cent in 1992), the US has kept the ticularly married women, and the in- function properly. In particular, the unemployment rate to between six and creased opportunity for women to cost of employing labour is being held seven per cent. The OECD Report work are obvious factors. Some 30 at too high a level as a result of govern- contrasts the greater flexibility of the years ago 33 per cent of females and 84 ment-enforced regulations and, most North American labour market (i.e. per cent of males wanted to work; today notably, the system of wage awards less regulation and less unionism) with the proportion of females is up at governing the conditions under which the more regulated European market around 52 per cent and of males is some 80 per cent of the work-force is and refers, in particular, to the down to 74 per cent. The major invest- employed. The jobs of the insiders European practice of setting a mini- ment in education and training has im- (those in work) are thus receiving too mum wage relatively close to the proved the capacity of people to much protection from competition and, average wage, and indexing it over time contribute to the economy. The increase if church and welfare groups better un- to increases in prices and/or earnings. in thereat averagewage of almost 150 per derstood the meaning of social equity, The Report points out that cent, and the even greater increase in the they would support measures to increase "An effective general approach [to real level of unemployment benefits, competition in the labour market. reducing unemployment], there- have also doubtless attracted more One objection being made to such fore, starts from the recognition people into the labour force. an approach is that it would be socially that a low-productivity jab warrants In short, the increase in those want- undesirable to allow any reduction in the payment of only a low wage." ing to work represents a big increase in wages as this would create a class of the supply of labour. But, obviously, the working poor. This seems, frankly, a It is doubtless a forlorn hope for the increase in the demand to employ ridiculous response. With average real Prime Ministers taskforce also to start people has been much less. More and wages about 150 per cent higher than with this approach, let alone for it to more people are thus competing in a in the early 1950s, poverty amongst dispel the perception of crisis. • job market which is stationary (rela- wage-earners disappeared some time tively speaking). This increased com- ago. While not suggesting that a reduc- petition has almost certainly tion in real wages would be desirable, it 1. Employment-Unemployment Study, interim contributed to the compression of mid- Report by the Secretary-General, Paris: is difficult to see that some reduction in OECD, 1993. dle incomes which has occurred, to the wages would really create a group of 2. This is higher than the percentage un- point where it is widely argued that the working poor.4 If it were judged that employed because it is taken asa percentage middle class is disappearing. lower wages for the group on the very of the total working-age population that is Greater competition for jobs, and not working rather than as a percentage of lowest income level would be unjust the labour force (those who want to work). the associated frustration which in- in some sense, some offsetting adjust- 3. Partly offsetting that, however, is the consid- dividuals are experiencing in trying to ments could presumably be made to erably higher proportion of the younger not retain (or obtain) access to the job social security benefits for that group. employed now receiving higher education. This means that, while 22 per cent of the market, may help to explain the crisis But in fact, that is what the family al- younger age group in the labour force is clas- perception. Frustration is particularly lowance is for. sified as unemployed, this represents only 13 evident amongst the mostly middle- If increased competition is not al- per cent of the total younger age group. aged men who have lost jobs and who lowed to produce lower wages and/or 4. As it is, real average earnings in the private sector have scarcely risen over the past three constitute the largest proportion of the other costs, the danger is that govern- years. 3.9 per cent of the labour force that is ments will increasingly feelforced to try 5. Thesefiguresarefortheparticipationrateof long-term unemployed. It is also ap- to create employment through employ- the population aged 15 -65. (OECD Employ- parent amongst those young people ment Outlook, July, 1993.) Australian figures ment programs or through even more used in the table are for the population aged unsuccessfully trying to obtain a job.3 budgetary stimulus (which has not 15 and over.

18 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 Forfress Europe and the Threat to Australia Paul Johnson is an eminent English historian and journalist. Apart from writing a regular column for the London Spectator, he has published a number of highly-regarded books including histories of Christianity and Judaism, A History of the Modern World and, most recently, The Birth of the Modern. On 1 September as part of the celebration of the IPAs first 50 years, he addressed a dinner gathering in Melbourne, generously hosted by the ANZ Bank. This is an edited text of Paul Johnsons speech.

PAUL JOHNSON

EN the notion of a United Europe was first Europe is closer to the centrally-directed Europe which in mooted by Jean Monet in the late 1940s, nearly turn Louis XIV, Napoleon, Bismarck and Hitler sought to everyone of good will welcomed the idea. Twice in bring into being, and the French and the Germans have sunk the 20th century, Europe had come close to committing their differences only to combine to exercise a joint hegemony. suicide with its catastrophic and senseless civil wars. The Britain fought militarily against the earlier attempts at prospect of its principal states merging together in a common European hegemony and she has fought diplomatically economic and eventually political purpose, turning their backs against this one. on endless wars for hegemony or survival, and closing ranks Meanwhile, over the past half-century, a quite different around what they had in common -- the heritage of Greece organization has sought, with considerable success, to achieve and Rome, the Judaeo-Christian ethic, the culture of the some of Monets aims, but on a global scale. The General Renaissance and the spirit of scientific enterprise — was Agreement on Tariffs and Trade has succeeded, slowly but attractive; especially so was the coming together of those old surely, in lowering barriers to trade throughout the advanced enemies, France and Germany. world and beyond, by mutual consent and tothe mutual Moreover, Monets idea had a further dimension: the benefit of all. It has been the principal diplomatic agent in creation of an enormous free-trade area in which an en- doubling, trebling and quadrupling world trade, and so adding lightened capitalism would dissolve ancient frontiers in bring- hundreds of billions of dollars to the Gross Global Product. It ing to European consumers the widest possible choice at the is an engine of world affluence and there is no downside to its lowest cost. That was a noble vision and even a country like results. Britain, which felt it could not belong because of its close political, trading and emotional links to Commonwealth Ideas in Conflict countries like Australia and New Zealand, wished the project all possible success. The misfortune, which threatens to turn into tragedy, is A great deal has changed in the last half-century, by no that these two well-meaning ideas, the EC and GATT, the means all of it for the better. A Europe has indeed come into attempt to unite Europe and the attempt to liberalize world being, and what Monet dreamed of has taken a physical form of trade, have come into increasing conflict. This became sorts, in the shape of a Community of 12 states, with a very visible gradually apparent during the 1980s and it threatens to sour and powerful bureaucratic headquarters in Brussels. Moreover, all our relationships during the 1990s. At a time when the end Britain has joined, and ties with the Commonwealth, not least of the Cold War is freeing us to push the world forward in with the Antipodes, have been largely dissolved. union to unprecedented prosperity, the conflict between the But Britain joined with reluctance, and for her each step EC and GATT, and notably between the European 12, on the towards closer union has been a struggle against her national one hand, and the great English-speaking countries of — and international — instincts. This is because the Community America and Australasia on the other, is a monstrous self- itself has acquired characteristics Monet himself would have inflicted wound we cannot allow to deepen and fester. deplored: a spirit of interventionism, almost of socialism; a Britain is in the middle of this incipient conflict. She is huge bureaucracy, with its attendant evil, an immense committed to Europe by geography and by growing trade ties volume of regulation; and an inward-looking approach to — 60 per cent of her exports now go there. But she is com- trade, akin to protectionism. In some respects, the emerging mitted to the English-speaking world by cultural, historical

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 19

4,_..

Paul Johnson Lyndon Rowe Ian McLachlan Matthew Percival, Roy Ricker Henry Don Krongold Moric

and emotional ties which are just as strong. France is so obstinately attached to the main outlines of the Europe, as at present constituted, is run by a Franco- CAP. But in the meantime, the reunification of Germany has German axis, in conjunction with its satellite adherents in the restated the original German problem, in French eyes, in an Netherlands and Belgium; and, in general, the Mediterranean even more acute form. That, in turn, has led the French elite powers — Spain, Italy, Greece — tend to tag along. In this to wish to accelerate the movement towards federal unity and, set-up Britain appears the odd man out and is frequently in a in particular, to leap forward towards a common currency, via small minority, or even a minority of one, when decisions are the Exchange Rate Mechanism and the Maastricht Treaty. taken. But this isolation is more formal than real. For, in That is the master plan of Jacques Delors, the French-born resisting a dogmatic European federalism, especially an in- Socialist politician who runs the Brussels bureaucracy. ward-looking one, the polls and other evidence show that But if fear of Germany, and the consequent anxiety to Britain enjoys a good deal of silent support on the Continent, exorcise it by union, is the original compulsion pushing the not indeed from the political elites, which are overwhelmingly French along this path, there are other factors which make the centralist, but from ordinary people. Just as in the wars against scheme more complex and dangerous. First, the French elite Napoleon and Hitler, Britain evoked a response from invisible has always preferred a `little Europe to a `big Europe. It is underground armies within a subjugated continent, so today true that De Gaulle, echoing the wider dreams of Napoleon, she can, if she chooses, raise the spirit of resistance among the spoke of a "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals." But the European peoples against the diktat of those who claim to centralist politicians of Paris have always felt more at ease with speak for them in Brussels. what has been termed a Carolingian Europe, whose axis was That being so, let us look more closely at the path the the Rhine, and which essentially embraced Franco-Germany European elite wishes to take, and the alternative Britain plus Benelux, with an Italian offshoot -- the original eighth- proposes. These two paths do not necessarily lead in com- century empire of Charlemagne in fact. Initially, at least, pletely opposite directions, and this is a point to bear in mind, France was not too keen on admitting Greece and the Iberian but they certainly diverge at the moment and the long-term countries, though it has since worked hard to reduce them to risks this bifurcation poses are alarming. satellite status; and it has always felt most uneasy about a British presence, which it feels is incompatible with its whole French Design idea of Europe. If France hesitated at expanding the original six to the France is the original architect of Europe, and French 12, it is opposed, a fortiori; to enlarging Europe still more, to ideas, reflecting French interests, continue to be the main take in former communist states like Poland, Hungary, driving force. The French are a logical and schematic people Czechoslovakia, Slovenia and Croatia — or even the `missing and they tend to think in great concepts which create intellec- western-style economies of Sweden, Austria, Norway, Swit- tual excitement but which often ignore practical considera- zerland and Finland. The French worried that if the Central tions and the real needs of ordinary people. To put it briefly, and Eastern European states were quickly admitted, this their elite wants a European Super State, and wants it now. would allow Germany tocreate an autonomous economic Behind this aim is French fear of Germany: not just the empire in the East, controlled from Berlin and Frankfurt, aggressive Germany of Hitler and the past, but the present which would be wholly beyond French influence. Germany of 80 million well-organized and efficient producers, Thus France strongly preferred vertical consolidation to able to dominate Europe industrially and financially as they horizontal expansion. But there were and are two further once sought to do militarily. Back in the 1950s, the French felt factors. First, though the original concept of Europe was a they could contain Germany only by merging with it, and the capitalist one, based on free enterprise, the market and free seal on this bargain was the Common Agricultural Policy trade, the EC as it has emerged is the work of socialist and (CAP). Under this, German industry gained access to French Christian Democrat politicians who have in common many markets on condition its profits subsidized the agonizing collectivist, not to say corporatist, notions. The political culture process whereby France persuaded its peasantry, until recent- of Brussels is thus strongly interventionist, and from it pour ly half the nation, to leave the land and to become part of an forth countless directives concerning the rights of labour, the affluent industrial work-force. That process is now well past needs of the environment and the absolute necessity to curb the half-way mark, but it still continues and explains why the excesses of capitalism. European industry thus already has

20 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 David Ted Don McFarlane, Alan Stockdale Ian Webber, Ian Spicer Helen Hyde, Sir Rupert Earner Penington Lustig

to carry heavy and expensive burdens of compliance. again. It is, rather, a risk that America will react to Fortress In addition, the Maastricht Treaty itself has appended Europe by erecting a fortress of its own in the western hemi- what is termed the Social Chapter, a list of requirements which sphere. The US has already signed a treaty with Canada which is again socialist-corporatist in inspiration, ranging from amounts to an embryonic trading union. More recently it has shorter hours and better working conditions to labour par- come to an agreement with Mexico which adumbrates a ticipation on the boards of all large companies. The further similar arrangement. There is already in existence a North financial burden this imposes on industry is formidable, and American Free Trade Area (NAFTA), which is the hemis- this is why the British Conservative Government has refused pheric equivalent to the European Economic Community. to adopt it; but the other 11 governments have done so and it That can be, and in the worst eventuality will be, turned into is now being applied. Fortress North America, with internal free trade and high The net result of all these burdens is to weaken the external tariffs of its own. Now if two trading fortresses come capacity of European industry to compete in world markets, into existence in the world, it is inevitable that a third, and especially with Japan and other Far Eastern states, but also possibly more, will follow. For Fortress North America will with the United States. This lack of competitive edge is being not merely keep out or penalize European goods; it will also felt increasingly, as the cost of compliance reduces European be aimed at protecting American industry from Japan. In- industrial profit margins. evitably Japan, indeed the whole of East Asia, will react to a Second, France is, by history and instinct, a protectionist high-tariff NAFTA, a Fortress NAFTA, just as NAFTA reacts country. It has always, and with good reason, had high external to a Fortress Europe. tariffs and though some sectors of French industry have It is impossible to say exactly what form this reaction will recently become competitive, at least within Europe, French take. Because of Japans past political and economic im- industrialists and unions have never felt comfortable with free perialism, there are good reasons why other East Asian trade. In this respect French industry makes common cause powers will be most reluctant to join with her in creating a with its agricultural sector, which tends to be inefficient and Fortress Asia. But in a world dividing into competing and high-cost and which bitterly resents competitive imports, par- antagonistic trading blocs, they will not have much choice. ticularly of livestock. They will have to protect their interests by mutual tariff arran- This then is the background to the current French gements if only to use them as bargaining-counters. And once scheme for Europe — a federal entity entrenched behind high tariff walls go up, and local industries enjoy their shelter, it is external tariffs: in short, Fortress Europe. hard to pull them down again.

Protectionist Reaction Australias Dilemma Fortress Europe poses grave dangers, to itself and the Equally, it is hard to say what course Australia will world. It is a concept which runs directly contrary to GATT pursue if these things happen. Plainly, her dilemma will be and, sooner or later, one or the other must crumble. If GATT acute and painful. Many Australian interests are now geared disintegrates, or even if it is merely put on hold, the conse- to Asia and will argue that the country has no alternative but quences will be serious for all. First, the United States will not to follow the logic of present patterns of trade into a deeper be prepared to live with a Europe it will see, particularly in union. But it is one thing to belong to a trading bloc; quite agricultural products, as protectionist. It will react, strongly, another to commit yourself to a bloc with a high external tariff; even aggressively. Like France, the US is by tradition a protec- and still more serious to merge yourself into the kind of tionist country, and only slowly and painfully, thanks to quasi-political entity to which high-tariff blocs tend to lead. GATT, has it been weaned from its old habits in the last 50 In geopolitical terms, Australia is a very desirable years. In many ways it is a stricken industrial giant which has property. It is rich in raw materials, its ratio of population to suffered with growing indignation the huge inroads foreign land surface is one of the lowest in the world, and it exists at imports have made into its home markets. That indignation the extremity of a huge land mass where the ratio is among the could boil over, and the US political system is designed to give highest in the world. At the same time, it is incapable of powerful vent to it. defending itself without powerful allies — it cannot even It is not merely a question of America going protectionist control most of its own air-space without assistance. In view

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 21 t t

Barbara Deed, Michael Robinson, Peter Cairns Pat Feilman, George L,ittlewood Frank Callaway, Eda Ritchie, Doug Shears

of all this, Australia, I imagine, will be most reluctant to That is the simplest, cheapest and surest way to de-communize sacrifice any part of its sovereignty to a vast Asian entity Eastern Europe and, at the same time, to spread Western dominated by Japan, or China, or possibly both in uneasy prosperity to Europe as a whole, to the mutual benefit of us all. tandem. Yet if it does not sign up with East Asia, where does It goes without saying that such geographical expansion it go, and how does it survive? is incompatible with a high-tariff Fortress Europe. It implies, The consequences of such a line-up for the world as a indeed, an open Europe, open not merely to Eastern Europe, whole are also formidable. It is worth recalling that in George including Russia and its, former dependencies, but to the Orwells nightmare vision of the future, Nineteen Eighty-Four, world. With Europe geared to horizontal expansion, rather the planet was divided into three vast and antagonistic than vertical integration, I do not think there would be any geographical blocks, in a state of perpetual warfare with each danger of a Fortress North America, still less of a Fortress other. A world in which the progress achieved by GATT were Asia, arising. reversed, and three huge trading groups emerged, facing each Until recently, we in Britain anticipated a long and bitter other behind high tariff walls, and competing fiercely for the struggle between the rival views of Europe, with the fearful markets which remained outside, would be a highly unstable risk of global trade wars, of the kind I have suggested, if the entity. Trade wars are bitter things, hard to contain within French vision triumphed. Now I am much more confident that their original bounds. History teaches that they tend to the pragmatists, as opposed to the dogmatists, will win. degenerate into fighting wars. Are we really prepared to accept the prospect of a 21st century in which the risk of global Monetary Union Untenable conflict between Europe, North America and Asia — a con- flict in which Australia would inevitably be caught up — is The reason is this. The French fast track to a federal always there? Europe, and a Europe likely to turn out to be a Fortress Europe, was essentially dependent on the rapid creation of a The British Alternative common currency. Under the French timetable this would be accomplished long before the turn of the century. We would No, of course we are not. Such a prospect is totally have a Eurocoinage, Euronotes, and a European Central unacceptable. But we must ensure we do not drift that way, by Bank. All this is provided:for in the Maastricht Treaty, itself acting sensibly now. That is why Britain, within Europe, has the prolegomenon to a final treaty of federal union to be indicated a path which diverges sharply from the French one signed in about 1996. towards Fortress Europe. In my opinion, the British Govern- But all this, of course, was a castle in the sky. The reality ment, currently weak and indecisive, has not outlined the was that, in order to move smoothly and rapidly towards a British path as clearly and confidently as it should. We lack a common currency, the 12 EC states had first to achieve align- Margaret Thatcher to trumpet forth our plan. But the British ment of their existing ones: The instrument to bring this about alternative is there, all the same. It is this. The EC should was the European Exchange Mechanism or ERM, a kind of decelerate its march towards federal union and scrap its currency grid, in which all 12 national moneys took up agreed present target of monetary union before the end of the cen- stations, as a half-way house to union. The stations were within tury. It is far too ambitious anyway. Instead, it should give both narrow and wider bands, according to national choice. other aims priority. The first should be horizontal expansion Those keenest on union took up narrow bands, and indeed the to take in, first, the advanced free-enterprise economies still ERM as a whole was based upon a quasi-fixed relationship outside the EC: that is, the three remaining Scandinavian between the deutschmark and the franc. Those less keen, such countries, and Austria and Switzerland. Then, with all as Britain, occupied wider bands. deliberate speed, it should embrace the decollectivized The ERM, like all exchange rate systems fixed by economies of East-Central Europe who, by all historical and politicians, as opposed to the markets, was open to the objec- cultural standards, belong in any European condominium - tion that the markets might not like it and would seek to Poland, Hungary, Bohemia and Slovakia, Slovenia and overthrow it. The history of the last half-century has shown Croatia. Priority must be given to enable all these economies, that no fixed currency on earth, even the dollar, can retain an some of which are very weak and under-capitalized, to move artificially contrived parity if the markets think it is over- towards the EC and to secure favoured access to our markets. valued. Those who created the ERM were, however, convinced

22 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 i

,ame Elisabeth Murdoch, Paul Johnson Nick Renton, Lindsay Cuming, David Etsum Laurie Cox, Carol Austin

that, with the reserves of a dozen central banks behind them, The departure was said to be temporary, but in practice it the parities the politicians laid down could withstand any looks final, certainly as the ERM is at present constituted. conceivable speculative assault. The second crisis in the ERM came at the end of July. This assumption was based on two fallacies. First, the This time speculative pressure did not force currencies to arithmetic showed that, in present and foreseeable conditions, leave but obliged the ERM to change its rules, so that most the combined reserves of the 12 central banks were out- currencies now float within huge bands of 15 per cent plus or classed by the immense sums available not indeed to minus. That makes nonsense of the whole system, and puts a speculators as such but to businesses throughout the world common currency on hold for the indefinite future. It has been who, for their own legitimate reasons, need to possess large a humiliation for the French, and equally important, a fearful quantities of foreign currency and buy them at the lowest blow to the Franco-German axis, which lies at the heart of a possible cost. Such companies are forced to speculate when fast-track federal Europe. The French Government feels that fixed exchange rates provide the currency markets with a the Germans, when it came to the crunch, betrayed them, and challenge. So the arithmetic, given certain circumstances, is that they cannot be relied on to put European before German always against the central banks. interests. The Germans shrug their shoulders and carry on The second assumption was that the central banks would doing what they think is best for their country. always act together. But central banks inevitably reflect na- This may not be the end of the federal European dream. tional interests, rather than those of the ERM parities; indeed But it certainly makes nonsense of the Maastricht Treaty, most of them are constitutionally obliged to do so. In a crisis, which has now turned from a pretentious bit of paper into these national interests always come to the fore. something resembling the bull of a dead pope. With the wind In the particular case of the German Bundesbank, there thus taken out of their European federal sails, the French are was an additional incentive not to back the ERM. Those in far less likely to be in a position to steer the EC vessel into a charge of the Bundesbank did not believe it would work and frontal battle with the GATT powers, especially since Britain were anxious to prove their point. The major recession which has been encouraged to throw its weight behind the anti- began to hit Europe at the end of the 1980s gave them the protectionist forces. The virtual collapse of the ERM and the opportunity and the excuse. The process of absorbing East consequent postponement, perhaps for years, perhaps for Germany, which began in 1990, imposed huge strains on the ever, of a common European currency, means that it is now West German economy and threatened a fierce outbreak of highly unlikely that Fortress Europe will ever be constructed. inflation as state and private borrowing increased. So the The result will be, I trust, a stand-down on all sides, as nations Bundesbank was determined to keep interest rates as high as relax and the practical forces working in favour of a free- necessary to keep inflationary pressures under control. At the trading world resume their sway. same time, other European economies, led by Britain but The prospects, then, not least for Australia, are a good including in turn Italy, Spain and France — to name just the deal rosier than they were before July. It is my view that, with major powers — hit by the worst recession since the War, a bit of good fortune, and a lot of patience, we will eventually required rates to be as low as possible. There was here an get rid of the Common Agricultural Policy altogether. Freed irreconcilable conflict. of this albatross, there is no reason why the EC should not The first big test of the ERM came last October when resolve its differences with the other GATT powers and all speculators, followed by a mass of non-speculative traders, move together towards a free-trading world. Australia has made a determined assault on the banding of certain curren- everything to fear from a Fortress Europe and its consequen- cies, notably the pound sterling and the Italian lira which they ces. But it has nothing to fear, and much to gain, from a strong, believed to be over-valued. In theory, all the central banks free-trading Europe moving towards closer policies among its should have backed these currencies when they reached the component nations, determined by rational, not dogmatic, floor of their bands, with all their resources. factors, and pushed along at a sensible pace. That is the But the Bundesbank shared the speculators view that Europe Britain wants and Australia should want too — a the pound and lire were over-valued. It flatly declined to cut Europe in which Britain can play a full and fruitful part, while its own interest rates, which would have reduced the incentive still maintaining with Australia, and other English-speaking to buy deutschmarks. So, when crisis struck on Black Wednes- nations, the close ties created by common ways of looking at day, 17 October, sterling, followed by the lira, left the ERM. things and hundreds of years of history. •

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 23 DEBATE

Time Demanding Foreign (mainly European) languages have Should schools long been taught in Australian high schools, yet few Australians have any proficiency in the languages they have do more to studied, sometimes for as long as six years. The investment of time and other resources in the study of Asian teach Asian languages would reap even fewer rewards. Languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Korean, on average, take languages? about 2,400 hours to learn, three times as long as required to achieve proficiency in European languages Chinese is the worlds most commonly spoken language (although such as French and German. The NSW Government has most of its speakers reside in one country) and Japan isAustralias promised to make 200 hours of lan- main trading partner; yet few Australians understand Japanese, guage study compulsory by 1996. Chinese or any other Asian language. This is completely inadequate if The Federal Governments National Language Policy, released basic proficiency in an Asian lan- in 1991, expressed alarm at the decline of foreign language study in guage is the goal; yet if sufficient Australian schools. (It had fallen from 40 per cent of Year 12 hours were allocated, valuable time students in the 1960s to less than 12 per cent in 1990.) It also noted would be taken away from subjects more essential to the needs of with concern that twice as many Year 12 students studied French as studied Japanese and four times as many studied French as studied Indonesian/Malaysian. None studied Korean. Among the 14 languages nominated by the policy as priority languages --- qualifying them to earn schools $300 from the Federal Government YES for every Year 12 student studying any one of them — were seven Asian languages. Trade Twenty-seven per cent of Australias export income comes In October, as part of a package of initiatives designed to tackle from Japan; 12 per cent comes from unemployment, Labors caucus urged the Federal Government to ASEAN countries (a figure which boostAsian language teaching in schools. But others argue that the has doubled since 1987). Australia rewards from giving this study greater emphasis would not justify is a prime participant in APEC (the the investment needed. Asia-Pacific Economic Co-opera- tion process). Greater proficiency in Asian languages would facilitate business negotiations and trade with Asian countries which are cru- cial for Australias economic well- ti ,i- being.

Tourism Australias earnings from in-bound tourism have in- creased from $2.2 billion in 1984-85 to $7.2 billion in 1990-91. In 1991, 900,000 tourists came to Australia from Asia and 529,000 of these from Japan, compared with 272,000 from

24 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 Australians, such as English and there are mutual gains to be had, per cent of pupils leave primary Mathematics. a business transaction will hap- school with poor English literacy. pen regardless of difficulties Most Australians will have no use communicating. for an Asian language at any time in Cost of Immersion Language their lives. All, however, need com- teachers recommend immersion in petence in English. It is this which a foreign culture in order to attain Language Cul-de-sac Many should be given priority in the cur- proficiency in that cultures lan- European languages are inter-re- riculum. guage. But few parents can afford to lated; knowledge of one often send their children overseas for the provides a foundation on which to period required to achieve this. build knowledge of others. This is Lack of Teachers There is a rarer among the main Asian lan- shortage of teachers of Asian lan- guages. Chinese Mandarin is re- guages and training takes time. English is the Lingua Franca lated to other languages, but There is little point giving Asian Fortunately for Australia, English Japanese (although it adopted languages high priority if the is the worlds lingua franca; and a Chinese ideographic characters in demand for teachers cannot be met. knowledge of English in foreign the third century AD) and Korean countries is likely to grow as are largely independent. A Australia economies become international- knowledge of either Japanese or European Heritage ized. Thousands of monolingual Korean is of little use in learning may be close to Asia geographically, Australians travel to Asia every further languages; and, unlike but culturally it is an outpost of year and find that ignorance of European languages, of little use in European civilization: most of our Asian languages is no barrier to refining a knowledge of English. literary traditions, political institu- their transactions or enjoyment. tions, customs and law originated in Moreover, trade between Asian Europe. The curriculum should countries and Australia has grown English Literacy More reflect this. The relevance of the despite Australians ignorance of Important A parliamentary study of Asian languages and cul- foreign languages. The fact is that if report has claimed that up to 25 tures to Australia is over-estimated.

the USA. Tourism is a major as an exercise in mental training. Social Harmony Of the top growth industry in Australia and The fact that Asian languages are seven sources of immigrants to could generate many jobs for bi- or more difficult to learn for English- Australia, five are Asian•• multi-lingual Australians. But last speakers than are European lan- countries. While English is the year The Australian reported a guages itensifies the intellectual public language of Australia, it proposal to bring 2,000 Japanese rewards. would aid understanding and har- tour guides to Australia, because mony among communities within Australians lacked both a Australia if more Australians had knowledge of the Japanese lan- Overcoming Parochialism Becoming more familiar with Asian a knowledge of the languages of guage and an understanding of immigrant settlers. Japanese etiquette. languages and cultures would help Australians overcome their As a natural consequence of our immigration mix, Asian in- Travel Knowledge of a foreign xenophobia and parochialism. We would learn to appreciate ancient fluence on Australian culture will language enriches and eases the ex- grow. Asian literacy anticipates and extraordinarily rich cultures perience of travel. The falling value the future. of the Australian dollar and the such as Chinas, and in doing so, proximity of South-East Asia mean enhance understanding of our own culture by seeing it from a different that much more travel in the future Further Reading perspective. will be to countries to our near north, Australias Language, The Australian Our ignorance of Asia is a rather than to Europe or America. Language and Literacy Policy, AGPS, foolish denial of Australias loca- Canberra, 1991. tion in the world and our need to Bostock, William W., Language Op- tions for Australians, Current Affairs Mental Training The learning have secure relations with our Bulletin, October 1942. of any foreign language is valuable neighbours.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 25 LETTER FROM AMERIC/

HARRY GELBER

Interventionism at Home, be brought within its scope. No-one posed by law during the 1970s were Minimalism Abroad seems to dissent, either, from the matched, more or less dollar for dollar, proposition that cradle-to-grave medi- with cuts in wages for the young, un- o almost everyones great surprise, cal care must become an irrevocable married employees likely to claim the TBill Clinton the radical reformer is right of citizenship, indeed, perhaps of benefits. Much the same will happen turning out to be in fundamentals the legal residence in the USA. again. most tradition-minded, even conserva- The presentation of the plan has, Moreover, since health care ab- tive, President since Herbert Hoover. without any doubt, been brilliant, and sorbs almost 15 per cent of Americas The general guidelines and principles a starring role — arguably the starring GDP and since Clinton proposes to put of his domestic agenda go back - role so far — has been played by Hilary all that, in one form or another, under almost avowedly — to Franklin Clinton, head of the presidential government direction, the implication Roosevelts New Deal. But his taskforce looking into the health-care is that 15 per cent of the US economy foreign policy instincts, not to men- problem. would, at one fell swoop, be placed tion those of his supporters in Con- But it may be too early to cheer. The under Federal Government control. If gress, go back to the Founding Clintons can propose, but Congress Fathers. In. both fields, a study of the disposes. And several clusters of America of the 1930s is altogether problems need to be kept in mind. One Real per capita health-care more instructive than a study of last is that the devil is, as always, in the expenditures in the USA years election campaign or most cur- small print, and doctors, pharmaceuti- 1960: US$609 rent television commentaries. cal companies and insurance groups 1990: US$2,566 Clinton, very much like Roosevelt have already raised a series of awkward before him, is promoting a huge pro- questions. Others will be heard from gram of social reform. As with too. Percentage of health Roosevelt, the program is based on Or again, few people are willing to expenditure paid for out of genuine social need and propelled by believe the Clinton claim that these pocket: attractive populist rhetoric. As with sweeping reforms can be financed al- 1960: 56 Roosevelt, it also implies a vast in- most entirely by savings on undue 1990: 23 crease in the power, scope and in- pharmaceutical profits or the red tape trusiveness of the Federal that is strangling doctors and hospi- Government. Moreover, that program tals. There is no agreement at all on Percentage of health-care is being presented with great verve and what numbers anyone should believe. expenditure paid for by political skill. What does seem clear is that where government in the USA. At the core of Clintons current newly-mandated extra health-care 1960: 21 domestic agenda is health care. No-one costs hit business, they will be passed 1990: 41 dissents — at least publicly — from the on, either to customers in higher proposition that the 37 million prices, or to workers in lower real Source: Economic Report of the Americans who are said not to be wages or fewer jobs. Recent research President, January 1993. covered by medical insurance need to shows that the maternity benefits im-

Harry Gelber is a visiting Professor at Boston University.

26 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 LEPFGR FROM AMERICA the plan is passed, it will be by far the Though some scribes profess to find people are to say yes to UN largest expansion of the corporate and confusion in the Administrations posi- peacekeeping, the UN must know bureaucratized state in Americas his- tion, the outlines seem clear enough. when to say no." As the National tory. Whatever its other virtues or At the level of rhetoric (and reas- Security Adviser, Anthony Lake, has vices, it massively out-deals the New surance to anxious allies), there is explained, America will be careful to Deal of the 1930s. stress on a global vision which is visibly pick and choose the issues on which it Finally, there is the word which descended from that of George Bush: wishes to become engaged. And even everyone avoids: rationing. The facts, an American commitment to the enlar- where engaged, the US will assert its whether in Australia or America or gement of the family of free-market right to get out again. At the same time, anywhere else, are ineluctable: the democracies, and the maintenance of Washington will not be constrained by potential demand for health care is in- US obligations to principles of the need to co-operate. As the definite, if not infinite. It would, stability. As the largest military and Secretary of State, Warren Chris- theoretically, be possible to spend vir- economic power, and the greatest topher, explained on 20 September: tually 100 per cent of the national in- democracy, the US must continue to "...multilateralism is a means, not an come on health without coming to the lead. end. It is one of the many foreign policy end of demand. Since the debate is tools at our disposal." The central pur- whether nine per cent or 14 per cent or pose of foreign policy remains a classic some other such figure is the protection of American interests. appropriate percentage to spend on If the plan is passed, it will be In sum, what seems to be emerging health, rationing there has to be. It can is a minimalist foreign policy with by far the largest expansion of be by the purse, or by government stress on a few clear priorities. The Ad- decree, or by the decision of individual the corporate and ministration is backing the North doctors or by some other means. What bureaucratized state in American Free Trade Area as a way of is unavoidable is that someone, some- strengthening the US economy and ral- where, must in effect say to some Americas history. lyingthewhole of North (and eventual- people: "No, you cant have that treat- ly all of Latin?) America to the ment" and even "Im afraid we have to underpinning of American political let you die now, and not keep you alive primacy. In Russia, it is supporting for another 12 months." It is hardly But the limitations on US involve- reform and President Yeltsin, because surprising that democratic polities find ment are becoming clearer and more the old, undismantled Soviet armoury it hard to come to grips with such emphatic. They have to do with remains a potential threat to the choices. But the problem remains. Americas own national interests, with American continent; because Russia is avoiding US casualties, with greater certain to re-emerge, sooner rather emphasis on picking and choosing than later, as a principal player in the Foreign Policy whether, where or when the US should global balance of power; and because become engaged. It will not be possible Russia is likely to play an important, Traditional attitudes are even more to take a Clintonian US for granted. perhaps key, role in a North-East Asia marked in foreign policy. Here, the The US, we are told, must not try to which is arguably the worlds most noises out of Washington — Congress become involved everywhere. A search volatile strategic arena. as much as the White House -- hark is under way for a way out of the At the same time, the Administra- back not just to the 1930s but to the Somalian imbroglio. It took only a few tion is recasting trade and political famous injunctions by George casualties there to induce the House relations with Japan and pushing for Washington and his immediate succes- and Senate to pass a non-binding the kind of Israeli-Palestinian agree- sors against "foreign entanglements." resolution calling on Mr Clinton to ment which might leave American It is not that isolationism will rear its seek Congressional approval by 15 policy less shackled to the short- head in a simple replay of the 1930s. November for keeping US troops in term needs of Israeli security and Everyone who matters understands Somalia. In Bosnia, Mr Clinton has perhaps even of some internecine that, in a world which is interdepen- made it very clear that he is unwilling Arab disputes. dent in terms of finance, information to move further than his major In all these processes not the least and in other ways, the old isolationism European allies. He may send US virtue of multilateralism — whether in is no longer feasible. troops there to help supervise an relation to Bosnia or Somalia or But Washingtons priorities have agreed peace, but only if a long list of Western help to Russia — is that it markedly changed with the combined conditions is met first. helps to lessen the direct burdens effect of the end of the Cold War, the The US will support the UN but, as upon the US. Much the same is likely exigencies of domestic reform and the Mr Clinton put it on 27 September: to be true of American participation related needs of economic, industrial "The United Nations simply cannot be- in the APEC summit meeting in and educational restructuring to cope come engaged in every one of the November. • with international competition. worlds conflicts. If the American 1 October 1993

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 27 St^raing

Advance Paul Keating Fair Sri Chinmoy feminists reliance on American sources for ideas: "An (resident guru at the United Nations) was so bussed out by example of this attitude Is apparent in the organization of Australias last federal election result that he wrote and rallies in my town to support the recent US womens dedicated a song to His Most Elevated Self the Prime struggles for abortion rights. East German women also Minister. It is published in Pacific Research, the dolphin- have their rights threatened with re-unification with the encrusted periodical of the Peace Research Centre, and West, but that goes virtually unnoticed" This particular makes even the title of Worlds Best Treasurer look modest reader was equivocal about re-subscribing: she finds the by comparison: journal too academic! "Prime Minister, victory winner Paul Keating, Paul! School of Hard Knocks Melbourne has a A blossomed oneness-heart sado-masochistic nightclub (The Hellfire Club in Carlton), for big and small. but still lags behind San Fran cisco which has a school for Your triumph-smile, your nations Bodo-masochism. According to the American left-wing wisdom-height; digest Utne Reader, the schools head, Miss Mendelsohn, You are their success-might combines her passion for sado-masochism with an interest and progress-light in Tibetan Buddhism. "Both sado-masochism and Heaven and earths Buddhism are about adding intensity to everyday life, "she rain bow-ecstasy-choice; says. Her classroom has desks on the floor and hooks in Within, without the the ceiling (used in "hanging seminars"). In the corner is a God fulfilling voice." sturdy plastic-covered table used in the Advanced Fisting class. "This is not a sex club," insists Mendelsohn. "The After Paul Keating abolishes the monarchy and changes fisting workshop is one of the most extreme classes we the flag, watch for moves to introduce the above as Australias new National Anthem. offer, but we absolutely do not allow students to participate in jfistingJ. The class watches, listens, and learns." Theres also a class in Nazi Interrogation and another in Branding for Beginners ("Theres nosound quite like the hiss of (a Light without Reason Last year, desperate to hot) brand meeting flesh," the course outline reads). spend a Commonwealth grant, Fitzroy Council (in Interest in sado-masochism seems to be on the rise. Melbournes inner suburbs) decided to instal! fancy street Mendelsohn thinks this is due to AIDS. "A lot of what lamps along its fashionable bohemian haunt, Brunswick constitutes sado-masochism is very safe and in no way Street. Brunswick Streets Traders Association rejected the involves the exchange of bodily fluids," she says. "They plan, not wanting to floodlight a street that thrives on the used to say were sick, now were safe." play of light and dark. So the Council compromised: it would install the street lamps, but in such a way that they would not illuminate the street; their function would be Tortured Prose Significant in understanding the almost purely decorative. To their credit, another group of growing interest in sado-masochism is its endorsement by a traders led by part-owner of the Gypsy Bar, Mario Di Zeno, figure of such eminence on the international Left as the couldnt see the sense in this. A 900-signature petition French social theorist Michel Foucault. As a recent calling for the rejection of the compromise scheme and for sympathetic biography by James Miller reveals, until his the $250,000 funding to be returned to the Federal death from AIDS in 1984 Foucault had a passion for Government was, earlier this year, presented to the Fitzroy "gagging, piercing, cutting, electric-shocking, stretching on Council. The Melbourne Times reports that the Council racks, imprisoning, branding ... " He surprised even his ignored the petition. No wonder that in the 1988 friends with the enthusiasm with which he embraced the referendum Australians overwhelmingly rejected sado-masochism scene once he discovered it, quickly constitutional recognition of local government. acquiring an array of leather clothes, clamps, handcuffs, hoods, gags, whips and other sex toys. This, remember, was the author of Discipline and Punish and The Garden-Variety Feminists A relatively new History of Sexuality — and many other works which journal from Sydney is the all-girl review Journal of sought to expose the uses of power in society. Despite the Australian Lesbian Feminist Studies. A sample of its difficulty of his books, Foucault has had a profound content in one issue includes The Revolutionary Nature of influence on contemporary approaches to subjects as Lesbian Organic Gardening, Rules, Principles, Policies, different as English and Anthropology. Standards and Guidelines: Do We Need Them? ("No," Miller, by the way, has done his homework in answers the author, Denise Thompson) and a letter from researching this biography. In the discussion of Foucault s an Adelaide reader who complains about Australian nether world he cites exemplars of the sado-masochistic

28 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 !rn!

canon such as The Catacombs: A Temple of the Thurstons article is published in Politics and Society, Butt hole, Urban Aboriginals: A Celebration of which describes itself as "committed to developing Marxist, Leathersexuality and The New Leathermans post-Marxist, and other radical perspectives and to Workbook: A Photo Illustrated Guide to examining what Robert Lynd once called some Sado-Masochist Sex Devices. outrageous hypotheses."

Poetic Licence Those familiar with the libretto of Republican Logic "There is an urgency to Mozarts The Magic Flute will know that It does not bear declare Australia a Republic," declares Al Grassby in a too much rational analysis. The same goes for "Mozart, media release announcing his new book, The Australian Europe and Economic Rationalism" by Eden Liddellow in Republic. "And the urgency has nothing to do with giving the winter issue of Meanjin. Maastricht, post-modernism, our head of state a new title. If there was ever any doubt Thatcherism, Don Giovanni, they all get tangled up about the urgency it has been surely demonstrated by the together but somehow refuse to connect. "The Market is a tragic recession which has thrown one million Australians little like the stage of a Mozart opera," writes Liddellow. on the scrap heap of unemployment — a recession which "The labour market appears In the roles of Papageno and was the direct result of colonial capitulation to overseas Papagena, catching birds, having children, talking and ideas." eating too much. Or FigarolSusanna, fighting, hiding, running errands and becoming hopelessly confused." Hopelessly confused, indeed! Theres more: "Meanwhile, Sterile World The anti-hunting lobby is gaining the Count and Countess, Tamino and Pam ma, or Don ground in America, but is not helped by spokesmen such Giovanni with his various women, talk about their as Cleveland Amory, who represents the Fund for Animals. emotions, move money and betray one another in their Amory believes that not only should animals be protected jeans and leatherjackets. Its familiar [Is it?J. There are only from humans, but also from each other. In the ideal world, two classes, high and low."Now, thats familiar! Liddellow he told The Economist, "prey will be separated from tries again to forge the theoretical links: "The market has predator and there will be no over-population or starvation this singular transformative power. It is magic, pure because all will be controlled by sterilization and implant." fairytale, like Baroness Thatchers economic miracle. Metamorphosis fascinated Mozart ..."And on it rambles. Suspension Principle The article concludes with a plea by Liddellow "to of After receiving advice that its actions may constitute discrimination, the persuade our representatives that the Economic Rats have its plan to cheated us ... Logocentric reason in its latter-day guise as University of Southern Queensland has dropped economic rationalism/monetarismineo-classicism/liberal make 1994 a year in which tenure will be offered only to women. But discrimination is precisely what the supporters revolution is of course not true: but many people do not Australian College think this needs to be said. They have forgotten the of the plan want. The Union of of the importance of speech acts..." The chattering classes Academics organized a stop-work meeting in support reduced to silence: now, that is something! affirmative action plan and has recommended that exemptions be sought from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and the Anti-Discrimination Scaling Down the Terror Historical Committee so that the university would be free to revisionism is not confined to the far Rights questioning of implement women-only tenure for 1994. the size of Hitlers carnage. Robert W. Thurston, Associate One of the most vocal critics of the Universitys back- Professor at the University of California, Davis, has down is Senator Margaret Reynolds, who told The challenged the widely-accepted estimates of the extent of Australian she was also considering a quota system for Stalins crimes. The number of prisoners in the Soviet female candidates in the pre-selection processes of the Gulag on the eve of World War II, he says, was not 7.8 ALP. This, as she freely admits, would "discriminate in million, but 1.5 million; the number of excess deaths in favour of the old girls ..." As for academia, the Senator the preceding 10 years was not 20 million, but a mere says: "It doesnt really matter how its done as long as by 10-11 million. the end of this decade we can see many more women in The implications claimed by Thurston are revealing: the upper echelons of our universities." "... the numbers have a great bearing on our understanding of Stalinism. Was it a system of terror? The older, higher estimates of the death toll and Gulag population would perhaps indicate that it was; the new figures show that the scale of terror was much less than many previously thought ..."

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 29 From Melting Pot to Salad Bowl

NEIL McINNES

ECAUSE Frances traditional support, which means that govern- policy of rapid assimilation of im- ments must intervene in cultural affairs B migrants has broken down, for by way of legislation, patronage, sub- the time being at least, Paris sidy and affirmative action, all in favour newspapers nowadays have a daily dose of such self-promoting ethnic groups as of racial incidents and ethnic strife. can wield political influence. One such story that ran in July has Before going into the arguments for stuck in my mind. A girl of 16 or 17 was or against such a policy, one might con- found murdered by a road near Col- sider the fact that, like so many other Chandran Kukathas (ed.), mar. She had been smothered and government policies, it will probably thrown into a ditch like a dead kitten. Multicultural Citizens: The fail of its purposes. In Australia at least, The police were not long in arresting Philosophy and Politics of Identity the economic pressures favouring in- her killers, who were her own father Centre for Independent Studies tegration are enormous and are felt and brother, two Turkish workers at a keenly by the first generation of im- nearby car factory. They explained that migrants; their children and succeed- the girl had betrayed Turkish culture by ing generations continue to feel them going out with boys after school; true, would be bound to sympathize with its along with growing social pressure for they were Muslim boys, but they were motives, since these lie behind the very outright assimilation. For an individual assimilated North Africans. Only death policy they promote. or a community to refuse integration could expiate her crime against For multiculturalism is a policy, not into surrounding economic and social Turkish customs. a description of a society. The life is to buy a ticket to deprivation, In this modern parable, the girl rep- Canadians, who were obliged to invent alienation and subjection. The notion of resents the wishes of most children of it when the French Canadians insisted an Australian society consisting of the immigrants (and probably all of their on bi-culturalism and the Indians and addition of a Chinatown here, an Amish children in turn), the desire if not to Inuit jumped on the bandwagon, offi- settlement there, and an Arab ghetto assimilate at least to integrate, to do cially define it this way: it is "recogni- yonder is fanciful. Even the bilingual what ones peers are doing — in this tion of the diverse cultures of a plural compromise — public conformity and case, to go to discos with boys. Her society based on three principles: we all private ethnicity—becomes increasingly stern family represents what has have an ethnic origin (equality); all our difficult as the generations pass; witness been called since the 1970s multi- cultures deserve respect (dignity); and the deliquescence ofJudaism in the USA culturalism, the desire to keep cultural pluralism needs official sup- and here, to name one of the most ad- separate and uncontaminated the cus- port." Note the crass racism in the as- mirably tenacious of particularisms. toms and prejudices of each ethnic sumption that cultures and ethnic The most that could be said for mul- group, somewhat lavishly described as populations correspond one-to-one; ticultural policy is that it can provide its `culture. Our local multiculturalists i.e. the denial of universalist cultural an optional support for the first would no doubt disapprove of this causes like science and learning. Note, generation of immigrants. If they do Turkish familys actions, but they above all, the basic `principle of official not need it, they must be free to spurn

Dr Neil McInnes was formerly Deputy Secretary of the Department of Prince Minister and Cabinet.

30 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 FROM MELTING POT TO SALAD BOWL it; while for their children it is always a shown,1 the Hispanics have been held social hindrance. The ambition to turn back from English and hence from the melting pot into a salad bowl soon mainstream culture and employment: fades in the glare of Australian "Isolation from the cultural secularism, hedonism, conformism mainstream is likely to have tragic and sociability. That the locals are consequences for human beings: influenced reciprocally is obvious, but a sense of alienation and resent- that influence concerns superficial ment as well as disproportionate matters such as food. (When levels of poverty, welfare depend- Australians are asked how post-war ence, drug usage and crime ... immigration has changed the country, Bilingual education is a major im- they always mention food and res- pediment to acculturation." taurants, and then run dry.) Thus multiculturalism, by dis- couraging assimilation, claims to Assimilation Undermined produce its own justification: migrants are dissuaded from integration and this If the forces of integration are so is offered as proof that assimilation is powerful, why then is assimilation in unsuitable. crisis in such countries as the USA and The tide may have begun to turn in France, to the point where critics are the USA. In addition to calls to reassert saying it has failed and that one must control over immigration (which Presi- accept the multicultural compromise as dent Clinton has heeded, despite his permanent? There are two main causes. electoral rhetoric), one now hears an- The first is the sheer magnitude of con- cestral voices prophesying war on mul- temporary migrations. The second is ticulturalism. James Kurth, who misguided government policies that professes political science at have slowed the pace of acculturation Swarthmore College, forecasts two and which, although they pre-date the parallel struggles in "post-modern his- multicultural fad, could well be lumped Cultural diversity? Not in Japan. tory": one that pits the ethnically under that heading today. homogeneous states of Japan and Ger- The fact is that several major resent the application of numbers to many (and the culturally homogeneous Western countries have lost control of any social problems; that is obscene or France, he might have added) against immigration. The USA is receiving, in `economic rationalism, to use their multinationalism, immigration and addition to one million legal migrants favourite fatuities. It might have been satellite-supported media culture; the a year, at least 300,000 illegal im- factually incorrect in 1984 to say that other "a civil war within the United migrants, mostly from Latin America too many Asian migrants were arriving States between multicultural and most of them from Mexico. Es- in Australia, but it cannot be wrong to enterprises and mass entertainment on timates of the number of illegals in the suggest that there is a social, the one side, and national cultural and country vary from four million to 10 psychological limit to the pace and mass education on the other. For now, million. Frances situation, in propor- volume of immigration in general and it appears that it will be the post- tion, is no better. These nations both of certain migrant streams in par- modern camp that will prevail. Ifso, the have a proud record of resilient and ticular. Certainly, Americas immigra- United States, in the traditional sense tolerant assimilation and social tion problem right now is "too many of the American people, and the US promotion, but their resources, both Mexicans," and that is one reason why Government will not be the actors but material and psychological, have been assimilation has broken down and why rather the audience — or even the swamped by the volume of current the newcomers are being offered the arena — of the post-modern world. migration. There is nothing surprising second-best accommodation, known as They will become takers rather than in that, nor any reason to suppose the multiculturalism. makers of history." In other words, the situation is irreversible; once they The other cause is deliberately survival of the nation-state depends on regain control of arrivals, traditional slowed acculturation, notably Spanish- abandoning multiculturalism, restor- policies can be resumed. English bilingualism, i.e. the accep- ing liberal education to all citizens, and What is surprising is that when tance of Spanish alongside English as restraining Rupert Murdoch.2 Geoffrey Blainey some years ago raised an official language. This policy was the numerical issue in regard to sold to Congress and the American Australian immigration, he was howled people 30 years ago as a way to facilitate Defining Away the Problem down as though he had said something the transition to English speaking and indecent. It is typical of our innumerate to improve the education of Hispanics. This apocalyptic tone would have intellectuals and journalists that they In reality, as Lawrence E. Harrison has sounded quite strange at a recent

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 199331 PROM MELTING POT TO SALAD BOWL

Canberra conference on multicul- But such opinions are the essence of Thakur says: turalism, of which the proceedings French assimilationism and do not have just appeared in book form under demonstrate "overwhelming popular "By being officially hostile to as- the title Multicultural Citizens: The support for multiculturalism." similation, Canada forces new- comers to be expatriates rather Philosophy and Politics of Identity. All In contrast, Professor Hindess sees the contributors who deal with multi- that multiculturalism consists in "the than immigrants. The mosaic culturalism are themselves recent im- provision of public support for [Canadian code for multicul- migrants and they are agreed that minority cultures" (i.e. handouts), but turalism] becomes a subtle policy multiculturalism is a good thing. This he objects to it as long as such instrument in the hands of true apparent agreement depends, as so minorities are defined in terms of eth- blood Canadians for maintaining their distance from the new often •at conferences, on each con- nic origin, because he thinks any group tributor defining it to suit himself. For that offers `cultural diversity should pretenders. Separateness is main- instance, for Professor Hindess of the qualify for subsidies: "Associations of tained, there is no cross-con- tamination, caste purity is not ANU, multiculturalism is just the nor- Buddhists or Gays should be regarded, polluted." mal condition of all societies: "States at least in principle, as no less deserving have always had to live with culturally of support than associations of Italians In contrast, the immigrant into the diverse populations, including sig- or Vietnamese." American melting pot knows what to nificant groups of foreign descent." But do to become an average American and if Japan, to take a case one would have he also knows he does not have to thought obvious to an Australian, is eradicate his ethnic identity if he held to be culturally diverse just like For an individual or a prefers to remain a "hyphenated Lebanon and Yugoslavia, words have community to refuse American." become too slippery for discussion. But integration ... is to buy a Professor Thakur says the Blainey then Japan is never mentioned in this debate book! ticket to deprivation, "raised some important issues Or again, the editor, Chandran alienation and subjection. that should be dispassionately ad- Kukathas of the Australian Defence dressed. There may be limits to Force Academy (ADFA), gives his the absorptive capacity of a `Idea of a Multicultural Society as one country. If the multicultural designed "not to deal with the plurality Getting back to the real world, peace is fragile, then too rapid an of interests and values in society as they Professor Ramesh Thakur of Otago intake of multi-ethnic migrants is are manifested in particular groups or shows where this everybody-deserves- likely to spark off sectarian ex- representatives, but rather to uphold help policy leads by telling the story of plosions that will threaten the particular individual rights and the failure of affirmative action in welfare of ethnic migrants already freedoms regardless of the particular India. It has bred conflict, perpetuated in the country. On balance, it is interests or affiliations of the in- divisions and benefited the sharp- more important to ensure fair dividuals," But, of course, that is just witted before the disadvantaged. Apart plain old assimilationist liberalism and from rehearsing the classic case against and equitable treatment to those has nothing to do with multicul- positive discrimination, Professor already in than to insist on enlarg- ing their proportion in the face of turalism, which is about organized Thakur is the only contributor who groups selling votes to politicians in both gives multiculturalism a recog- hostile opposition, even if theop- exchange for subsidies and favours. nizable definition and squarely position is racist and ignorant. No But Professor Ian McAllister, also criticizes it: government policy can afford to move too far ahead of grass-roots of ADFA, tries a real Fine Cotton of a "Cultural assimilation of the new ring-in by claiming that acceptance of community attitudes." migrants into the dominant multiculturalism is shown by the fact mainstream may be a gradual or It is a curious reflection on contem- that Australians, when polled, agree an enforced process. But for porary Australia that the only reason heartily with the propositions: "Its im- someone who has been Professor Thakur can say such things portant that we make use of the skills traumatized by the experience of without being vilified as racist is that he and education of all immigrants" (73 crossing a major cultural divide, a is Indian. ■ per cent); "No matter whether speedy integration into a new Australians were born here or come society and its dominant values from overseas they should all be given 1. Harrison, Lawrence E., America and Its may not necessarily be such a bad equal opportunities" (81 percent); and Immigrants, The National Interest, or unwelcome thing." Washington DC, Number 28, Summer "So long as a person is committed to 1992, p. 37. Australia it doesnt matter what ethnic Speaking of his experience as an 2. Kurth, James, The Post-Modem State, 77re background they have" (62 per cent). immigrant into Canada, Professor National Interest, p. 26.

32 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 Drugs in Sport The case against the ban

TERRY BLACK

HE MEDIA are guilty of giving a one-eyed view in favour minority of athletes who continue to use drugs an unfair of banning drugs in sport. This article balances the advantage. Removal of the ban will ensure that this unfair scales by rejecting the arguments used to justify the advantage is eliminated, because the greater the number of ban.T That is not to say that the use of drugs in sport is users, the less chance anyone has of gaining an edge. recommended, but rather that free choice results in fairer The banning of drugs results in fair contests only if contests and reduced health risks. it ensures that no contestant is on drugs. Drug testing One of the two main reasons given for banning drugs is procedures sufficiently comprehensive and reliable to to make sporting contests fair. But were sporting contests guarantee this are probably unattainable, given the incentives unfair prior to the ban? to come up with new undetectable drugs and masking drugs. Athletes throughout history have tried to improve their No-one in the drug detecting industry could ever give such a performance. Even in Ancient Greece, athletes had trainers guarantee. and special diets. Athletes have turned to every possible device to aid improvement, including coaching, high-altitude training, videos, vitamins, amino acids and drugs. Govern- Athletes Health ments help by funding training facilities, overseas trips and sporting scholarships. The day of the natural athlete no longer Some readers will raise the objection that the increase exists, if it ever did. All athletes have been artificially produced in the number of users is undesirable because drugs are as a result of training, diet, coaching and other factors. In this harmful to the health of athletes. sense, performance-enhancing drugs are no different from While the protection of the health of the athlete is the other artificial devices. major reason provided for banning drugs in sport, it appears There is little doubt that if the ban were lifted, usage of that there is no unambiguous answer to the question of drugs would increase, particularly in sports demanding whether banned drugs are harmful to health. The Internation- strength. But the greater the number of athletes who use a new al Olympic Committee said anabolic steroids could have long- training technique or a new diet or drugs, the less chance they term detrimental effects on health. Various submissions to a have of gaining an edge on 1989 Senate Inquiry indi- other competitors. Before cated doubt. For example,t the drug ban it is very likely, the Health Department of particularly at the highest Western Australia said the level, that the benefits of long-term effects of the training, diet and drugs substances were unknown cancelled out each other, (p.52). leaving the athlete with the An explanation of this greatest natural ability as OF ambiguity is the lack of the winner. The ban on identification of dosage drugs changed all that. y - quantities. It is only when Because only some ath- `, the quantity consumed ex- letes abide by the rules, "v _ ceeds a particular point the drug ban benefits that it constitutes a danger. drug-users. It gives the Even known poisons are

Terry Black is Senior Lecturer in Finance Economics at the Queensland University of Technology.

IPA Review, Vol. 4G No. 3, 1993 33 DRUGS IN SPORT ineffective below a certain quantity. The Senate Inquirys In the same way removal of the drug ban would allow Interim Report expressed the view that "substances such as reputable pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce hygienic amino acids do not pose any health risk" (p.24). However, products. They would have a strong incentive to conduct amino acids, vitamins and steroids are all dangerous to health research to determine safe dosages as the economic rewards if consumed in excessive quantities. from supplying the worldwide demand for low-risk drugs In order to protect the health of users, it is unnecessary would be enormous. to ban drugs: what is needed is knowledge of safe dosages. John Black, the former Chairman of the Senate Environ- This has occurred with vitamins, which are packed with clear ment Committee and author of the interim and second Drugs instructions on dosage and manufactured so that each tablet in Sports reports, claims that athletes would not be safer if contains a safe quantity. Years ago, when vitamins were dis- drugs were taken under strict medical supervision. In support covered, they were hailed as a wonder cure and, with lack of of his claim he cites the former East European womens sound advice on dosage, some people suffered health Olympic teams from the 1970s and 1980s. This example con- problems through excess usage. Research changed that with fuses the issue. The problem in the old East Germany of the consequence that for decades consumers have purchased athletes having to take drugs is a problem of the political safe dosages. The economic incentives to pharmaceutical system in which the health of the individual is sacrificed for firms are such that they would facilitate this process occurring the glory of the state. Fortunately, East Germans are now free rapidly with steroids and other banned drugs. and the Russians are becoming so. My argument that athletes The ban also denies athletes medical advice on side- would be safer if drugs were taken under medical supervision effects from drugs such as steroids. If the ban were removed, applies to a free society. Clearly the millions of people who the health of athletes could be medically monitored, with the visit their doctor for all sorts of medical complaints believe likely result that medical problems would be few and relatively they are better off with medical advice than without it. It would minor. be surprising if athletes were^different. Critics of the legalization of drugs in sport point out that Some say that the ban should not be lifted because a number of athletes have died from drug usage. Examples countries like the old East Germany force their athletes to take include American footballer Lyle Alzado who died in 1992 steroids. The recent detection of steroid use by a female apparently from excessive quantities of steroids, and a 23- Chinese swimmer has fuelled1speculation that this communist year-old Australian body-builder who died of a heart attack regime has taken over from the East Germans with a state- attributed to steroids and a masking drug. It is important to controlled drug program. However, such countries will con- realize that these deaths and others, together with numerous duct such programs whether or not a ban exists. The ban has athletes suffering harmful side-effects, all occurred with a ban not deterred these countries, but it has given their athletes a in force. The ban has failed to stop drug usage. It has failed to huge advantage. protect the lives and health of athletes, and in denying athletes In the absence of a ban in free countries, athletes would access to medical advice it has contributed to the deaths of be free to use or reject steroids or any other drug, just as they some. are now free to choose whether or not to use high-altitude With ,a ban in force athletes rely on the black market training, to train in Australia, to travel overseas, etc. Each which supplies them with anabolic steroids produced for athlete will assess the costs and benefits of drug use and some animals. These may not be fit for human consumption; they will reject drugs. Steroids, for example, are not beneficial in may well be contaminated and cause diseases such as some sports. hepatitis. Moreover, black-market suppliers charge high People who claim that athletes will be forced to use prices because of the high costs which the ban imposes. For steroids consider only the existing high-risk steroids. They fail example, pharmacists can face a life-time loss of their licence to see the reasons why these drugs are harmful: the black- to practise if they dispense steroids. The opportunity to earn market supply, the doctors, and pharmacists who are not large profits attracts hardened criminals into the black permitted to give advice and monitor the effect of consump- market. tion by users, the absence of information of safe dosages, and Also, the drug ban motivates athletes to turn to masking the consumption of dangerous masking drugs by users. Critics drugs, which may be as harmful as many of the drugs banned of drug use cannot see that reputable pharmaceutical com- to `protect athletes. Perhaps athletes should not take masking panies would supply hygienic drugs manufactured for people, drugs, but they do, and the only reason they do is to evade the not animals; that research into safe dosages would occur as it ban on the use of performance-enhancing drugs. has with vitamins; that research would occur to reduce harm- ful side-effects; or that doctors would be allowed to monitor carefully these side-effects. The Failure of Prohibition It is a perverse and ironic outcome that a drug ban instituted to create fair competition, promotes unfair com- A parallel can be drawn with prohibition in the USA in petition; and that a ban instituted to protect the health of the 1930s which failed to stop the supply of alcohol. All it athletes, greatly increases their health risks. ■ achieved was the creation of a black market in which criminals, lured by high prices and high profits, supplied alcohol to consumers. When the ban was removed the criminals left the 1. Interim Report of the Senate Standing Commiltee on the Environment, industry. Recreation and the Arts, 1989.

34 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 Immigration s Cost is Overstated

Critics of immigration have exaggerated the impact of high immigration on urban costs.

IAN MOTT

ECENT immigration research has grossly overstated BMWs would be contingent on the supply of second-hand the budgetary, environmental and infrastructure costs Valiants. Rof immigration, while clearly identifiable benefits In fact we know that most people build new houses, in have been ignored. The fundamental flaw in the analysis is the new suburbs, because they do not want to live in old houses. use of `household formation as a synonym for dwelling Sixty-four per cent of new dwellings are built or bought by construction when apportioning those costs. All the evidence repeat purchasers, i.e. the existing population. Only the indicates that, at least over the medium term, the two are remaining 36 per cent can be attributed to natural population unrelated. Failure to appreciate this fact has allowed a number increase and immigration, the elements of new household of false assumptions and projections to slip through unchal- formation. And, of course, only the most wealthy of new lenged. Indeed, the National Population Council (NPC), an household formers can afford new houses. Most newly- independent advisory body to the Minister for Immigration, marrieds and migrants rent or renovate existing houses. So commissioned to examine the impact of population on the most new dwelling construction, and all the problems as- Australian economy, environment and infrastructure, has sociated with it, will, and does, take place regardless of the based most of its recent output on this non-existent relation- actual size of the immigration intake. ship between household formation and dwelling construction. A major portion (28 per cent in 1992-93) of the migrant In Immigration and Housing in the Major Cities, the intake is family reunion of spouses, children and elderly NPC made the astounding claim that a large immigration parents who are additions to existing households not the program would contribute to 91 per cent of dwelling construc- creators of new ones. tion in Sydney, up to the year 2001. If this were the case, the Furthermore, it is possible, but unlikely, that a net recent drop in migrant intake would have reduced current migrant intake of over 330,000 could be entirely housed in the dwelling construction in Sydney by about 75 per cent. But 90,000 deceased estate houses that are vacated each year and construction has actually increased by six per cent this year, so make no contribution at all to dwelling construction. so the market for new dwellings is clearly not significantly In general, migrants have retarded the depopulation of affected by immigration. Yet, despite the evidence, assertions older suburbs, reducing the impact of the `doughnut effect. about migrants impact on a range of urban pressures have They are the major renovators who extend the life of the been taken as proven. existing housing stock. And they have maintained the viability Pursuing their faulty logic, critics of immigration claim and value of existing infrastructure. Ethnic mapping makes it that the unrecouped development cost to the state of $50,000 clear that migrants are under-represented in the high growth for each new house lot is the up-front cost of each new migrant areas like the Gold Coast where environmental, infrastructure family. The simple message for bureaucrats and politicians and budgetary pressures are the greatest. who are struggling to come to terms with major budgetary The `natural increase element of population growth, i.e. constraints is that the easiest way to cut costs is to cut the the locally born, has a more than proportionate share in the immigration intake. But for this to be the case, one must production of urban socio-economic `costs, while migrants, believe that `yuppies build new houses in Cherrybrook be- through more efficient use of our existing capital, actually cause migrants have snapped up all the best two-bedroom flats enhance our ability to meet these costs. in Marrickville. Applying this logic, the demand for new It is rather curious, then, that the NPC takes no account

Jan Mott is Convenor of The Growth Lobby, a group promoting a greater economic focus to immigration policy, and is Principal of employment agency Talent Bank Recruitment Services.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 199335 IMMIGRATIONS COST IS OVERSTATED of these matters. One would have thought that the best way to The figure for Melbourne is overstated by 104,000, so determine the actual contribution of new migrants to new immigration will be responsible for less than 79,000 of the housing-related problems would be to identify the proportion 245,000 increase there. This is only 32.2 per cent, an even of new migrants who actually reside in newly-constructed greater departure from the NPCs figure of 75 per cent. houses. Elaborate extrapolations from population increase, The only way to determine the actual contribution of through household formation, to arrive, through implication immigration to new housing-related socio-economic costs is only, at new dwelling construction and simple pro-rata alloca- through a detailed analysis of the status, length of residency tion of socio-economic costs do not contribute to informed and age of dwelling in each of the cities concerned. Anything decision-making. less is voodoo. The NPC has also ignored the long-term impact of So what does all this mean for the State Governments declining household size. For 42.5 per cent of all new concerned? household formation in Australia since 1952, the period of our greatest immigration intake, is directly attributable to the change in the number of people per household, from 3.7 in Implications for State Governments 1952 to 2.7 today. This produced an extra 1.75 million The NPC has implied that the New South Wales Govern. households during that time. ment, with a high migrant intake, must pay $21 billion for the The other 2.4 million new households (57.5 per cent of 423,000 new house blocks that will be required in Sydney by the total) were the result of natural increase and immigration the year 2001. Ninety-one per cent of this sum, over $19 billion, combined. So, given that migrants have made up 38.65 per cent has been allocated as the cost of immigration. This amount has population increase over the past 40 years, their con- of the . been overstated by at least $7 billion. tribution to new household formation could not exceed 22 per For Victoria, the NPC has also allocated 75 per cent, or cent of the total increase in households, i.e. 38.6 per cent of $9.2 billion, as the cost of immigration of that Governments the remaining 57.5 per cent of new households. The only way expected liability of $12.2 billion. In fact, the actual amount will that this could feed through to a higher contribution to new be well below $3.9 billion or less than 32.2 per cent of the total. dwelling construction is through a marked preference for new So the contribution of immigration to housing-related houses. So how did the National Population Council get it so socio-economic costs in the two major cities has been grossly wrong? overstated. Yet, in its subsequent publication, Population Is- sues and Australias Future, the NPC has treated these as- sumptions as if they had been fully validated. The NPCs Error More importantly, the NSW and Victorian State The NPC projected, under an immigration intake of Governments, who have relied on the NPCs `research in their 140,000 per annum, that in the 15 years from 1986 to 2001 there formation of policy, are under the mistaken impression that will be 423,200 new households formed in Sydney, and 91 per the current reduction in the migrant intake will have a sig- cent of them will be attributable to immigration . 3 To arrive at this nificant impact on budgetary pressures. They should refocus figure the NPC had to assume that none of Sydneys total migrant their efforts to find real solutions. intake over 15 years would move from Sydney during that time. And the first evidence is already at hand to indicate that The total of all internal migration from Sydney was deducted the NPC is, indeed, mistaken. from the `natural increase portion of population growth. The Indicative Planning Council (IPC), on whose work Worse, the NPC used entirely different household head- the NPC has relied, had predicted that housing starts for the ship rates in comparing a zero immigration scenario with a net current year would fall below 150,000 on the basis of the intake of 140,000 p.a. This understated the number of new recent large cut in immigration, but the actual national figure households under the zero immigration scenario by 148,000, is about 159,000. Respected building industry analyst BIS almost 10,000 p.a. The increase under the zero immigration Shrapnel has forecast that total commencements would in- scenario was deducted from the high intake scenario to deter- crease to 172,000 in 1993-94, two years after the big cuts in mine what was supposed to be the number and percentage of immigration. Not surprisingly, they described these IPC new households that were attributable to immigration. forecasts as being "inconsistent with current trends and the But why has a different headship rate been used when likely economic conditions."s projecting for the same city, to the same date? There is an obvious need for a complete reappraisal of As mentioned earlier, all the existing evidence indicates research in this area. ■ that migrants actually increase the average headship rate rather than decrease it. Migrants are more likely to share 1. Birrell, R., Immigration and Housing in the Major Cities, AG PS, 1990, accommodation, are far more likely to have two households P. 34. in one dwelling, and are much more likely to have mature 2. Bureau of Immigration Research, Australias Population Trends and Prospects, AG PS, 1992. children orgrandparents living in the one household. 3. Birrell, op. crt, p.31. So, if we forget for the moment all the other false as- 4. National Population Council, Population Issues and Australias Funnre, sumptions, immigration would be responsible for only 238,000 AG PS, 1992, pp. 20-29. of the projected 423,000 increase to 2001. This is only 56.2 per 5. Este, J., HIS remains bullish on housing starts despite wide pessimism, cent, a long way short of the NPCs figure of 91. per cent. The Australian, 4 May 1993.

36 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 Rethinking the Australian Dreary

PATRICK MORGAN

s AUSTRALIANS we have generally believed in a group of ideas about our country called the Australian ADream: we like to think we have made a clean break from the past, and are free from the wrongs of the Old World; our continent is a carte blanche on which anything we desire can be imposed; we are an isolated, insulated, self-sufficient continent, which will produce in the future a paradise in the South Seas. In sum: we are different, unique and better. These are deeply held beliefs; but they are increasingly hard to sustain. opinion outlets. It calls for us to regard the Old Australia Australians are experiencing relative economic decline entirely as racist, imperialist, elitist, etc. We have fouled our and they are finding it hard to face, not just because this is a own nest, it argues, by our mistreatment of Aborigines and the new experience, but because it goes against an engrained environment; we always lag behind overseas; we treat our belief that things should be getting better all the time. Anxiety immigrants as second-class citizens; we have never developed about economic decline coincides with other fears about our own identity. John Pilgers TV series The Last Dream weakening social cohesion and lack of continuity with the past. (1988) exemplified many of the views of the `Australia as People feel that the Old Australia is going down the drain. Failure school. This adversary view of Australia is not only This causes quiet panic. To this fact there are generally two unfair, but dangerous for our future. extreme, contrary reactions: to try to preserve the old values, We should neither cling ho/us bolus to the past, nor or to ditch them. discard the whole venture. We have the complex, subtle and Lamenting the passing of the Old Australia is the difficult task of adapting the Australian Dream, discarding majority reaction. We want to cling to the old Australian some parts, changing others and developing some, but in new Dream desperately and to shore it up. We had a paradise and ways. It is very hard for a nation to change its basic direction, its being ruined. The more its under threat, the more we even slowly, and it needs a conscious effort. This is made even reaffirm it. Internally some people and groups are seen to be more difficult with the `debates about Mabo and the republic unfairly milking the national cow (unlike in the past when swirling around us. people worked hard and wished to contribute to the nation), One symptom of our national fears is the way we face in which externally means we are falling behind other economies. time. For much of our past, believing ourselves to be a `new A vicious circle results: our standard of living is falling, and country, we looked to the future; we believed in progress. But we dont as a community have the kind of a commitment to now the future presents itself as a worry; so we turn to the our nation which could restore it. SirJoh Bjelke-Petersen tried consolations of the past — to the nostalgia of family history or to preserve his State as an oasis of the old values in the desert the folk museum, or to the horrors of the past, for example the created by those who were selling out. This is an insular, massacres of Aborigines. We dwell on the greatness or awful- Fortress Australia reaction, applied at a regional level. Al- ness of people and events in the olden days to avoid facing an though there is something in this view, it unhelpfully freezes insecure future. This is a typical reaction of people at times of us in the past, and cant evolve or adapt. failure. We saw a similar thing during the depression of the The other reaction is to despise ourselves. This reaction 1890s: fear of Asia (the Asian invasion scenario) and fear of is shared only by a minority, but has superior access to public the future led to the creation of a nostalgic myth of the "days

Patrick Morgan is a Victorian academic who writes on Australian cultural issues.

IPA Review, Vol. 4b No. 3, 199337 RETHINKING THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM when the world was wide," as well as reviving the memory of on what terms. Both involve the Constitution — there is talk the horrors of the convict era. Instead, we need a balanced already of the constitutional changes involved in moving to a view, neither fossilizing nor denying our past, nor despairing republic being used to include Mabo-related issues. When put of our future. together, the flaws in the arguments of those who, like Mr The Australian Dream, itself, must be fundamentally Keating, back both Mabo and the republic, become apparent. reviewed. Its image of Australia was never more than a part They argue that for British Australians their ethnicity is a truth. It presents us discarding our European heritage and shame, but for Aborigines it is a glory. British Australians must becoming new people as Australians. It also asserts that we assimilate, but Aborigines are free not to. can imprint any image we like on the virgin continent of These potentially fracturing forces co-exist with the Australia. But Australia was not a new start, nor a cane despair syndrome, family breakdown, external political in- blanche. The Australian continent and its inhabitants, the stability and our economic weakness. Together these threaten Aborigines, had their own history, to which we were late the cohesion we have. It is the wrong time to add more entrants. Both our ancestral European past and this solvents. Australian presence had to be recognized, but they often When Paul Keating initiated his One Nation package on werent. Two entities, not too blanks, were coming into contact becoming Prime Minister, did he intend to unify the country? here, forming a new amalgam. Over recent decades there has The debate on the republic was begun with an attack on been a gradual lessening of amnesia, and a recognition of these England, saying we needed to break away from the Poms. This two existences. However, some of those who oppose the Mabo appeal to old Australian nationalism was a divisive and regres- decision do not wish to acknowledge fully the position of the sive move, made for short-term political ends, but damaging Aborigines. Some of those who push for a republic do not wish to our future cohesion and interests. to acknowledge our ancestral past. In both cases there is The Australian nationalists, associated with The Bul- denial. Both pasts need to be recognized. letin, set up the Australia versus England polarity last century. Our national anthem inappropriately says "our home is Australianness was a construct which was directed against girt by sea." This is a late- 19th-century image of the sea as an everything British: if they were formal, we were to be informal; amniotic fluid surrounding and protecting us from the outside if their society was hierarchical, ours was to be egalitarian, etc. world. We can no longer see ourselves as a place of escape The nationalists believed that as soon as you stepped ashore from the rest of the world, a very strong and persistent drive in Australia you could immediately slough off your British past in our psyche. The internal analogue of this is the drive to and start life afresh as a totally new person, an Australian. That retreat inland, away, back, or into ourselves at the first sign of was one stereotype. And they invented an equally improbable trouble or pressure. Because the idea of "getting away from it opposite caricature: that of the English person who is unaf- all" derives from the formative experience of migrating here, fected by Australia and acts as though he/she were still in it is a deeply engrained cultural condition which prevents the England. Why was this division thought up so late in the picture, harnessing of national energies. Overcoming the view that we half way through our short history? The original Australian can remain a self-sufficient, protected enclave is a precondi- Dream of a self-sufficient paradise in the South Seas was not tion of economic revival. coming about, people had to cast around for an enemy, and as a result the British-Australian contingent were blamed. This division is not based on a deep feeling within us - Social Cohesion Threatened its just that over a century we have fooled ourselves into believing that it is. In reality, as in any immigrant nation, we A nation does need to have a common endeavour, and are all mixtures in our lives and in our personalities of origins unifying symbols to express it. The emphasis on unity in the (Europe) and novelty (Australia). Instead of observing and Australian Dream has to be maintained, though the basis of welcoming the gradual, inevitable fusion of origin and novelty that unity may be different. At the moment we are suffering within us, we have put them at odds, and demanded a choice from the co-existence of a number of disintegrating factors. be made between them. Examples of the mixture were com- Here Mabo and the republican controversies work together: mon in the 19th century. Even the nationalists called on the the republic promoters want us to declare ourselves sovereign, despised British to defend our continent from perceived independent of British imperial dominance, and some Mabo Asian perils — this contradiction did not worry, nor even advocates want to play the same card, arguing that Aborigines occur, to them. Mary Grant Bruces novels were immensely ought to declare themselves independent of Australian im- popular because they blended both traditions into a new whole perial dominance. In other words, pushing the republican attractive to readers between the wars. The mateship larrikin argument to its logical conclusion means supporting Jack Meredith, the hero of My Brother Jack, emerged out of a Aboriginal sovereignty, a move fraught with danger to the British Empire household. The demeanour of Prime Mini- Australian polity. (The flaw in the republican argument is that sters John Gorton and Bob Hawke revealed both patrician white Australians were not victims of the British colonial and larrikin traits. takeover of Australia in the way Aborigines were, but rather The striking thing about Australian life this centuryis not its co-agents and beneficiaries.) how the two groups differentiated themselves from each other In the political sphere Mabo and the republic are dis- (as todays republicans claim), but how they blended together. cussed separately, but in fact they are related. Both raise the Propagandists kept verbally insisting on our differences question of who is to be included in the Australian polity and against the tide of events. Russell Ward, usually seen as a

38 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 REI7-TINKING THE AUSTRALIAN DREAM

nationalist spokesman, understood this when he wrote in 1969, their opponents anti-Australian. 10 years after his book The Australian Legend: The rhetoric shows, moreover, that it is the republicans who are todays establishment. Like any privileged elite, they "Of course these two opposing concepts of indulge in the luxury of not recognizing the status of their nationality are not in practice mutually exclusive. opponents. After years of having public opinion formers sup- There has probably never been an Australian who porting them, it is false consciousness for them to adopt the did not in varying degrees harbour both sentiments posture of a disenfranchised victim group valiantly struggling at one and the same time. Yet they are theoretically against the old British-Australian establishment. opposites and, in proportion as one or the other We have to accept what has been bequeathed to us. We sentiment at different times resulted in action, they cant change the past. There cannot be a pure nation — that have caused our history to change direction." is, one with only a single set of desired characteristics. Nations are layered strata containing residues of all that has gone One problem is that the British Australian tradition has before them. In the 19th century some Irish nationalists tried never been properly acknowledged. Sir Robert Menzies em- to erect a pure Ireland, with no British admixtures, which they bodied it, but it has not been fully spelt out, with a few called Irish Ireland. But this was impossible, since the British exceptions like the historian Paul De Servilles studies of had been in Ireland for many centuries, and had changed Victorian gentry Port Phillip Gentlemen and Pounds and things irredeemably. Irish Ireland no longer existed. Ireland Pedigrees. It is equal in importance to the `nationalist one, but was now a new entity, which included for ever some British has always been derided as un-Australian. There have been strains. Similarly, and more so, with Australia. Moreover, the plenty of studies on the Bulletin nationalist school, but no Irish in Australia were never victims of the British in anything equivalent study of the British Australian strain in the writings like the way they were in Ireland; overall they have been one of a line of authors from Catherine Spence, through Henry of the beneficiaries of the British settlement of Australia. Kingsley, Rolf Boldrewood, Norman Lindsay, Mary Grant The behaviour patterns stamped on the national psyche Bruce, Henry Handel Richardson to Martin Boyd. This puts by the nationalists are being mimicked by present-day groups. things out of balance. Both Australian nationalism and the The basic nationalist fallacy was that an elite can determine British Australian view are equally arguable, but equally in- by fiat who constitutes the Australian polity. They said their complete, views of Australia — neither can ever constitute the pure Australia was inevitable, but when it didnt arise spon- whole picture. taneously, they formed the ALP to bring it about. Todays republicans said the republic was inevitable, but now that it isnt, they call for the formation of a popularist movement to Class Hatred Updated direct us towards it. The contradictory notion that genuinely popular movements can be formed from above fits the elitist It was therefore a regressive step for Prime Minister pattern. Keating to raise the anti-British spectre. His action was like a The nationalists conflict model has legitimized the cosmetic surgeon causing incisions and wounds where there spokesmen for multiculturalism, a similarly unrepresentative was none. On becoming Prime Minister he was trapped group, who deny and delay the natural processes of blending economically, so he deployed cultural nationalism as a politi- by deriding Australias old `Anglo-Celtic group as an estab- cal weapon (highlighting Gallipoli, Kokoda, the diversion of lishment, just as the nationalists caused division by attacking our returning troops to Burma in World War II, and the the British as an establishment a century ago. republic issue) to kick `the Pommy can and get the Labor There is a unified cultural entity in Australia; it is an heartland vote back at election time. This was a danger to our amalgam of its constituents, which changes over time. national cohesion, since our future depends on forgetting Originally it was a British Isles mix. The mix, not the exclusivist these antique and unimportant `divisions, and facing the Bulletin school version, was the real Australia. Then since limitations of the Australian Dream, which diminish us all, World War II, Northern and Southern European, Middle together. Eastern and different Asian groups have joined in, each be- How hollow the catch-cry "One Nation" was revealed to coming part of the amalgam and subtly changing it too. This be when Keating on election eve adapted a bitter, Manning is how things works in practice. The extent to which the Clark-style phrasing to rule the Liberals outside the Aborigines are part of the mix is a vexed and unresolved Australian commonalty: question which is central to the Mabo debate. "Weve got the Neanderthals, as I said a few times, Cutting out the Union Jack from the flag is a throwback `the revenge of the narks. The narks are trying to to the behaviour of the 19th century nationalists, who tried to wreak their revenge upon us; [they are] the deny the past. The past happened and we cant change it. We straighteners and the punishers." can cut the Union Jack out of the flag, but we cant change what it recognizes — that Britain, not France nor Ireland nor This is not normal rhetoric. Malcolm Turnbull has Portugal, founded European Australia. We have wasted a similarly said that the republican debate was a choice between century on a pseudo-debate on the supposed antagonism "an intelligent and an unintelligent party." Saying that you are between Britain and Australia, and with more pressing life-affirming and your opponents life-denying is an updated problems demanding our attention, we cant afford to fritter version of the class hatred of the 1890s nationalists, who called away another. ■

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 39 A capacity audience of 350 attended the Victorian Arts Centre on 12 October to hear Geoffrey Blainey and celebrate the IPAs 50th anniversary. Professor Blaineys speech begins opposite. 50 Years Back, 20 Years On

How has Australia changed since the War? What underlies our loss of economic vigour in the last 25 years? Australians today are better off than Australians of 50 years ago, but difficulties lie ahead. Widely regarded as Australias finest historian, Geoffrey Blainey is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Melbourne and the author of works including The Tyranny of Distance, Triumph of the Nomads, The Causes of War, and The Great Seesaw.

GEOFFREY BLAINEY

tFrx YEARS AGO Australia was at war. The turning A decade of large-scale immigration and big national point of the war had been reached a year previously, projects, the 1950s sometimes put heavy strain on the balance with the Japanese advance halted largely through of payments. The strain — unlike a comparable strain in the simultaneousF sea and air battles, and the German advance 1980s --- was tackled doggedly, indeed too doggedly. The halted deep inside the Soviet Union. But those Australians heavy restrictions placed on imports injected a cosy inefficien- living in 1943 were far from as certain as we are of the result cy into many factories, thus handing a problem to Australians of that War. of later decades. Inside Australia, the Labor Party under John Curtin In this first post-war period the prosperity soared; we ruled from Canberra. Labor had returned after the best part can measure how high it soared by glancing at life back in 1945. of a quarter of a century in the political desert. The Coalition Then, at least half of the families in Australia did not own a was in a daze, having just been trounced in the federal election. refrigerator or a washing machine, though they did own an ice Many goods and services in Australia, ranging from meat to chest or coolgardie and a clothesline which every Monday petrol and interstate travel, were rationed, and nearly every morning flapped with the washing hung out to dry. The activity was regulated. But there was full employment of a kind average family did not own a car and did not go away for a not seen perhaps since the boom of the 1880s. It was in that holiday longer than one day, unless they stayed with relatives. unusual wartime Australia, full of uncertainties, that the In- At least half of the families in Australia probably did not eat stitute of Public Affairs was born. once in a restaurant in the space of five years — unless it was What can one say, in a few sentences, about the following a wedding breakfast. At least half of the families in Australia 50 years? They can be divided into roughly two periods, each did not have one relative who had reached the final year of of 25 years; and how different they were. The first period often secondary school. So much of that was changed by the surge astonished — as did the second -- those who watched it of prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s: primarily the Menzies unfold. In the last years of the War a post-war slump was era. widely feared as inevitable. It did not arrive. Instead full Looking back at those 25 years (1943 to 1968) it is fair to employment continued year after year until it was taken for offer this comment. The World War, its destructiveness and granted. There was to be a political sensation in 1961 when Mr the scarcities it created, provided much of the impetus for Menzies was lucky to win the federal election — he did not economic vigour. Australia after the War was in a position to win until the very end of the counting of votes in Mr Killens export scarce goods — foods, fibres, minerals — to a world seat in Queensland. Menzies was almost flung from power, clamouring for them. because people were shocked that unemployment had At the same time Australia itself was rejuvenated in reached two per cent. Now they are not surprised when it spirit. It is almost as if the twin shocks of the world depression reaches 12 per cent. of the early 1930s and the war crisis of the early 1940s gave the AUSTRALIA THEN AND NOW Population: University students:f7yV Books published 8,315,791 (1950) 30,630 (1950) T1JArCW 745 (1950) 17,528,982 (1992) 534,538 (1991 Higher Education) 10,973 (1990)

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 41 50 YEARS BACK, 20 YEARS ON nation new goals and a new determination. Everyone agreed economic performance was the increasing isolation of the big that the population of seven million must be quickly increased cities from the remote countryside and the outback. In some so that Australia would be capable of defending itself when ways the outback is still carrying the cities and the cities dont the next threat arose. The manufacturing base must be even know it. In addition there was the increasing isolation of strengthened: self-sufficiency was the goal. Outside enemies - Canberra from the problems of the nation as a whole. the chief was communism — must be carefully watched A higher Australia in recent decades has also suffered from the standard of living must be achieved. A reasonable level of fairness suspicion, in schools and certain departments of universities, must be attained. The great majority of Australians shared all towards new technology. Perhaps no nation in the world has those goals, their own disagreement being how far the govern- owed more of its economic success to the application of new ment should intervene and regulate and nationalize. ideas, skills, machines — in short to the application of new Of course there were failures and failings, but the technology — but in too many of the history books taught in period as a whole makes our era seem abject. A nation with schools, the busy legislator was mistakenly enthroned as the a reasonable degree of shared goals, whether Japan or creator of jobs, while the technologist was the busy destroyer Singapore or Germany, is likely to do far better economically of jobs and the environment as well. Higher education is the than a divided nation. In that period Australians for the most home of some of these myths. Perhaps only a severe shock can part had common goals. dislodge some of these powerful enemies of prosperity from their high chairs in the nations nursery. Alas, the shock is not yet strong enough. Since 1968 Poor economic policies have hurt the nation. Perhaps cultural attitudes have been even more damaging: moreover they In the second post-war period, the quarter-century since cant so easily be altered, because the heartland of some of these 1968 (and that is only a rough benchmark), we have not done so attitudes is grade three of primary school and day-long well. Economicallywe have declined, especially when compared television. to many of the nations with which we like to compare ourselves. Some of the causes of our decline lie in economic policy. The cultural causes of decline are also powerful. The success of the first post-war period made us cocky. Success often The Next 20 Years carries the seeds of failure. It was increasingly believed that I take just three topics. the economy was a jumbo jet that could carry a crowd of non-paying passengers and make costly joy rides. Mr Mc- Mahon was an early pilot, Mr Whitlam was a notable pilot; Global Unemployment and we all know who now sits in the seat. It is rash to predict. Who in 1970, for example, would If I had to list the cultural causes of our decline I would have predicted that the decade ahead would experience include the complacency born of the prosperity of the Menzies Australias highest inflation in two centuries? Let me, never- era. It seemed so effortless, in retrospect. In the 1970s national theless, be rash. goals became more varied and more contradictory, and at It is widely predicted that the world is now in a long times prosperity was not a goal: it was taken for granted. There phase of unemployment that will go well into the 21st century arose a cargo-cult attitude to mineral wealth, and even the and perhaps embrace much of the working life of those now best-informed circles began to accept that endlessly-chanted leaving school or university. I am reluctant to accept this piece of nonsense that luck was more important than effort in argument. New technology and the efficiency-hunters are mineral development. Mining was becoming probably the widely seen as the destroyers of jobs. In part they are. But in most efficient of the major industries in Australia but that the long term, new technology is much more the creator than escaped attention because mining employed so few people. the destroyer of jobs. We do not know where most of the new It was increasingly believed that job creation was more jobs will be. Those unemployed in 1900 did not know where important than wealth creation. Mr Hawke won at least one the new jobs would be but somehow they were created. Most federal election mainly by appealing to that myth. Anyone can who are here tonight work in jobs which in 1900 formed a small create jobs, especially short-term jobs. Paying for them is the proportion of the work-force or did not even exist. problem; and the nation is now paying. In some of the boardrooms of the private sector the entrepreneur was playing another version of the same spectator sport by becoming a Australias Economy towering figure of economic life while contributing nothing to On present indications we - could well continue to the economy. From the mid-1980s the economy became a decline. Put in another way, Australia might well continue to spectator sport. decline relative to other nations. On some of the economic Another cultural influence on Australias poor fronts you see good news, and even great news, but it is not AUSTRALIA THEN AND NOW Bankruptcies: Growth of GDP: Infant mortality: 414 (1949-50) 8.0% (1950) (per 1,000 live births) , • 16,780 (1991-92) 3.3% (1993) 24.47 (1950) 4,: a 7.0 (1992) 42 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 50 YEARS BACK, 20 YEARS ON enough. The short-term danger is that when the world illegitimate or be branded as guilty until a treaty is signed with economy recovers we will climb to the first stage of recovery Aborigines or until lands are given to them on a massive scale. but halt there because the foreign debt explodes again. The I do not subscribe to this selective black-armband view of long-term danger is that we will just continue to decline ever Australias history. There have been many unjust episodes in so slowly, the decline disguised and made less painful by the our history, as in the history of every land, and even in the natural advantages of Australias way of life: the space, the history of Aboriginal Australia, before 1788. It is time we freedoms, the climate, the endless chances for leisure. But realized that Australias modern history has more fairness in those advantages are meagre if they cant be defended. The it than has the history of a great majority of lands. Admittedly, nation could eventually enter a dangerous period. In the long Aborigines were treated harshly in some phases of Australian term, Canberras prediction that Australia will become part history but an enormous attempt has been made in the last 20 of Asia might be all too true. Economic decline sometimes years to try to be fair to Aborigines. Few minorities in the ends in political feebleness or collapse. But the economic history of the world have been so singled out for benefits in a decline can be halted, if we have the commonsense and the 20-year period. Certainly no minority in South-East Asia has will-power. been so favoured by its home government — unless the home government happens to belong to the favoured minority. Mabo This policy of affirmative goodwill towards Aborigines, or `reparations as some see them, has been in the nations It may well be that the thorniest topic facing Australia in interest. But it is not in the nations and Aborigines interest, the next 20 years is Mabo. A pithy four-letter word, Mabo has become a form of shorthand for a topic that is very difficult to if this enormous effort is denigrated or dismissed. For some of these generous policies the nation is already paying a high discuss. It should have been a key issue at the last federal price. The huge area of land already awarded to Aborigines, election but Mr Keating labelled discussion of it, unless on his and the discriminatory terms on which that land was awarded, terms, as "racist"; and too many members of the Canberra media quietly took his side. Mr Keating raised Aboriginal have actually done harm to large areas of the Northern Ter- expectations even higher, in speeches after the election, but ritory while giving pleasure to the small groups of Aborigines living there. Through federal policies, the Northern Territory they were already high. He of all people should welcome discussion, because this topic more than any other is likely to is close to an economic disgrace. By locking up many potential make or break him. export projects, this version of Aboriginal land rights has On present indications the sorting out of Mabo could tended to aggravate the economic plight of all Australians. well take 20 years. If so, it will do immense harm to Australias Many Aborigines understandably believe that their lot economy and social fabric, and not least it will harm the should be far better: they resent money being wasted by a massive bureaucracy and the attribution of that sum to Aboriginal wel- standing of Aborigines. The other danger is that in the Iong term it will become an international issue in which Australias fare. They are conscious of past slights and grievances. At the sovereignty and even its territorial integrity are at stake. Some same time it would be salutary if the Senate, before it passed a Mabo bill, set up a select committee simply to assess what had Aboriginal leaders have already made that threat. They have been aided by a succession of statements from our nations been done in the name of Aborigines well-being in the last 20 leaders who are only too glad to appeal to world opinion for years: a committee to assess which policies had succeeded and which had failed, and to identify what was probably too costly for short-term political ends. Several justices of the High Court, the nation and what was too costly for the Aborigines. We are in the Mabo judgment, also cast doubts on Australias rushing into new legislation without even seeing what the old has legitimacy as a nation, though clouding their meaning with achieved, or failed to achieve. double talk. Mabo, ineptly applied, will give much to 20,000 or 30,000 There is every reason under the sun why Australia Aborigines but impose heavy burdens on all other Australians, should do as much as possible to improve the way of life and including most Aborigines. It could even run the danger of opportunities of Aborigines. But there is no excuse for permanently dividing the nation, if it is poorly handled or is Australians, black or white or brown, judges or ministers or the precursor of yet another log of claims. human-rights officials, casting doubts on their own nations legitimacy. Aborigines rights and the rights of the other 98 per cent of Australians are a matter for Australians to solve, as fairly So today, as Australians, we face difficulties; but we also as possible, in their own way; and those who doubt their have remarkable opportunities if only we seize them. We are nations sovereignty or, when they seem like losing, call on so much better off than the Australians of 1943. We are better international opinion to interfere, do harm to the nations off partly because that generation, a mere seven million of independence, and endanger its future. them, climbed high mountains and pulled us up behind Some people in high places say Australia will remain them. ■ AUSTRALIA THEN AND NOW ^poa Unemployment: Trade union membership: Mial^,^nl"1 0.8% (1950-51) ■ 116 iL 1: 3 63.0% 51950) 10.9% (1993) 39.6% (1992) J i IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 43 Amidst Prosperity, the Poverty of Public Debate In some ways the high expectations of Australians in the immediate post-war period have been exceeded by the fruits of progress. But, at the same time, the quality of democratic life has been eroded by the tyranny of political correctness and the trivializing of politics by television.

AUSTIN GOUGH

USTRALIANS entered the immediate post-war period the 1960s. Australians began the post-war years with con- with high expectations. The re-election of Chifley in fidence in a future of expanding prosperity and expanding 1946 had none of the excitement of the post-war personal freedom, and confidence especially in the British election, but there was, nevertheless, a powerful sense democratic parliamentary system which had emerged from of optimism. the War in remarkably good shape, healthier and better or- For the post-war generation the Depression had been at ganized than it had been in the 1930s. least as much of a formative experience as the War itself, and In material terms Australia has been a success, although there was a very widespread hope that never again would there is a paradox worth noting: while ordinary wage-earners Australia have to endure such a period of waste, disappoint- have had access to houses, cars, household equipment, civic ment and crisis. The War had drawn a line across the grim infrastructure and medical science of a quality hardly im- ledger of the 1930s. Young men who might otherwise have aginable in 1946, they have had to work very hard to pay for tramped the streets for year after year, looking for ill-paid jobs them because of the burden imposed on taxpayers by big as clerks or shop assistants, had found themselves after 1939 government. It was generally expected after 1945 that the high commanding fighter squadrons and infantry companies and taxes levied to finance the War would be allowed to settle back had seen extremes of good and evil which had expanded their gradually to peacetime levels, and that the vast bureaucracy intellectual and political horizons. For women, the War had assembled to manage the war effort would no longer be created opportunities for playing unexpected roles and taking necessary. But the coming of peace made no difference. The on new identities, and although most women of that genera- great regulatory bureaucracies went on expanding like tion went back without much regret to suburban domesticity galaxies after the Big Bang, and had no difficulty finding fields afterwards, they had a keener sense of what was possible for in which to exercise their dismal talents. They have continued their daughters; girls born after 1945 had much more chance to grow steadily, if anything slightly out-running Northcote of support from their mothers in choosing less traditional Parkinsons calculation that administration expands by at least careers, and many of them were to find their parents five per cent per annum irrespective of its responsibilities; surprisingly tolerant of their gestures of emancipation in curiously, although Australians always express the most

Austin Gough is Emeritus Professor of History at the University ofAdelaide.

AUSTRALIA THEN AND NOW Divorces: Australians who own or are Inflation: 7,358 (1950) purchasing their own home: 8.4% (1950) 45,630 (1991) 53% (1947} 1.9%(1993) 72 % (1990? Suicides (per 100,000 population): 93 (1950) 14.0 (1991) t w - ^. 1950I 1993 44 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 AMIDST PROSPERITY, THE POVERTY OF PUBLIC DEBATE complete scepticism at the idea that big government can ever to rely not on the printed word but on television, and television do anything efficiently or at a reasonable cost, they continue has developed in ways that could hardly have been predicted to urge their governments to do more, to be more active, to in the pre-television period. This is a massive commonplace, stimulate this and forbid that. As a result, government in but massively important. As everyone agrees, television is Australia eats up between 35 and 40 per cent of GDP, and the potentially a superb medium for political education, and inflated bureaucracy has to be supported by taxing average sometimes does this brilliantly; but at the same time it is an income-earners at rates originally levied on the wealthier easy medium to manipulate. An ideologically bent producer classes in a wartime emergency. can work miracles by the selective use of images and the suppression of inconvenient evidence, and by creating a subtle dislocation between questions and answers: we have learned The Reporting of Public Affairs to be sceptical about any television `special on an environ- mental issue, on organized crime, or, in particular, on anything The nature of our engagement with government has to do with Australian history. changed in the past 50 years. There is no doubt that as citizens of a parliamentary democracy we are now much better in- formed. To read once again through the newspapers of the late 40s is a strange experience: by modern standards they carried very little news, especially foreign news, and they seem In our fourth decade of television, political almost devoid of political comment. A typical issue of The life looks more and more like a branch of Sydney Morning Herald or The Age in 1949 carried 40 columns the entertainment industry. of news, of which about 12 were devoted to overseas events. Apart from the editorials, there were none of the columnists and commentators who were to appear much later, in the 60s. Politicians were hardly subjected to scrutiny at all; even the But the real problem is that even at its best, television Budget went virtually unreported in detail. Radio news bul- has been the main factor in a progressive distortion and letins were skimpy: the ABC had 15 minutes at 7:00, 15 trivialization of politics, because of the unsuitability of a visual minutes at 9:00, and a 20-minute bulletin at 11:00 pm, and medium for handling matters that have to be resolved by there was a 10-minute news commentary once a day. Commer- thought and discussion. The patient explanation of the argu- cial radio news came in very brief bursts like telegrams. It was ments in a Treasury paper on indirect taxation, or the possible, certainly, to subscribe to overseas journals like Time proceedings of a parliamentary sub-committee on foreign or the New Statesman, but few people could afford the trouble policy, fall hopelessly outside any possible definition of "good and expense of doing this. television." Television producers need an event, and they By contrast, each of the principal dailies now carries an create the visual equivalent with clips of Prime Ministers average of 100 columns of news including 35 relating to foreign striding along corridors surrounded by their minders, or with affairs; six or eight pages of financial and business news; a 10-second vignette of a minister speaking half a sentence into features pages four times as big as anything appearing in the a cluster of microphones: the effect is always that "something 40s; excellent letters pages; and at least 20 columns of serious is happening." discussion by well-informed commentators and specialists. Reality has to be edited and simplified to fit the ex- The broadcast media, including talkback radio, produce a tremely short attention span of television. Programs like The positive deluge of current affairs: with a little planning it would 7:30 Report work on the principle that it should be possible be possible to receive Australian and world news 24 hours a to dispose of any issue, no matter how convoluted, in a day. The Ieading newspapers, although they still lack the five-minute confrontation between two irreconcilable view- coverage of the best overseas press, have high standards of points: "Im sorry, well have to leave it there" has become the responsibility and represent a vast improvement over the level quintessential phrase of modern current affairs. Even a more of knowledge available to the public 50 years ago. serious format like Late/me tries to deal in 15-minute segments with questions of immense complexity; the real comparison Politics Trivialized might be with 19th-century Britain, when any one of the issues taken up and discarded so brusquely by programs like Late/me The majority of people, however, have come increasingly would have produced 50-page articles full of statistics and AUSTRALIA THEN AND NOW Marginal tax rate on Cases of poliomyelitis notified: Domestic airline passengers: average Income: 2,206 (1950) 1,499,816 (1950) 15.8% (1950) 0 (1991) 18,014,000 (1992) 38.0% (1993)r Contribution of the rural sector to GDP: 26.1% (1950-51) L ^ 2.6% (1991-92)

WA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 45 AMIDST PROSPERITY, THE POVERTY OF PUBLIC DEBATE

conceptual argument in all the leading quarterlies. one can hardly avoid the uneasy impression that Australia is The corruption of political discourse is matched by the governed by buffoons and crooks. corruption of the electorate itself by the visual media. Fifty Public cynicism about parliamentarians is becoming years ago, when we went to the movies once a week, who could reminiscent of Germany under the Weimar Republic or have predicted a time when the. average 20-year-old would France in the 1930s. Anecdotal evidence suggests that without have watched 50,000 hours of television, a fair proportion of compulsory voting there would be a calamitous fall in voter it in the form of rock videos in which the obsessive jump- turnout. To a greater extent than at any previous time, excel- cutting encourages an effective attention span of one or two lent potential candidates are deterred from going into politics, seconds? In our fourth decade of television, political life looks and some of the most intelligent politicians I know would more and more like a branch of the entertainment industry, prefer to remain on the backbenches, with seats on one or two with politicians behaving like entertainers whose values are influential committees out of the public eye, rather than seek shaped by the demands of good television. A politician who promotion to cabinet and have to face the strain of defending a policy decision in the bearpit of a television studio.

The coercive power of correct opinion The Fate of Free Discussion in a democracy can be worse than The parliamentary model of government rests on an the old-fashioned tyranny of kings. assumption of free public debate, and representative democracy is not working properly if it has to accept forbidden areas, defined by some religious or political orthodoxy, where free debate is discouraged or even prohibited by law. Imme- insists on dealing with inherently non-visual matters is written diately after the War there was much impatience with the idea off by every television producer in the country as boring and that a peacetime society needed any restrictions on the free "unelectable." One cannot help looking back with enhanced exchange of opinions, however undesirable some of them may respect at the austere politicians of the age of Chifley, who be. At a time when communism was desperately unpopular, may not have been great statesmen — as Padraic McGuinness the electorate was reluctant to vote to suppress it; and on its says, there was never a true golden age of Australian politics side the Communist Party itself lost a lot of members, espe- — but did their job seriously and with an almost cranky cially around the universities, by trying to enforce a Stalinist integrity. clamp-down on free discussion. Every development of televised current affairs in recent It was generally expected that Australian society would years has contributed towards a deeper public disillusionment become more relaxed about free speech as time went by -- I with the institution of parliamentary government. The have heard even officials of the book censorship division of cameras concentrate on ministerial gestures, a prolific source Customs in the 1950s admitting, albeit grudgingly, that some of `happenings, and ignore the day-to-day business of parlia- such development was inevitable. People in the post-war years ment except for Question Time which is pure theatre without would have expressed incredulity if told that towards the end real political content; and, increasingly, government policies of the 20th century there would actually be more taboos to be and actions are conveyed to the viewers through interviews by observed, more areas where debate had to proceed tentatively media celebrities who are well-informed only in the sense of for fear of infringing legislation and, compared to 1946, a knowing a lot about what is being said in the Canberra press much longer list of things regarded as simply unsayable, gallery. provocative or `unhelpful. The interviewers have come to regard themselves collec- Distrust of free discussion has been one of the main tively as an ultimate house of review, but in reality they earn legacies from the greatly admired decade of the 60s, a legacy their reputations by their skill in making cabinet ministers and cutting sharply across the flow of political development that opposition leaders look foolish, evasive, incompetent and might have been predicted in the post-war years. The current badly briefed. In a peculiarly Australian style (European and of toleration and compromise reversed itself suddenly in the American interviewers are much better), each interview is a mid-60s when the younger generation in the Western world duel from which the losing party is not supposed to emerge was swept by one of those waves of puritanism which peri- with any credit; after watching a few hundred such programs odically disrupt settled societies, in which all questions come AUSTRALIA THEN AND NOW Work-force participation Total fertility rate (average Weeks of earnings on average of married women number of children born to a wage to purchase a medium- 35-44 years: woman during her lifetime): class motor car: 8.8% (1947) 3.1 (1947) 81(1952) 71.3% (1991) 1.91 (1990) 43 (1992)

46 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 AMIDST PROSPERITY, THE POVERTY OF PUBLIC DEBATE to be seen as moral questions: in this mode, if you disagree budget, multicultural separatism, third-wave feminism, the with us you are not simply mistaken, but morally evil. Youth tendentious rhetoric of the green movement, or the deficien- movements are inclined to see the world in terms of absolute cies of the criminal justice system? Merely to make a list of good and evil, and to be exasperated by older generations who these things seems in itself morally deplorable. will persist in identifying distinctions, nuances and shades of At the end of the 20th century we can appreciate the grey. The intense moralism of "the Movement" came from a cogency of Tocquevilles obsession about 19th-century conjuncture of three factors: the unprecedented appearance America, that the coercive power of correct opinion in a of a youth culture with music and consumer goods aimed democracy can be worse than the old-fashioned tyranny of specifically at adolescents; the rather care-worn but optimistic kings. Tocqueville and other liberal theorists of his time permissiveness of the generation of parents whose own youth placed great reliance in the concept of an independent class. had been spent in depression and war; and the vast expansion In the Australian context, is it altogether utopian to envisage of university education — at an age when previous generations an independent force — not a body, a group, or a party; no had been in the work-force, a large number of young people more than a stratum — made up of people who are secure in the 60s were held in a prolonged adolescence, especially in enough in their expectations to be able to defy the currents those university disciplines which encouraged a hostile that are eroding the foundations of political life, to ignore analysis of `bourgeois society. political correctness, to discuss what needs to be discussed, By the 1960s the familiar Australian wowserism and and to keep up a critique of our political style that might sectarianism were no longer tenable because of the encourage the politicians to emancipate themselves from the widespread decline in religious belief, but the leaders of the demands of television? Unless a force of this kind exerts itself, youth movement replaced them with an unforgiving orthodoxy politics in Australia will drift increasingly into frivolity and of another kind. Urging one another to "do your own thing", irrelevance as we move towards the end of the century. they all did the same thing. The zealots could not bear the Fifty years ago one might have offered this independent thought of compromise or co-existence with regard to any role to university academics, especially those in Arts Faculties of their main themes of anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism who are given security of tenure in order to think and write and Third World romanticism; like old-fashioned evan- about history, philosophy and politics. In the late 40s there gelists they could be satisfied only with total victories over were many distinguished academics prepared to swim against Satan. It was an age of violent banners: "Smash Amerika!"; the fashionable tide; but these days the academics are like a "Silence the slimy bourgeoisie!" I used to wish there were species of wildebeest, decorative and charming, but cursed slogans for moderates to carry in demonstrations: "Depre- with a genetic defect which makes them ill-adapted for sur- cate imperialism!" or "Release IRA hunger strikers even- vival — they can see trouble coming only from the right. tually!" Endlessly scanning the rightwards horizon, alert for the ap- After a hiatus of 15 years or so, when it seemed that a lot proach of educational conservatives or free-market hef- of the black-and-white fanaticism had died away, we are now falumps, they fail to notice the predators creeping through the experiencing a revival of the fundamentalist zeal of the late long grass on the left. Having been pounced on so often with 60s, often with the same personnel, who have carried out their accusations of sexism, racism, elitism and Eurocentrism, they long march through the institutions and are now in their have no strength left to resist any politically correct outrage mid-40s. Once again, we have a wide range of topics where that Labor governments care to inflict on them. dissent from a politically correct position is not simply mis- The leading columnists in the print media (and the taken, but a clear sign of moral depravity. We are lectured and editors of the more substantial political journals like IPA threatened by taxpayer-funded scolds and prophets: human Review and Quadrant and The Independent Monthly) are bet- rights and equal opportunity commissioners, anti-discrimina- ter placed, in spite of the constraints implied by the involve- tion boards and sexual harassment monitors, Iand rights ac- ment of newspaper proprietors with television ownership. In tivists and spokespersons for deep-green environmentalism. the present climate our public intellectuals should be Zeal-of-the-Land Busy (BA La Trobe 1970) marches through scratchier, more provocative, less tactful, ready to say what the political landscape, dispensing unutterable shame in all is not supposed to be said (there are healthy signs of ex- directions. Fifty years after the Second World War, can anyone asperation just below the surface in some of the leading imagine the ABC in 1993 commissioning a set of Boyer Lec- columns), and to harry the politicians out of the television tures or a series of television documentaries which proposed studios and back to the parliamentary committees and the to take a critical line on land rights and the Aboriginal Affairs constituencies. • AUSTRALIA THEN AND NOW Proportion of world Australias rank among Life expectancy at birth production of gold world exporters: u 68.4 years (1947) that is Australian: 77.4 years (1992) 2.95% (1949) (1956) ter. 12.1%(1990-91) 22nd ( 990) © 1

R,^ b III IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 47 resources, although the space given cannot be denied that European settle- Not Born Yesterday over to these issues was certainly less ment of Australia took a heavy toll on Environmentalists tend to be rather than at present. And while the the environment, even though it one-sided and reticent about the past. economic aspects of conservation were brought other benefits. But pressure While they delight in cataloguing the often stressed, aesthetic and moral for bushland to be reserved for the environmental sins ofour forbears, they considerations were not ignored. protection of flora and fauna and for often write as though their own ideas Thus The Age was running a series public recreation goes back to the sprang de novo out of the countercul- of advertisements from Carlton and 1860s in Australia, and the worlds ture of the 1960s and 1970s, or else United Breweries titled Save Our Na- second National Park (after Yel- came from a noble lineage of engaging tive Fauna, which included a substan- lowstone in the United States) was es- rebels whose political and social beliefs tial amount of information about tablished by the NSW Government were perfectly in tune with contem- individual species such as lyrebirds, dis- south of Sydney in 1879. Tasmania and porary fancies. It often comes as a cussing their behaviour and their Victoria introduced legislation to surprise to supporters of the Australian habitats. Service groups organized con- protect native species in the 1860s and Conservation Foundation, for instance, servation displays: in July 1950, for in- 70s. By 1940 the southern mainland to learn that the people who founded stance, a Conservation Week was held States had created soil conservation the organization in the mid-1960s in- in the Hamilton district of western Vic- authorities, and projects to rehabilitate cluded Malcolm Fraser, Sir Garfield toria, inaugurated by the local Rotary land after mining had been introduced. Barwick and Sidney Baillieu Myer. Club with the assistance of 30 local Interest in environmental issues con- I recently spent a couple of days groups as well as the State Forests tinued to grow during the 1950s and looking through old newspapers and Commission, Soil Conservation early 1960s, and increased media magazines to ascertain how attitudes to Authority, Agriculture Department coverage was given to stories about the environment had changed since and Education Department. conservation and pollution. Voluntary 1950. I came away from my modest In thesame mon th, TheAge editorial- conservation societies grew strongly review with some interesting and ized under the heading `Heritage in during this period and branches of the salutary reminders of the way in which Lands, Forests and Rivers about the National Trust were established in all perceptions of the past can be distorted obligations of the current generation to States. Victoria passed a Clean Air Act to suit the political requirements of the stop the destruction of Nature. It wrote in 1956, and other States soon fol- present. that while "practical men and women who lowed. My reading of copies of the have a deep attachment to the state of Although a commitment to en- Melbourne Age printed over a number Victoria, its mountains, forests, rivers vironmental causes is now one of the of months in 1950 revealed the ex- and lands will endorse the plans of the distinguishing characteristics of the pected concern with post-war new Minister for Lands and Forests to political and cultural left, it was not reconstruction and economic develop- make better use of the Crown reserva- always so. In the cultural watershed ment, and many stories celebrating the tions ... there can be no lasting and year of 1968, at the height of the Snowy Mountains scheme and other beneficial policy of land settlement worldwide campus unrest, The Bulletin large infrastructure projects. Never- here, or anywhere else, without an ac- published an article by Donald Horne theless, the public was periodically companying forest and soil conserva- titled Anarchism -- what do the stu- reminded of the importance of conser- tion consciousness." dents want?. They wanted lots of vation and the baneful legacy of pre- This recognition of the importance things, and they were reacting against vious over-exploitation of natural of conservation is hardly surprising. It the alienation caused by industrialism,

Dr Ron Brunton heads the Environment and Aboriginal Affairs Unit of the IPA, based in Melbourne.

48 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 DOWN TO EARTH consumerism and rationalism. But for the radicals had belatedly come to were expressed by the Australian Inter- there was no mention of any belief that realize their potential as a marvellous national News Review, a strongly anti- these evil forces might have damaging stick with which to beat multinational communist fortnightly news magazine environmental consequences. capitalism. As an article on `The Politics published in the mid-1960s and Lots Wife, the student newspaper of Environment noted in April 1971: directed at the far right. Amongst of Monash University — probably the stories supporting White Australia, "The environmental crisis is giving nations most radical campus in the Rhodesia and South Africa, the social revolutionaries the most ex- AJNR 1960s and early 1970s — offered a frequently presented articles on en- plosive ammunition there has ever reflection of the lefts indifference, and vironmental issues, covering topics been to trigger a rapid change in the even hostility, towards environmen- such as pollution of the land, air and structure and morals of the estab- talism. I looked at copies of the paper water from pesticides, car exhausts and lishment." published from 1961 (when it was fluoridation; the conservation of flora, called Chaos) until 1971. From quite fauna and buildings; and animal rights. early on, virtually every issue carried Some of these pieces would fit comfor- stories from staff and students The Far Right Connection tably into contemporary environmen- documenting all the real and imagined tal literature with very few, if any, One of the reasons why it took the ills of the world, but environmental changes. Thus a 1965 article titled `If New Left so long to incorporate degradation was not one of them. Al- its valuable, kill it?, said that it was ecological issues into a broad-ranging though a number of articles were pub- remarkable that critique of liberal capitalism may be lished on the population explosion, that the extreme right, especially in "the koala, the platypus and the they all focused on the consequences lyrebird are still in existence ... for the welfare of humans, not Nature, Europe, had beaten them to it long Aborigines, no doubt, had used them and some argued that the real problem before, although this is seldom ad- as food to some extent, but, being was under-production or inequitable mitted in histories sympathetic to en- natural conservationists, they never distribution. For the whole of the 1960s vironmentalism. In Australia the racist practised slaughter on a large scale. I was able to find only one story about That irresponsible technique was in- conservation, written by a Zoology stu- troduced by `civilized man." dent in 1964. I also found only a single reference The League of Rights, An editorial in 1966 headed `Silent to pollution in the 1960s issues of Lots founded in 1946, Spring? claimed that Australians had Wife. The paper featured a regular promoted many of the "systematically poisoned" their rivers, science page in 1967, and in one item causes that are now the lakes and coasts, and denounced "the the author suggested that growing wor- mad, indiscriminate use of dangerous ries about air pollution would even- preserve of contemporary chemicals in agriculture." tually lead to the widespread use of greens ... In the 1950s and the first half of the electric cars. He approved of this, stat- 1960s, the far rights anxieties about ing that it was wasteful to burn up chemical and other forms of pollution petroleum resources that were also were seen as a symptom of paranoia, an needed by the chemical and food in- League of Rights, founded in 1946, expression of its fear of threatening dustries, particularly as nuclear reac- promoted many of the causes that are foreign influences and its desire for a tors could produce energy just as now the preserve of contemporary return to an idealized, but non- economically. greens, such as a concern with pollu- existent, past. This perception was At the very end of the decade, in tion, support for organic farming and given a memorable representation in October 1969, a small notice an- organic communities, and a hostility Stanley Kubricks 1964 film Dr Stran- nounced the formation of the Monash towards capitalism and big business. A gelove, which captured the insanity of University Conservation Society. But 1970 statement from the League the general who starts World War III for the next few months the only warned: by his obsession that fluoridation was reminders of environmental problems polluting his `vital bodily fluids. Why "If present policies are continued, in Lots Wife were in the form of large should we think that the contemporary Australia become a type of off- advertisements for another newspaper. will prevalence of pollution anxieties and shore island quarry for foreign in- These ads invited students to buy the images of environmental apocalypse terests ... We stand for conservation Melbourne Herald to "read about your are different, or any more rationally in all its aspects and oppose the inheritance" of "air not fit to breathe." based? Beliefs that were identified as rape of our environment and It was not until late 1970 — long after manifestations of paranoia three or resources to feed an economic the despised `capitalist press had in- four decades ago, are no less so now. monster which progressively ceases troduced regular environmental The problem is that they are no longer to serve true human interests." columns and reporters — that environ- confined to marginal and easily mock- mental stories began to appear in Lots Similar, though often more ed groups, but to intellectuals and Wife. They quickly became a torrent, restrained, views on race and Nature other cultural Elites. ■

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 49 Unnatural Science

ROGER SANDALL

must all hope that the light on excepting science itself. he hill will some day shine Finally, there are those who Wdown on a `clever country — a genuinely hate science because it is the country where science flourishes opposite of all they stand for. Here we alongside a busy economy. But the im- find the romantic admirers of un- becilities of the educational swamps at spoiled nature and everything natural, the foot of the hill (imbecilities which a group including large numbers of now reach far up its lower slopes and bohemianized academics. However seem at times in danger of putting out blind and ignorant they may be, one can- Lewis Wolpert, The Unnatural the light) do make one wonder. not say their instincts are wholly wrong. Nature of Science What progress is likely when at For as Lewis Wolpert points out in this ministerial levels in Canberra a Na- Penguin Books Australia sane, reasonable and good-humoured tional Statement on Science implies defence of science (he is Professor of that "there are no facts," and that if a Biology as Applied to Medicine at childs delusions conflict with science prestige of science without earning it. University College, London, and as then they should be treated with Then there are those who envy well as being the author of the book reverent pedagogical concern. How is science, and whose effort to denigrate here under discussion, The Unnatural one . to obtain a political leadership its success and undermine its achieve- NatureofScience, has written a number capable of informed decisions about ment derives from a resentful longing of other books) science is unnatural the environment, or genetic engineer- to destroy what they cannot match. Ex- through and through. ing, or nuclear research, when the amples of this are the "there are no Commonsense will not lead you to graduates of our Faculties of Arts (the facts" school of radical sociology, the discover the chemical properties of usual background of politicians) so "all cultures are equal" school of DNA, and carving boomerangs will not often display a deep ignorance of help you design supersonic wings. science along with a malevolent hos- tility to all it represents? "Natural thinking," writes Wol- Yet this hostility is probably in- Science represents one pert, "ordinary day-to-day com- evitable --- as inevitable as the univer- mon sense, will never give an of the last places on the understanding about the nature sal resentment of power, status, campus where rationality, privilege and success. The very prestige of science. Scientific ideas are, and indispensability of modern science order and discipline with rare exceptions, counter-in- make it the target of three kinds of still count. tuitive ... (Furthermore) com- people. First there are those who ad- mon sense is prone to error when mire it, but feel excluded, and long to applied to problems requiring join the club. Examples of this are the rigorous and quantitative think- old-time Marxists for whom Marxism relativistic anthropology, and the ing; lay theories are highly un- was "the science of society"; "scien- "sociology of knowledges" (sic) people reliable." tologists" desperate to raise the stand- who seek to explain away the whole ing of their cult; and promoters of marvellous edifice of the last 200 years But there is really no reason to feel "Aboriginal science" who claim, in ef- in terms of the career needs of in- ashamed about this. Evolution fect, that anything you can do we did dividuals, or class interest, or favourable developed our perceptions and our already. All of these people want the cultural conditions — anything at all brains for more immediately sensible

Roger Sandall teaches in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Sydney.

50 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 UNNATURAL SCIENCE things — for the sight of falling leaves, Despite the glories of both kind of Babylonian hodgepodge in for the smell of smoke on the wind, for Romanesque and Gothic, the nearest which "Marduk split the primeval the sound of a footstep in the night. the builders of those mighty cathedrals water goddess Tiamat to make the "Scientific understanding, however, is ever came to a scientific grasp of what sky..." After Thales, in the West, that not only unnatural," writes Wolpert. they were doing was contained in `The sort of thing steadily declined. Replac- "For most of human evolution it was Five Minutes Theorem: if a structure ing it "came a critical appreciation of also unnecessary, since, as will be seen, was built and remained standing for the nature of explanation itself, and the technology was not dependent on five minutes after the supports had requirement for logical consistency." science," been removed, it was assumed it would The stage for science was set. stand forever. Now this is, of course, a dreadful In a refreshingly brisk manner, Wol- heresy in the eyes of the "all cultures Technology is not Science pert declares that unnatural thinking are equal" crowd, who fiercely resist began with Thales in Greece. It was he the notion that there is "little Here the author is pointing to the who first systematically "tried to ex- chemistry and less calculus in Tikopia common misunderstanding which plain the world not in terms of myths or Timbuctoo." (Behold, ye doub- equates science and technology — a but in more concrete terms, terms that ters, the palaeolithic fish-trap!) misunderstanding found even in jour- might be subject to verification." According to them all knowledge nals like New Scientist. Last May an Before Thales, typically, there was the is "socially constructed" and the article from the Northern Territory whole body of modern science might reported with pride the publication of have been quite otherwise if different "a magnificent booklet entitled From Native Science historical and social conditions had Ochres to Eel Traps which illustrates, prevailed. Or if affirmative action had through a number of simple experi- given some other culture a chance. ments, how Aboriginal science can be Much of this seems to me self-serving transferred to a Western classroom." It nonsense, a "debilitating befuddle- is good to know the experiments are ment" not worth the paper its printed simple. I am sure that children will dis- on. Is it seriously suggested, as Wolpert cover useful things about Aboriginal rightly asks, that "a biology not based crafts and have lots of fun. But what on cells and DNA would have been they are learning is how to make fish possible? Would the periodic table or traps — technology — not science. carbon chemistry never have The ingenuity of palaeolithic emerged?" It is not enough for hunters and gatherers in devising relativists to defiantly answer "Yes". snares and traps and spears and har- As the author says, major counter- poons (something all our ancestors did examples must be provided if their all over the world) is something we can argument is to be taken seriously. sincerely admire. But science is some- Is science beleaguered today? Per- thing else. Science embodies coherent haps it is wrong to be too alarmed and universally applicable theories about the situation overall. If movies about matter, process and cause, not habitually portray scientists as "unstable, just a craftsmans experience of what anti-social Professor Branestawms avid- heating and bending will do. Moreover, A recent item in Sociological ly pursuing their theories but ignorant in Wolperts Chapter 2, `Technology is Abstracts reports the following or careless of the consequences," there not Science, various civilizations are article: `Western Scientific are also creditable television science mentioned with technologies far in ad- Colonialism and the Re-Emergence and technology programs such as vance of anything the Aborigines of Native Science: Quantum, Beyond 2000, and an Open achieved — Ancient Mesopotamia, Learning chemistry course is planned. China, the Incas of Peru — none of "Native American science was If last Junes National Statement on which had science. inaccessible to other ethnic Science represents the Higher Lunacy groups who approached Indian of the Left in Canberra, I hope I am not "The technological achievement culture with nineteenth-cen- being unduly complacent in feeling of the ancient cultures was enor- tury racism or through cultural that wiser counsels are bound to mous," Wolpert writes. "But anthropology. The four prevail. whatever process was involved it dynamics that drive Indian was not based on science. There is science are feelings, history as a no evidence of any theorizing tool, prayer as a medicine, and The Attack from the Humanities about the processes involved in relations; its goal is reaching a the technology nor about the state of balance ..." Yet the situation in the Arts facul- reasons why it worked." ties of the universities does give cause

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 51 UNNATURAL. SCIENCE for concern. The leftism which failed in and closer, but perhaps never at- "By ignoring the achievements of its long assault on our political institu- tained with certainty. But very science, by ignoring whether a tions has had much more success with close approximation can be a theory is right or wrong, by deny- the soft targets available on campus. great achievement and is infinite- ing progress, the sociologists And its anti-scientific stance is just as ly better than error or ignorance." have missed the core of the scien- destructive as ever. What we have is a tific enterprise. Science has been radicalism which no longer believes in Moreover, in this situation science extraordinarily successful in progress, fears that it no longer has any represents one of the last places on the describing the world and in un- reason to exist, and in the name of campus where the distinction between derstanding it. There is real need "post-modernism" is nihilistically truth and falsehood still matters, where for sociologists to try to il- destroying whole areas of study. In the rationality, order and discipline still luminate this unnatural process. course of this the humanities are being count, and where personal conduct What is required is an analysis of, fatally weakened as a positive influence broadly conforms to a moral code for example, what institutional in our life. which both liberals and conservatives structures most favour scientific In sharp contrast to this reaction- can approve. Liberals have always been advance, what determines choice ary radicalism, science has no option more or less at home with sciences of science as a career, how science but to interpret the past in terms of innovation and entrepreneurial in- should best be funded, how inter- progress: clinations. But this is a time when con- disciplinary studies can be en- servatives, too, must face up to the couraged." "It is precisely in this respect that ruinous condition of many Arts science, once again, is special: for Departments, and throw their weight Perhaps the next National State- the history of science is one of behind the best bet for a civilized future ment on Science could explore these progress, of increased under- we have. Science needs and deserves questions. When they are answered, standing ... In the last 50 years the their support. and appropriate policies are progress in, for example, under- Perhaps Wolpert should be al- adopted, we might move closer to standing biology at the molecular lowed the last word. He is here rebuk- that still undiscovered bourne — the level has been astonishing. ing the sociologists for their "clever country" the politicians talk Science is progressive in that the activities, but there is a message for about:;■ truth is being approached, closer others too.

An Excess of Econometrics? From Altruism, Conflict and the Migration Decision by MoonJoong Tcha, published by the Department of Economics, University of Western Australia, February 1993.

PROPOSITION 5.2 (i) The more altruistic is the father to his son, the less likely to migrate by himself is the son. (ii) The more altruistic is the son to his father, the less likely to migrate by himself is the son.

Proof {i) Differentiation of the right hand side of (26) with respect to a gives

Ii + 0s - A®S12-a/a-1 [_ (1 -A) _ dA OS 1 (Yyv-a) a - 1 as as where 4OS/aa < 0, (1 - A) > 0, and the numerator of aA/aa is {I + a-I/a) (Ca - 1)/a) 6a-t-a/a -a [ (1 + a)°-t/0 - as (1 + or i/o ) I 1 -a/a (1 + 1 /0)-0 al/a I ((a - 1)/a) a [1 + (a) 0-1/0 + gt -a + ua -1-a/a /a (b-I /a - 1 _ ( {a - 1)/a) as (I + a)-a [1 - a + boa-1 ) + at) 1

0 because 1 > 6a and a -1/o > I (if a < 1) where 81 is the positive residuals after expansion of (1 + a)o-1 /0 Therefore it is shown that the right hand side is a decreasing function of a, which means the son is less likely to move. ■

) 1 -tla) 12. (ii) aA/a _ ((1 + a- t/0 -0 l(1 + aoa By the same logic as was used in Proof {i), the right side of (26) is shown to be a decreasing function of a. i

52 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 INTERVIEW Not All Cultures Are Equal Why do some societies succeed and others fail and by what criteria should we judge other cultures? These are questions which Robert Edgerton, Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles, explores in his recent book Sick Societies: Challenging the Myth of Primitive Harmony (Macmillan). In doing so, he challenges the doctrine, widely held in his profession, of cultural relativism. During a visit to Australia in July, he spoke to IPA Review.

d you explain what cultural relativism means QCouland the role that anthropologists have played in developing and promoting the idea. ROBERT EDGERTON: Essentially, cultural relativism is the view that societies cannot be compared and evaluated. Each one is unique and valu- able and, no matter what it does, no matter how cruel or inhuman its prac- tices, it deserves our respect. The sociologist William Grant Sumner, in 1906, was the first to actually use the term. "Mores," he said, "can make any- thing right, and prevent condemnation of anything." He was talking at the time about cannibalism. Franz Boas picked it up early in American anthropology. Mead, Benedict, Herskovits and a host of others followed, making it, I sup- pose, the most important element of faith of an anthropologist. When I was trained, any student who deviated from this notion was subject to the harshest of penalties. Now anthropologists have exported it to other disciplines, from political science to geography. If you confront cultural relativists allowing him to describe ac- the people whom they encountered, with examples from contemporary curately a community, undis- before they understood them. Cultural societies --- Cambodia under the torted by moral judgments. relativism was an appropriate rein on Khmer Rouge, Iraqs treatment of the Would you see cultural relativism those ethnocentric interventions, and Kurds, Hitlers Germany — then they as necessary to anthropological to this extent has done some good. try to dismiss the argument. These are enquiry in this regard? not real communities, they say; not like When anthropologists go into the field That raises the ques- the folk societies of the past. This, of it is true that they have to suspend their tion of what, if any, are course, is sentimental nonsense. moral judgments, as difficult as it is. Q the ethical imperatives And it is important to remember that that flow from recognizing One could argue that cultural relativism arose to counter- that some behaviours are cultural relativism is an balance the zeal of missionaries and ex- cruel or immoral or that some Q aid to an anthropologist, plorers who were insisting on changing societies are sick. Does such

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 53 NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL a recognition provide the jus- indigenous groups and ahead. What are the challenges of tification for intervention to minorities but never applied tomorrow? A trader arrives bringing change those behaviours. Can across the board? pottery and other wares. An assess- you actually improve societies And its not just anthropologists who ment needs to be made. Who is this by intervention? apply it in this way; it is educated guy? Is he a threat to us? Does he want to steal our women or our cattle? Does Yes, indeed it has been done quite Americans, and students ... he have an army of people following often. British colonialism has done it him who want our land? Societies that again and again — to prevent feuding are poor at realistically assessing risk or human sacrifice. The British fought Is it linked to their disil- may well go under. A number of for about a hundred years against the lusionment with their Ashanti in West Africa to abolish Q own society? countries were poor at assessing future human sacrifice, although with an in- It is to a large degree. threats associated with Germany and terest in gold as well. The Australians Japan prior to World War 11. They al- most paid with their own extinction. intervened in Papua New Guinea to prevent inter-tribal warfare. Everyone What criteria do you employ to determine predicted that if they did that, the cul- Q Your book Indicates that ture would fall apart, but they were Q whether a society is sick you dont find the notion proved wrong. The New Guineans said or well? of human nature to be a "What took you so long?" There are three. First is a societys in- nonsense as some anthro- ability to do those things which need to pologists do. Once that is ac- be done to keep its members alive — to cepted are we then obliged to Initially the criticisms of avoid starvation, to combat disease. On admit that there are certain limits cultural relativism came this criterion Western medicine is which human nature imposes on Q from people on the left preferable to sorcery. The second us? And that if a society is to because they believed it was an criterion concerns those practices survive certain kinds of institu- excuse for tolerating inequality which so alienate or dispirit people tions and practices are far more and oppression in other that they become rebellious on the one preferable than others. societies. Marx was no cultural hand or suicidal and depressed on the Absolutely. Some are self-evident. A relativist. Now, though, the other. When that happens, culture critics of cultural relativism are society must have enough military begins to break down. The final attacked by people who see muscle to deter its neighbours and it criterion concerns those practices themselves as radical. Why do must have enough productive capacity which lead to chronic internal feuding. you think that is? Can one to enable it to live at least at subsis- I know these are simple-minded tie this to the collapse of faith in tence level. Marxism? Has cultural criteria, but they are measurable and. One of the less obvious, but essential, relativism taken the place of they avoid the charge of being unscien- institutions is the need for third party Marxism as a doctrine with tific moral judgments. There are things political control over feuding. Human which to beat the West, or is it that people do which we all find moral- males have a very clear genetic propen- more complex than that? ly abhorrent, but which, according to sity to fight over women. Fights over my criteria, I can find no reason to women develop into feuds and feuds The swing back towards cultural condemn. Circumcision of women, for will destroy the society unless the relativism as a radical doctrine pre- example, is a stupid thing to do and its society institutionalizes some way of dates the collapse of Marxism. Its all done all over the Middle East. But it controlling them. connected with post-modern nihilism. doesnt threaten the survival of the In some societies male violence There seems to be a fear that agents of society; its not maladaptive. My towards women creates such divisive- industry or sinister intelligence criteria are not meant to be ethical ness that women live in a countercul- bureaux or war machines are going to criteria. ture towards men and subvert male use judgments made about the way in- Lets look at a society like the Tas- activities; the things women arc sup- digenous people live to harm them and manian Aborigines who were in many posed to do they dont do well and they maybe start another Vietnam War. No- ways maladaptive: their feuding was end up bewitching and poisoning men. one, it is said, has the right to judge destructive and purposeless; their food This is in contrast to, say, the Cheyenne defenceless people. Thus, we can judge supply was inadequate, and their Indians whose women were never the French or the Japanese, but we can- women were exploited and discon- abused and who loved their men, sup- not judge the Pokot [of East Africa] or tented. They survived for thousands of ported them, fought in battle with the Australian Aborigines. years, but only because of their isola- them, died for them. Between men and tion. When the Europeans arrived, women there has to be created a com- So cultural relativism Tasmanian Aboriginal culture quickly mon cause which produces a stronger is a doctrine partially collapsed. society than one in which men and Q applied — applied to Adaptive societies have to think women are divided.

54 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 NOT ALL CULTURES ARE EQUAL

The same applies to generational some exceptions, their traditional cul- What about the situation conflict. Young men dislike authority, ture is destroyed and yet they havent where religion gets in particularly in the form of their fathers, become participants in American Q the way of science, as it and to be viable a society must control society. I gather that there is a parallel has in our own past at those this. here in Australia among groups of times when the Church has for- To some extent a blueprint for a Aborigines who dwell in pathetic con- bidden or discouraged certain well-adapted society must be environ- ditions on the fringes of society. types of scientific enquiry which ment specific. But I am trying to have proved in the long run to develop a list of fundamental proposi- be very productive? Has that tions, things that all societies must do Some Aborigines are been maladaptive? trying to retribalize in if they are to survive, that transcend Certainly. particular environments. Q order to recapture their traditional culture. The argu- ment put is that by providing North American develop- land you create the basis for From history we can ments In relation to them to do this. Do you think see that what we call Q native American land that is viable? modernization seems rights and autonomy are fre- Q I think its the same as that which some to come as a package: quently invoked as models for capitalism, democracy, ur- Australian Aborigines and for black leaders are prescribing in America. Its a prescription for failure. banization and secularization the direction in which Australia seem to belong together. If we should be going. Do you think A big issue in California is bilin- gualism. A child who is Spanish-speak- encourage other societies to that the handling of native modernize for the sake of the American issues has been suc- ingcan beeducated until the 10th grade without learning English, at which material and social benefits it cessful? Can it provide a model brings, are we not selling them for us in Australia? Has the point his career options are extremely limited. He is going to wind up being a a package which includes a North American approach over- decline of their religion and come the social, economic and janitor. Allowing a black kid to speak only Black English will never get him a thus of the meaningfulness of health problems experienced life for them? by Native Americans? In par- decent job. America is not a perfect ticular, is the model of separate melting pot, but if minority groups are There is that danger. I think we are development, of a state within a not compelled to give their kids a selling them a package, but they arc state, desirable? chance by becoming American, they well-equipped to cope with it. A good No, as a model it is a blueprint for are doomed to a life of crime, poverty, example of that can be seen in South- disaster. We put Native Americans in a single parenthood ... East Asia where Muslim women wear `zoo to enable them to maintain their veils in one setting but not•in another. traditional culture, but how were they The Japanese are managing to main- You cite in your book as tain Buddhism and Shintoism despite to do this when there were no buffalo an instance of the per- left to hunt? They were ghettoized and rapid economic progress. The danger is Q sistence of irrationality perhaps becoming less significant as as a consequence their medical care the fact that 80 per cent of time passes. and education were inferior. The fact Americans still believe in the ex- that they were not attending Returning for a minute to your ear- istence of miracles. What place lier question about good and bad mainstream schools and institutions has religion in your definition of and that their spoken English was poor religions, one example of a maladap- a sane or viable society. Are tive religion is Christian Science. reinforced racist attitudes among there good and bad religions or Americans. Mostly American Indians Christian Scientists are forbidden from is all religion irrational and accepting medical care. Many States in were given the worst land and allowed therefore maladaptive? to drink themselves into insensibility. America have passed laws enabling the Im not sure that I would apply the term The violence rate among them is very State to enter the home and take a child `irrational to any religion. Non- high. as a life-saving measure; but in doing rational, perhaps. Human beings have so, tearing apart the family and to have meaning — this is basic to threatening the familys religious Is this a product of their human nature. One of the things which belief. There are tremendous disputes traditional culture or are humans have to have meaning for is about this, whether the life of the child Q they rather caught in a death and a religion which gives them is more important than the well-being no mans land unable either to meaning for death and for life is an of the family. In America it is the life of return to their traditional roots exceedingly important thing to have in the child that is considered more im- or to integrate with mainstream a society. As long as its producing that portant. And I suppose I feel the same American society? functional consequence, religions are a way. ■ It is definitely a no mans land. With good thing.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 55 0 D Gl INSTITUTE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS

The IPA supports parliamentary democracy WMM ys the EP " ^sande not because such a system is perfect or in- The IPA promotes those ideas and corruptible, but because democracy is more policies which it believes will best advance likely than its alternatives to demonstrate the interests of the Australian people. respect for human rights and peaceful proces- It is better placed than political parties to ses for resolving conflict. It supports small but focus on the long-term interests of Australia strong government because big government and to confront issues that are important for is wasteful, fosters corruption and is a drain the nation, but electorally unpopular. It has no on the economy: a drain which ultimately party political affiliations. reduces the resourcefulness, creativity and The IPA shares the values and aspirations independence of the Australian people. of the vast majority of the population: • the rule of law; `the Way the IPA Operates • parliamentary democracy; The Institutes main activities are in the • a prosperous economy with full employment; fields of government, economics, education, Aboriginal issues, and the environment. It • high standards in education; promotes its views and encourages public • stable family life; debate through its publications and semi- • sound environmental management; nars, through comment in the mass media ■ security from the threat of crime and and through discussion with policy-makers. invasion; The independence of the IPA and the • the freedom to associate, express quality of its argument are maintained by opinions, own property and practise the integrity of its staff and by the following ones religion; procedures: • care for the disadvantaged; and • All the research studies which the IPA • a tolerant, peaceful society. undertakes, and which meet the required While these values are widely shared, standards of quality, are published and agreement on the best means of achieving thus are open to public scrutiny. them is not. The IPAs contribution is to iden- • The IPA does not accept commissions tify the means that will enable Australians from political parties. It does, on oc- most effectively to realize their values and to casion, accept tasks from Federal and argue publicly for those means against ob- State Government entities when these jections inspired by opposing ideologies or relate to specific areas of IPA expertise, vested interests. when they have no direct party-political The IPA supports an efficient, competitive overtones, where publication is assured private sector because experience has shown and when control is firmly in IPA hands. that general prosperity and, in the long run, political freedom, depend upon it. A • Many of the IPAs publications are sub- prosperous community, with a growing ject to review by experts not associated economy, is best equipped to assist the needy, with the Institute. to protect society from internal and external threats and to safeguard cultural, educational and environmental values. The IPA recognizes that markets are not perfect and therefore The IPA obtains its funds from more than government must sometimes intervene to cor- 4,000 private individuals, corporations and rect their failure. However, because govern- foundations. No one source accounts for more ment intervention also carries risks and costs, than 6.5 per cent of the total and no one in- it must be justified by the overall public good dustry sector provides more than 16 per cent. and not be, as it so often is, the result of No donations from political parties or grants pressure from special interest groups. from government are accepted.

56 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 C.D. Kemp and the IPAs Foundations

SHAUN PATRICK KENAELLY

HARLES DEIrTON KFMP passed away on 23 June 1993 Poetry and economics are put side by side: in the latter in the golden jubilee year of the Institute of Public case, Kemp reflecting, as we might expect, on the books of his C Affairs, of which he was Founding Director and with own discipline. There is a constant wrestling with Adam which his name shall ever be associated for so long as it Smith. Marshall is here; Keynes, Hayek. He admired all, but endures. He was 82 years old and died in his sleep, quite was not a schoolman. The fundamental questions never peacefully, following by three months his wife, Betty, whom he ceased to concern him. Sharp axioms are copied out, meaning had nursed throughout her last illness. His was a long, active to govern him. His book reveals him as that rare kind of life and very fine. He was a truly great Australian, among the scholar, one who remains a student within the discipline, his first rank of his generation and times being what they are, will many professional accomplishments notwithstanding. There greatly be missed. Far too few of his countrymen knew of him, is an understanding which declares that no basic question is ever but he was modest and did not seek fully settled, lest it harden into doctrine. fame. Certainly, he was esteemed He quotes Cowper, as a caution: amongst contemporaries and many in a younger generation came to revere "... dropping buckets into him. His reputation will grow in the empty wells. years to come. And growing old in drawing C.D. Kemp made a com- nothing up." monplace book he entitled Wisdom Then Marshall: "Economics is con- and Other Things, A Personal Anthol- cerned, on the one side, with the study of ogy. It tells a good deal about him. It wealth and, on the other and more impor- offers, perhaps, a royal road into his tant side, with part of the study of man." lifes work. He thought enough of it to Kemp was naturally a moral circulate copies: there is one before me philosopher, as his book discloses; but a as I write. He gives an introductory practical, not abstract, thinker. His dis- note to the reader. The extracts are tinctive contribution was to bring a moral drawn from his reading over many earnestness into virtually everything he years, but the arrangement is quite in- wrote as an economist. His moral sen- formal. "To get the maximum benefit sibilities were extraordinary, cloaking a from them," he counsels, "each one deeplysensitive nature. More, manyof his needs to be pondered upon; they writings have a literary quality beyond should not be read hurriedly." There is C.D. Kemp in 1990 their immediate purposes, which now already a philosophy in this. have faded with time. He could very easily turn an article on Kemps commonplace book draws from near and far. He tax or tariffs into a small but telling reflection on the manners quotes often from friends and contemporaries; there is the of the age or the mood of the country or the progress of the Bible and Shakespeare; much perennial philosophy; the kinds century — all done without the reader ever feeling that the of things we would expect. But he also noticed a nice line from point had somehow been mislaid. Oklahoma; passages from light novels; a particularly astute (if A fine example dates from 1948, in the early years innocent) remark of his granddaughters. He looked of IPA Review: `Economics and Faith. It begins boldly enough: everywhere and saw deep. He returned to familiar authors, but they were always fresh to him. "The ultimate solutions for the human problem are

S.P. Kenaelly is a private scholar.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 199357 CD. KEMP AND THE IPA S FOUNDATIONS

not to be found in economics. If this is a truism it lurches to its sorry end, Kemp chose to set aside the part is one worth underlining. For as the economic and played by the politicians in the making of their own disaster, social analysts delve ever deeper in their invest iga- to concentrate his ire upon the record of the economists who tions and as the post-war crisis continues had advised them: obstinately to defy the treatment prescribed, it "... it has been so bad that many economists, instead becomes increasingly clear that the root causes of of continuing, as they do, to flaunt their wares by our troubles are not economic at all, and that some offering gratuitous advice, should be hiding their vital force, some essential constituent, is missing heads in shame. The blunders have been legion. from the remedies proposed." There is the notable instance in Australia of the 130 There is a political context. This was an age of faith in academic economists who, sheep-like and with planning. The Chifley Government had embarked upon its presumptuous arrogance, put their signatures to a grand plan for bank nationalization -- a measure that would letter advising the people to return the Labor destroy it. Wartime belief in the powers of central direction Government in May, 1974 on the grounds that it was and the superior role of the expert or specialist had passed better capable of managing the economy. How are into peacetime. The IPA also offered plans; but what is im- they feeling now? — Probably quite unrepentant." portant is that Kemp declares clear limits to the process_ His Their curse is vanity. They own too little regard for the limits concern is less with what the expert can do than with what he of their powers. A simple pass degree or diploma makes an cannot do: instant expert, no matter if he has had little or no experience in "The core of our discontent today does not lie in real life. There is a gamblers faith in economic forecasting, the economics or in our inability to find economic speculations themselves becoming, with mock-solemnity, the solutions; it lies in the higher realms of the spirit basis for policy recommendations. (An "unwise attempt to and morals. The post-war crisis is in truth not predict the unpredictable," as he puts it.) Then the fascination fundamentally an economic crisis at all; it is some- with models, with theory, or textbook wisdom -- Kemp is scathing. thing more profound and infinitely more serious. It He believed that common sense (a quality he much admired in is a spiritual crisis." the IPAs first Chairman, Sir George Coles) was undervalued. A preoccupation with the ethics of his own profession The prevailing curse of the century, argues Kemp, is surfaces in his later writing, but it was there from the start. cynicism: a collapse of confidence in Western civilization; a Kemp truly saw his work as vocational: you chose it, but it also legacy of the Great War from which we have never quite chose you, in the sense of a highly personal calling. The work recovered. Cynicism is corrosive, it undoes our best efforts. shaped conscience; it formed character. His anger is that of a People increasingly seek salvation in material pursuits. A tradesman who finds that his apprentice has done a bad bit of misplaced faith in planning is an aspect of this, as is a retreat work. It is not merely a bad job, the craft itself is disgraced. It from self-confidence and a turning toward the redemptive is important that Kemp should ignore the politicians in his powers of the state. Full employment has been achieved - 1975 article; but he had not forgotten them. and the economists have played their part in that — "but having gained the goal of work for all, we seem no longer to possess any firm belief in the dignity of work itself." There are Leadership extensive guarantees of social security, but the ordinary every- day courtesies are vanishing: A third key is his attitude toward leadership and again it is a moral conception. Men who hold offices of power bear a "Men rush into trams and buses ahead of women, responsibility to use them properly. Leadership itself was a youths and girls retain their seats in crowded trains quality of mind or spirit. In Economics and Faith he gave a and leave old people standing; the least-cared for definition: member of society is the housewife and mother." "The task of leadership is not to instil greatness into He concludes by inviting a restoration of faith and his terms the people, for greatness already resides there; the arc rich: moral courage and rectitude; with faith and optimism task of leadership is to bring that greatness forth." and constrictive trust; high purpose and destiny. He never wavered from this belief. In what was perhaps the last published article of his life, he sought to give advice to A Professional Ethic the parliamentary Liberal Party in the wake of the defeat of 13 March 1993. Unlike many, he avoided slick recrimination To enjoy faith — this is one key to C.D. Kemp. A second and sneers at the defeated. He had praise for Fightback!, and is his concern with the moral standing of the professional criticism. He did not believe the game was played out. Find economist himself. If virtues are to be sustained they must the qualities of leadership, he argued, and the electorate will reside in classes of men holding to a professional ethic or look to you. This is your duty, the high work the nation requires moral code. There are moments in his writings when the of you. First, the party must collect itself and find courage: general reader senses that Kemp is really addressing his own colleagues. An exceptionally powerful article of 1975 brings "I have been shocked by the way so many all that out: A Mess of Things. As the Whitlam Government Liberals have been in such indecent haste to

S8 EPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 GD. KEMP AND THE IPAS FOUNDATIONS

distance themselves from ideas to which, only a few Nor should he. Rugby has a mission in the town and in the weeks ago, they seemed to have a passionate at- world beyond it. This work is his now: real work; ones profes- tachment. It is not a pleasant spectacle: it does sion ... doing some real good them and their party no credit." The novel supplies a ready bench-mark. Either the con- temporary reader is moved by it, or not. C.D. Kemp was, as His immediate conception of politics was of an was, for that matter, Manning Clark; who made allusion to it honourable enterprise, governed by conscience, undertaken for high motives: in which leadership itself is an ideal of in a number of places. These were the values which shaped service, unselfishly given, but with its own rewards. Next, the civilization that took root in colonial Australia, as con- leadership required an ability to read the true state of the veyed by the great national emigrations. The First Fleet is, in nation. This required truth-telling: reality, as distant to us as is Versailles, presided over by the Sun-King. The Victorians stand immediately behind us. "Despite all that has been said and written about it Australian civilization is formed by them: by Methodists, Pres- I remain convinced that the people still do not byterians; Anglicans; the Roman Church in Ireland. comprehend the dire nature of their countrys Charles Denton Kemp was born in 1912 into a family in predicament. Both politicians and the economists which two of the streams had already converged. His father have failed to explain Australias plight in terms was of Scots descent, Presbyterian; his mother Roman understandable to the people and to tell them of the Catholic — a Denton — but English, not Irish. The rest is sacrifices which would be required on their part ..." middle-class and conventional: Scotch College, Commerce at Melbourne University (where he shared a tutorial with B.A. Santamaria), plenty of sport, particularly cricket. Kemp An Evangelizing Spirit graduated at the end of the Great Depression and took a job with a wool-broker, "on the wrong side of the basic wage." The ethic permeating C.D. Kemps life-work is mid- The Great Depression marked a generation of young Victorian. The poetry he likes is Victorian in the main - people. The experience — or sight — of daily misery, despair Tennyson, Browning, Christina Rossetti — and the potencies and want, left them with a single clear conviction: that this shaping his values owe directly to the great evangelizing cur- should never happen again. Quite conventional young men rent which passed through English letters in the mid-19th and women were radicalized and Kemp was no exception. It century. In his commonplace book, Kemp quotes from Tom was an ideological age. Communism and fascism were both Browns Schooldays: "a gentleman and a Christian, thats all possibilities and were alluring, in view of the record of the old we want." political verities. J.A. Lyons withdrew from his party in protest An evangelizing spirit moves Tom Browns Schooldays. at what he called visionary schemes and became the familiar Consider the final chapter. Tom, now at Oxford, holidays with figure who steadied the nation; but visions are not in short friends on a fishing tour in the Highlands. One idles and reads supply in times of hunger. aloud from a newspaper: boring political news, cricket scores Manning Clark and B.A. Santamaria both acknow- and racing results. Then: ledged the great Melbourne University Union debate on "`Hello Brown! Heres something for you, called Spain, 22 March 1937, as representing the pivotal intellectual out the reading man next moment. `Why, your old encounter of their generation, a direct collision of opposed master, Arnold of Rugby, is dead." values: faith and materialism; Christianity and communism. The engagement granted all participants a militancy in their Tom freezes in the act of casting a fly, tangling his line. moral and political language (to the point of near fusion), still He must walk away. By nightfall he is far on the southward audible two generations on. Consider the passage from the road. The allusion is to Christs call to the fishermen. They concluding pages of Clarks History: must listen and must go. Earlier, on the eve of departing Rugby, Tom Brown has "Restraints on human behaviour were thrown already framed his own question: aside. Nothing was sacred, nothing escaped ex- amination. Men and women walked naked on the "`If I cant be at Rugby, I want to be at work in the beaches, the stage and the screen and they were not world, and not dawdling away three years at Oxford ashamed." ... I mean real work: ones profession; whatever one will have really to do, and make ones living by. I want B.A. Santamaria might very easily have written this, as to be doing some real good, feeling that I am not only might C.D. Kemp, except that the moral tone is skewed. Each at play in the world, answered Tom, rather puzzled man carried a fervour into his mature work born of his times. to find out himself what he really did mean." Each man produced a great lifes work. But for Clark, an historian of considerable penetration, an inward conviction Then he returns to Rugby Chapel, the world of his own failed, reflected in the disharmonies of his crazy architec- formation. He looks at the windows. They were plain in his ture. He could no longer bring his faith to active agencies. day, stained glass now: filled, that is to say, with scenes from B.A. Santamaria, in his mid-20s, was virtually summoned by scripture. The school is closed for the summer and on the Archbishop Mannix to the tasks of Catholic Action. For C.D. cricket field some boys from the town are playing. For a Kemp the encounter with Sir Herbert Gepp proved the moment he wants to evict the interlopers, but sees he cannot. decisive one. Each arrived at different solutions, but the

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 59 C.D. KEMP AND THE IPAS FOUNDATIONS radicalized language, the moral concerns are alike. Here is Australian Paper Manufacturers and at the height of his Kemp, from what was probably his first major published article, powers. He had a lifetime of experience in mining behind him Where Has Industrialism Failed? (1940): and much service to government. Later, in Big Businessmen, Kemp said of him simply: "Has there ever been a stranger period in the strange history of human life on this planet than at "A good part of Gepps life was spent in the days the present? Just as science, applied through when the foundations of modern industrialized modern industrialism, appears to have made pos- Australia were being laid. There is no doubt that sible for the first time the wholesale elimination of he was one of the greatest figures in these tremen- the greatest enemy with which man has ever had to dous events." contend — that of poverty — millions of people are In 1950 R.G. Menzies wrote to C.D. Kemp giving a engaging in a great battle of destruction of life and remarkable personal tribute: "without being fulsome, I want property on a scale never before approached. to say that you and those associated with you are almost unique Many of us are asking: Is this the logical and in my experience." The IPA was an innovative institution, inevitable outcome of the struggle for a fuller belonging neither to commerce, nor politics, nor to the material existence? Does materialism contain academic cloister; but immersed in the language of all of these. within itself the seeds of its own destruction? Some would go so far as to throw disbelief and doubt on the ultimate question of human progress. "No wonder that the world is psychologically Freedom and Enterprise disturbed and sick! No wonder that faith weakens From its inception, the IPA was involved in something as cynicism and doubt become stronger. No more than simply putting a good case for capitalism. In 1946 wonder that old values and principles recede and Arthur Calwell set out the challenge as lucidly as he was able: disappear before the onrush of new outwardly fan- tastic philosophies and creeds." "It is because we took control through the Treasury of the credit-making facilities of the nation by Kemps work was given to the defence and extension of means of the banking legislation passed by this the spirit of free enterprise. Here is the genesis of the IPA. He Parliament last year, that we shall be able to avoid continues by outlining a philosophy of action for business, a the rigours of a depression should one ever hit this philosophy "translated into a practical policy of industrial country. Our political opponents cannot offer any- leadership"- thing new. We hear from them old platitudes, "... it necessitates the adoption of a broader motive sophistries and nostrums, and a repetition of all the than that which has hitherto dominated the in- old thread-bare arguments against progress and dustrial scene — namely, the profit motive. This democracy that have been advanced by their an- motive must be supplanted by the motive of social cestors and prototypes ever since the Labour Party and economic service ... A proposed course of came into existence ..." action must be weighed and tested by the effects it To which sophistry, Mr Rankin (the Country Party will have on the welfare of the people at large, just Member for Bendigo), as if right on cue, found a platitude to as much by the monetary gain it may bring." hurl across the floor: Here, sketched, are "The Government of which the Minister is a mem- the progressive policies of ber is robbing childrens money-boxes in order to the IPA, as soon found in obtain money for its next loan." Looking Forward and the string of pamphlets which This was (as Calwell put it) puerile enough. But both are followed it. Kemp begins to playing on fear, both look backwards, not forward. The IPA, offer a new conception of in a statement of aims, May 1943, said the following: the role of business; one "The public does not realize that extensive and which crossed the trenches permanent government control involves loss of which mark the fixed posi- personal freedom and the destruction of industrial tions of class-war. democracy which must bring with it the end of the When he wrote this, traditional democratic system." Kemp was personal assis- tant to Sir Herbert Gepp, a The IPA committed itself to a substantial program of remarkable industrialist public education, seeking to make plain the connection be- and one of the most impor- tween freedom, enterprise and democracy. Kemp was tant men in the country at everywhere in those years, working first with Gepp and then, that time. C.D. Kemp in 1940 increasingly, for the IPA itself. was 28; Sir Herbert Gepp, A great spirit was abroad in the IPA. The task was to Sir Herbert Gepp 63, Managing Director of transform it into tangible forms and to embark upon advocacy.

60 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 C.b. KEMP AND THE IPAS FOUNDATIONS

In October 1944, the IPA published "It represents an earnest and its greatest single document: Looking sincere desire to find common Forward. Kemp wrote it. Fifty ground on which the State, the thousand copies were printed and it investing public, management had a profound influence, not least on and labour can build in fur- the philosophy and policies of the therance of their common inter- newly-formed Liberal Party. The Bul- est in stable employment, letin said of it: industrial security, and greater production." "It is by far the most com- prehensive and intelligent set of Post-war Australian society was inquiries and recommendations made, and Looking Forward had a lot concerning post-war problems of it right. Steadily, the factories grew that has yet been published by lighter, production and markets ex- any similar body or Govern- panded and pluralism won out against ment Department in the Com- socialism. The people, in many monwealth." respects, accepted partnership and co-operation as working tenets, In 70 pages, the IPA outlined a despite the many differences that comprehensive brief for post-war arose in the workplace or political life reconstruction. Looking Forward over the years. Kemp had his doubts makes the case for the independence "Last night I read Looking about the virtue of consumer-society, of business; clears up confusion on Forward of which I understand but Looking Forward showed a road the questions of prices and profit; ar- you are one of the principal towards peace and prosperity in gues strongly for individual respon- terms that the labour movement, with authors. It is in my opinion the sibility and initiative and speaks its promise of austerity and social con- directly of service as a managerial finest statement of basic political trol, could not match, despite all the ideal. It warns of the dangers and academic problems made in planned guarantees of fixed prices presented by monopolies, but points Australia for many years. I feel and the rest. Australians wished for to the special advantages flowing most enthusiastic about it and home ownership, not rent controls. from large-scale industrial ag- would like to see its substance On the other hand, profit-shar- gregates. It does not neglect small busi- ing schemes and factory committees conveyed to the people as widely ness. It suggests that restrictive trade (a nice syndicalist borrowing) did not practices bring both bad and good; ur- as possible ..." become universal features of in- ging for close public scrutiny. But trade From a letter from R.G. Menzies to dustrial life. Nor did the public .take to unions, it says, are also restrictive. It is C.D. Kemp, 10 October 1944. the Catholic proposal for a family not hostile to the state, but argues for wage. But they did put the family first very clear lines between what govern- and many small plans were made on ments should attempt and where they are being intrusive. It the basis of child endowment. So the state did have a benign advocates thoroughgoing consultation in industry — proce- role to play in civil society, if not to the extent of expropriating dures that must involve the worker. Factory committees would the savings banks. be a good start. Indeed, one of the major political initiatives of the IPA during those years was to argue (unsuccessfully as it turned out) for the establishment of a National Council for Independence Industry, representing all parties. One thing was clear after Looking Forward. The IPA Looking Forward had radical aspects. It wanted high would continue and it would be independent. C.D. Kemp wages, a reduction in working hours, the fostering of profit- moved from economic adviser to director and so remained for sharing schemes. It wished serious improvements in factory close to 30 years. A series of pamphlets followed Looking conditions; company medical and dental schemes. There were Forward. IPA Review commenced in 1947. The IPA sought also conservative aspects. It was opposed to equal pay for to bring it into schools, factories, libraries, the offices of women: man was the natural breadwinner; a womans happi- parliamentarians, universities. Distribution was national. ness lay in family life. Some points were shrewdly in step with Chambers of Commerce and Trade Associations handled the coming period. It wished to see the school leaving-age bulk copies (in that year the Footscray Chamber of Commerce raised, acknowledging the importance of education in modern took 21 copies), and it was to be found on newsstands. Into society. It urged a drafting of men with extensive experience in the 1950s, as the political climate settled, Facts was launched, industry into the Commonwealth Public Service. It understood and Review took on a familiar form, one that differed little until (referring to wartime lessons), the growing importance of the the 1980s. We are now accustomed as a reading public to a specialist. Looking Forward had authority. It was endorsed by number of magazines which pursue a generally liberal direction: a number of important names. Business stood behind it. The but in Kemps day things were different. Review was quite alone preface stated: in the field — it is 10 years older than Quadrant, for example.

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 61 C.D. KEMP AND THE IPA S FOUNDATIONS

The IPA, working from Carlow House in Flinders Lane, Each issue of Review would contain a signed contribu- was a very small `shop. Kemp, an assistant or two (if he were tion. Kemp would often try for important writers. Hayek was lucky), and a secretary. He wrote virtually everything in Review one, in 1951. Indeed, if the lists are tallied they become rather that was not a signed, contributed article. He never added his impressive: Latham, Hancock, Copland, Mawby, Crocker. own signature. Kemp wished for his small journal to wear the John Stones first contribution, in 1969, dealt with inflation, a colour of the Institute, singular and distinct. question of increasing anxiety to Kemp. He kept politicians Much of his own voice went into editorials, where he away. R.G. Casey (1958) was the one exception. Casey had would permit himself a more active part. These were really a been a great friend to the IPA, and Kemp once told me that leading article which could be on anything he chose (Sputnik he saw him as a figure somewhat above party politics. As inspired him to a glorious outburst in 1957); indeed, the reader Governor-General, Lord Casey contributed a warm message could never be quite sure just what he would get from a journal to Review in its 100th issue{,in 1969. ostensibly dealing with matters economic. The best of his In his editorial to the50th number, Kemp wrote: writings are found in these pieces. The rest usually was economic "The battle between right ideas and wrong ideas in analysis and comment; Kemp at work, not conversation. any community is a battle that is never finally won. Nor has any political party a monopoly of right and wrong. What has been gained can very easily be An Unlikely Admirer lost. The long-range work of a periodical such as Review is to contribute to a better public under- One of the more improbable early and continuing standing of economic problems. For policy, in the readers of IPA material was Australias first (and only) final analysis, depends on what the people think ... Communist MP. As our readers know, Review has not hesitated to Fred Paterson was returned for more than a generation criticize Governments, no matter what their com- to the Queensland Parliament by the miners and railway position, where we felt criticism was called for ... It workers of the Collinsville electorate, a gerrymandered has been our hope that the criticisms we have dumb-bell which ran from the mine to the coast. made, whether right or wrong, would be accepted A mild and scholarly man, he had served in World in the spirit in which they have been advanced, War I. So had my father. Both won Forces scholarships namely as a sincere desire to serve the best interests to Oxford from the AIF after the Great Peace of 1918. In of Australia." the impecunious and casual fashion of those days, they For Kemp, the independence of his Institute practically had taken a cycling holiday in southern Ireland in the required a critical attitude. He took on Chifley in the 1940s, 1920s — wearing Australian Army uniform and blithely Menzies in the 1950s. He makes a few passing appearances in pedalling through the areas of Black Tan and Peter Howsons voluminous political Diary of the 1960s, espe- Republican atrocities unscathed. Oxford accepted Fred cially in the Gorton years, where he was again in opposition. Paterson as a theological student, but he left as a com- At the very end-of his life, in the 1990s, he tore apart the record mitted and public Communist. of both parties as Australias crisis worsened. I cannot find an Our family friendship continued during my youth, despite fundamental disagreements on politics. I have a equivalent to him, unless it is Burke, who also found comfort clear memory of Freds Marxist books being carried in in opposition, because integrity was more important than one night (it must have been at the time of the Molotov- place-hunting. Ribbentrop pact) and placed in innocuous dust-jackets Kemp was never fooled by the glitter of post-war on my parents bookshelves because of the imminent prosperity as an illusion that would last forever. He feared for arrival of the Queensland Polices Special Branch at a country that spent more than it earned. In the 1980s he wrote: Patersons rented home at Gaythorne. "we are acting like a family borrowing to fill their home with In 1949 or 1950, an ageing Fred called in one night. splendid furniture while the house itself was falling around As a newspaper cadet on The Courier Mail, I had brought about it." He understood quite lucidly — probably on a pack- home my pay packet containing (as it often did) a copy ed train one morning — that if schoolboys would not give up of IPA Facts. Said Fred, seeing it on the table, "Glad to their seats to ladies then their grandchildren would know see you are learning something about how the world nothing. really works" (as distinct, he meant, from my under- The middle class, traditionally, is a stubborn class, hold- graduate university economics and political science.) ing fast to family life, within the warmth of a good home. In I replied to the effect that it was surely not his line of social life it stood for decency; in business, integrity; in politics, thought. the middle ground. This was the reader C.D. Kemp addressed "Nonsense," he said. "I have kept every piece of so directly in Review, knowing him as well as he did himself. IPA material that I can get my hands on. It is a Where the middle class has abandoned its virtue it becomes model of how to put forward argument in the way prey to both indifference and to sudden redemptive excite- ordinary workers will understand. If only I could ments — greens, koories, and the rest. Institutions, like family get the Party people to do the same ..." homes, are shattered. Manning Clark was the prophet of this fallen world; gesticulating above the waterfall. Kemp kept his —James Byth ground against dissolution, holding to a sensible middle. ■

62 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 IM NEWS Report Calls for Fewer Councils, Lower Rates

A report authored by Des Moore have significantly larger councils than for Project Victoria proposes that the NSW while still giving full recognition to number of councils in Victoria be more local community interests." than halved: from 204 to 97. This, the The cost of Victorias inefficiency is report argues, would result in savings of borne by ratepayers. Victorians pay over $400 million to ratepayers. over 20 per cent more per head in rates The report, entitled Reforming than any other State. Local Government in Victoria, includes The council amalgamations extensive data which allow comparisons proposed in the report would reduce of expenditure and rate revenue among rates from an average of $692 per all Victorian and NSW local govern- ratepayer (in 1991-92) to around $460 ments. The disparities are large. Within per ratepayer. the inner Melbourne area, for example, The report was launched on 2 Sep- annual expenditure per head ranges tember by the Honourable Roger Hallam, from $538 in Essendon to over three MLC, Minister for Local Government in times that in Port Melbourne. Victoria. Over 100 people attended. Victorians, Des Moore pointed out, The report is available for $25 (in- finance one council for every 21,000 cluding postage and handling) from population whereas NSW residents IPA, 128-136 Jolimont Road, Jolimont, finance one council for every 33,000 Vic, 3002. Or phone (03) 654 7499. population. "With its greater density of population, Victoria should be able to Right: The Hon. Roger Hallam

Teaching Virtue Grammar, and Bernard Shepherd of St Inflexibility in the Marys Senior High School, looked at Workplace A successful IPA conference on the the teaching of ethics in practice. teaching and learning of moral values The papers of the conference are cur- Rigid descriptions of job duties was held on 7 September at the Univer- rently being prepared for publication. written by personnel departments in- sity of Sydney. 160 people attended, hibit the efficiency of an organization by many of them school heads. limiting the flexibility of individuals Dr John Carroll, Reader in Sociology within it. This was one of the points at La Trobe University, opened the con- made by Professor Richard Blandy ference by drawing on the film Dead speaking to the IPA Essington Lewis PoetsSociety to introduce an analysis of Group at the end of August. the relationship of teachers to their dis- Professor Blandy is Director of the ciplines and to moral law. Institute of Economic and Social Re- Robert Manne, Editor of Quadrant, search at the University of Melbourne. discussed the emergence of political He spoke on the topic "Work Practices correctness in educational institutions. for the Next Decade". Dr Susan Moore, Research Editor of The Convenor of the Essington Education Monitor, spoke on the teach- Lewis Group is Peter Johnson. Those ing of virtues, and Dame Leonie wishing to attend should contact Helen Kramer examined developments con- Hyde on (03) 654 7499. cerning the national curriculum. In the final session two head- masters, Dr Ralph Townsend of Sydney Left: Dr Ralph Townsend

IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3, 1993 63 Whither the US Alliance? Mabo Response In August and September two experts Former Attorney-General Peter briefed audiences at the IPA on trends in Durack, and the Head of the (newly- the Australian-American alliance. named) Environment and Aboriginal In August, the Director of the Asian Affairs Unit, Ron Brunton, addressed a Studies Centre at the US Heritage Foun- seminar at the IPA in August on the dation, Seth Cropsey, spoke on trade and Mabo decision and its implications. A security in the Asia-Pacific region. Prior lively debate concerning the most ef- to joining the Heritage Foundation, Mr ficacious response to Mabo ensued. Cropsey served as Principal Deputy As- In Perth, the Honourable Fred sistant Secretary of Defense in the Bush Chancy spoke to the Friday Club, or- Administration. ganized by the IPA, also on Mabo. In September, Michael Cook Peter Durack and Ron Brunton, co- talked about what Australia can expect authors of the IPA publication Mabo of the USA. Mr Cook has just com- and After, have now published a pleted four-and-a-half years as response to the Federal Governments Australian Ambassador to the United proposed legislation on native title, is- States. Prior to that he was Director- sued as a Backgrounder, it is available to General of the Office of National As- 0 (inc. ph). John Stone non-subscribers for $5 .0 sessments for eight years. "Everyone can make their own assumptions/forecasts/project- ions as to what the Commonwealths average bor- rowing cost may be by 1996-97, but if you put it (conservatively, on the outlook which this Budget now holds out to us) at around seven per cent, on those grounds alone you are looking at a cumulative addition of around $5 billion a year to public debt inter- est payments."

Copies of press releases and speeches are available from Mrs Alison Connell at the IPA on (03) 654 7499. Seth Cropsey New Appointment Budget Analyses The IPA has a new marketing Fred Chaney IPA economists John Stone, Des manager. Michael Moloney was Moore and Mike Nahan have been ac- formerly Marketing Account Manager tive responding to Commonwealth and at the Melbourne Age. He will be inves- Liberalism in Australia State Budgets. Each has made tigating ways of boosting the circulation An examination of the influence of numerous appearances in the media of IPA publications and the Institutes liberal thought on Australian culture and as guest speakers at functions. general revenue. was the subject of aDialogue led by Dr For example, Mike Nahan ad- As one of Michaels initiatives, all dressed a WA Chamber of Commerce subscription GregoryMellcuish in October. He used dinner, Des Moore spoke at an Institute renewal notices the examples of property ownership of Directors dinner, and John Stone will now be accom- and Australians concept of rights to spoke to the Victorian chapter of the panied by a short explore his topic. Society of Corporate Treasurers. questionnaire Dr Melleuish teaches Politics at the John Stone criticized the Budget seeking s ub- University of Wollongong. His publish- for its bad economics. He said, for ex- scribers views of ed work is on the history of political ample, that it does insufficient to reduce how we at the IPA thought in Australia. He wrote in the the Commonwealth Governments can improve our last IPA Review on the liberal-conserva- debt: product. tive alliance in Australia.

64 IPA Review, Vol. 46 No. 3,1993 RECENT IPA BACKGROUNDERS

Commonwealth Government Expenditure: The Need to Cut It and How by Des Moore Since 1989-90 Commonwealth Government spending has increased substantially, and a large budget deficit is the result. Des Moore explains how the deficit must be wound back. He details cuts to Commonwealth spending totalling almost $9 billion over the next two years, plus $9 billion in additional asset sales over the next three years. (May 1993)

The Carnegie Challenge: Restructuring the Energy Supply Industry of WA by Frank Harman This Backgrounder -;} reviews the Carnegie Report, The Energy Challenge for the 21st Century, and confirms that only thorough-going reform will eliminate the institutional obstacles to an efficient energy supply system in WA. At the same time it warns that there are substantial obstacles to reform. (June 1993)

Some Thoughts About Abroad by Des Moore Discusses the extent of structural change in Europe and the United States and its effect on Australia, including the growing importance of central banks; budget deficit blow-outs; the role of government; and unemployment. (August 1993)

Privatisation: the Australian and New Zealand Experience by Des Moore This paper compares the slow pace of privatisation in Australia with that of New Zealand whose government asset sales to 1992 of NZ$11 billion has been cited by both the World Bank and the IMF as a model for other countries. (August 1993)

An Agenda for Defence Policy Reform by Peter Jennings Although the 1987 Defence White Paper provided a solid planning base for our Defence Force, the intervening years have eroded its relevance to the point that it no longer accurately reflects Australian defence policy and interests. In this Backgrounder, the author proposes 10 steps which must be taken to re-establish coherence and direction in defence policy. (September 1993)

Environmental Backgrounders Oil in Troubled Waters: Facts and Fallacies about Marine Petroleum Exploration and Development by Peter Purcell This Backgrounder discusses the nature of petroleum and the processes of exploration and production, and their impact on the environment. It shows that despite short-term damage in some instances, oil spills have minimal, if any, long-term impact. (July 1993)

A Native Titles Club? by John Forbes While Mabo-style land claims would normally be decided by our Supreme Courts, this paper discusses the Federal Governments proposal to transfer them to a special Native Titles Tribunal. In an emotional and politically-charged area Tribunals are not as well-equipped as superior courts to cope with nebulous assertions and an `expert evidence industry which will require close scrutiny. (September 1993)

Implementing Native Title: The Govts Response to Mabo by Peter Durack and Ron Brunton Duracksuggests that a definite time limit on native title claims be introduced; that the government be more forthright in allowing access to native title lands for development of natural resources; and that the legislation must attempt to codify the major elements of native title. Brunton offers strong arguments for complete divorce of native title and social justice issues, and recommends caution in assessing the evidence likely to be given in native title claims. (October 1993)

IPA Backgrounders listed above are available individually for $5 (inc. ph). Ensure that you receive IPA Backgrounders, including Environmental Backgrounders, as soon as they are issued by subscribing now ($80 per year). Write to IPA, Ground Floor, 128-136 Jolimont Road, Jolimont, Vic, 3002; or phone (03) 654 7499 to pay by credit card. r Z: 1 1 1^-, ^

j g ______

/ j •i

o

\ 4 oj2°

CRA is a world leader in the production of aluminium,

iron ore, lead, zinc, silver, copper, gold, coal, diamonds

and salt. For example, CPAs Argyle Diamond Mines

operations contribute over 97% of all the diamonds

mined in Australia.

CRA Limited, 55 Collins Street, Melbourne.