IPA REVIEW ESTABLISHED IN 1947 BY CHARLES KEMP, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF ThE 1NS 1TlUlE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS Vol. 45 No. 3,1992
Inside the Covers of Ros Kelly s Education Kit 7 Crises and Commitments in South-East Asia 51 Ron Brunton DavidAnderson The kit s example of harmonious living is bizarre. Pace Paul Keating, Australia has in fact pursued an active and independent Asian policy for decades. Private Firearm Ownership Terrorism and Justice 53 and Democratic Rights 10 Claude Rakisits David Leyonhjelm Five principles against which non-conventional The case for further restricting gun warfare should be measured. ownership is based more on hysteria than on reason. Political Activism and Literary Decline 55 R J. Stove Green, but not Clever 13 When their creative juices run dry, writers turn to Peter McGregor politics — or is it vice versa? The author of an educational series responds to common myths about industry and the environment.
Health Services: A Potential Export Industry 22 John Popper Australia has some of the world s best clinical Letters 2 services; we just refuse to market them. Moore Economics 4 Des Moore The Economics and Ethics of Takeovers 26 The Federal Budget fails to provide the basis for a Norman Bany sustained improvement to employment. Are corporate raiders the evil predators their critics make them out to be? IPA Indicators 8 The private sector has taken the brunt of job losses. Beyond Self-Interest: ethics and the market 31 Debate 18 Rob Ferguson Should the ABC be privatized? Managers should heed Mark Twain s warning: "Fish go bad.from the head first." Around the States 20 Mike Nahan Making the Police More Accountable 34 Pump-priming is back in vogue. Eric Home Strange Times 24 A former policeman argues that an independent Ken Baker inspectorate is essential if police are to command The churches in a devil s pact. public confidence. Down to Earth 59 Where Man is Not, Ron Brunton Nature is Barren 36 Moral panic fuels Roger Sworder the green movement. Environmentalism turns Man - IPA News 61 into a passive spectator of Nature. The Governor-General opens the IPA s new premises.
Feminist Wars 40 Jan Smith Editor Ken Baker Design: Bob Caswell Associates. Production Amistants Tracey Seto. Feminism meets political correctness. Advertising: Rod Tremain Media Ph: (02) 955 3545; Fx (02) 955 3646. Printing Wilke Color, 37 Browns Road, Clayton, 3168. A Time of Uncertainty 43 Published by the Institute of Public Affairs Ltd (Incorporated in the Paul Dibb ACT). ACN 008 627 727. ISSN: 1030 4177. Insecurity in the Asia-Pacific region. Editorial and Production Office: Ground Floor, 128-136 Jolimont Road, Jolimont, Vic, 3002. Ph: (03) 654 7499; Fx (03) 650 7627. New Light on Bougainville 49 Subscriptions: $40 per annum (includes bimonthly Facts). David Anderson Unsolicited manuscripts are welcomed. However, potential con- tributors are advised to discuss proposals for articleswith the Editor. Australians know more about Bosnia than the trouble Views expressed in the publications of the IPA arc those of the to our near north in Bougainville. authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Institute. LETTERS
Social Responsibility correspondence. The fundamental na- Dear Editor, ture of our political arrangements D.A. Ryan s rationalization for a Dear Editor, (republic vs monarchy) is far, far more new flag (IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 2) Charles Richardson s article on than mere silent symbolism. How we, demonstrates the failure of an intellect whether corporations should be socially the citizens, control our uppity servant, to understand feelings. He says opposi- responsible (Vol. 45 No. 2) might be our government, is (or should be) of the tion to change comes, puzilingly, from deemed a trifle irresponsible itself. It most basic interest to us all. There are "sentimental rather than logical could have informed a reader of the all too many examples in this world, reasons." theoretical basis underlying Professor both now and in the past, where the He is only puzzled because he can t Friedman s argument in favour of profit controller and controlled have swapped feel. -Nor can he logically recognize that maximization. That would be the con- places to the detriment of those who the real person lies in feelings, not in the tentions of pareto optimality whereby if really matter: the people. mechanism of the intellect. firms seek only to maximize their profits By contrast the flag is but a symbol In that sense, he is depriving himself — a most powerful symbol to be sure. then society s resources are used so ef- of the benefit of valuing both intellect Should it be changed it will be a sad, ficiently that it would be impossible to and sentiment. And my sentiments on make anyone better off without harming probably infuriating, day for many (in- this issue are expressed as follows: someone else. cluding me) but that alone is unlikely to lead to either riot or mass conscription With regard to your other cor- LOGIC respondent, Terry Lane, it is obviously to the salt mines. difficult to disagree with the claim that So the strongest opposition to a Which one is true: any "restriction on freedom of speech is change in the flag should be, contrary to The logic of the intellect or the a cause for concern." Ryan s view, for "sentimental rather heart When each one seems to stand so You did, however, later in the issue than logical reasons." As a symbol the far apart? quote Santayana as saying that "those flag is strengthened by tradition and who forget the lessons of history are longevity. To change it in response to Which one is you: condemned to repeat them." So please the whim of the moment means the loss The warmth of the heart, the icy permit me to quote that eminent writer, of the myriad attachments that so many cold of reason Paul Johnson, with a lesson from his- people presently have to it, in the hope When each one to the other can tory: namely that "it is sometimes ar- that a new design will, in due course, seem treason? attract new attachments. We would gued that satire...is a sign of health in a Each one is you: thereby drop all its present emotional free society and that no restrictions Your spirit uses both to find value back to a baseline of zero and start should be placed on it. Jewish history expression. does not lend support to this view. The again from scratch. What a waste! Each needs to be expressed Jews have been more frequently the tar- I do not care if the flags flying over without repression. get of such attacks than any other group our warrior forefathers heads were the Each one is true: and they know from long and bitter ex- red versions of our present flag. I do not care that it is constructed from three The mind to reason and the perience that the violence of print is heart to feeling - often the prelude to the violence of separate items, of which two do not relate to Australia (only the Federation The mind incisive as the blood. Weimar was, by German stand- heart is healing. ards, an ultra-liberal society and one of star is ours). I do care that the flag, as a the effects of its liberation was to whole, as it stands, has been the flag of destroy most restraints in the press." Australia, my Australia, from my ear- My feelings at present are that we liest, dimmest recollection. need to bend our minds much more ur- Michael Schwartz Our flag is an indivisible symbol not gently to the needs of our million un- Doncaster, V c. of its components, but of Australia. To employed than to arguing over a replace it with something else simply well-known and well-respected flag because that something else might bear which has symbolized the Australia for The Flag more apt figures would do nothing but which men and women have died and for Dear Editor, destroy it as a symbol. The best we could which many others have given us great hope for is that the new flag would lives of service. Like your correspondent, D.A. recover — in perhaps half a century - DA. Ryan s reasons won t inspire Ryan, I would like to offer a few com- some of the emotional significance of any more love for a new flag than for an ments on our flag (IPA Review, Vol. 45 the old. old one. No. 2). It seems to me that everything Stephen Dawson, W.W. Mitchell, is around the wrong way in Ryan s Duj^y, ACT. Willetton, WA.
[PA Revi• Parliamentary Reform over 40 years. BTG s total revenues last companies at a rate of over one a week. Dear Editor, year were £30.71 million. We have some We have some 1,600 inventions in our 9,000 patents covering some 1,600 tech- portfolio of which 600 have been I read with interest the comments nologies, and the end product sales licensed to industrial manufacturers made by Tony Rutherford in his article value of currently licensed products worldwide. on `Improving Parliament (IPA Review, from BTG amounts to over $2 billion I trust this puts the record straight Vol. 45 No. 2) regarding the even-hand- per annum. for your readers. edness of the Speaker under a Last year we shared some £7.86 mil- Tony Chrismas Westminster convention. lion with inventive sources; invested Head of Corporate Communications In 1950 the Speaker of the House of £12.88 million in technologies and British Technology Group, London. Commons requested that he be given no received an inflow of 684 inventions - party label and since then Speakers have an increase of 31 per cent on the pre- sought re-election as `The Speaker and vious year. Defending Freedom not as party candidates. In general elec- More researchers and companies Dear Editor, tions since 1950 a Speaker seeking re- than ever before are bringing their ideas election has in fact been opposed. to BTG. In 1988, in response to my request, Conservative MPs who have be- Secondly, we certainly have had a you allowed me to use the article Dead- come Speaker have been opposed on "major win" with Cephalosporins. We lier Than War by Professor Rummel party lines since 1964 whilst ex-Labour have also had major successes with: that was published in IPA Review, Vol. Speakers have faced opposition from in- 41 No. 2. dependents and minor party candidates. Synthetic Pyrethrins Synthetic Since then I have circulated many Of course, where the Speaker faces pyrethrins account for one-quarter of copies of the excellent article to party political opposition the vast the world s foliar insecticide market and politicians and others. As a conse- majority of the Speaker s votes have BTG-licensed formulations constitute quence the facts were used in many ar- been cast for him on a political basis. In about 50 per cent of the world pyrethrin ticles and debates. the alternative situation where a market, worth some $760 million an- I have also made a number of at- Speaker has not faced party political nually. Pyrethrins have been licensed to tempts to have the article published in opposition the turnout of voters has companies such as The Wellcome Dutch periodicals — however, all those Foundation, Mitchell Cotts, ICI and dropped significantly as a large portion attempts were unsuccessful. It seems Shell of the UK; FMC and ICI Americas of the constituency concerned has been that editors consider such hard truths in the USA; Sumitomo of Japan and effectively disenfranchised due to the unfit for their readers! What a pity. Roussel Uclaf, France. lack of Conservative candidates in seats The Dutch Defence of Peace in that were not safe for Labour. Cholesterol Assay In diagnostics, Freedom Foundation, which I chair, has No Speaker seeking re-election BTG s patented cholesterol assay is vir- recently decided to circulate copies of (since 1950) has yet been defeated al- tually the sole method used worldwide the article to a group of activists who though the constituencies held by both to measure blood cholesterol levels. regularly receive `Selected Papers on of the ex-Labour Speakers were sub- More than 80 licences have been subjects of interest to the purpose of our sequently gained by the Conservatives granted to companies such as Tech- foundation, i.e. the promotion of "...the at the 1983 election. nicon, Eastman Kodak, Abbott readiness to defend and advance the The practice therefore in the British Laboratories, Beckman and Boeh- values of Western Civilization..." Parliament is for the Speaker to become ringer Mannheim. We feel in our Board that Rummel s article is very relevant indeed to the independent but continue to face op- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) position at subsequent elections. so-called New World Order (what a — Body Scanning MRI is one of the miserable term!) in which people seem major breakthroughs in medical diag- Peter Bolitho, to forget that totalitarian movements nosis this century — comparable in its East Brighton, Vic. and dictators have always been with us importance to the discovery of X-rays. BTG has licensed this technology to the and will continue to be with us. Technology Transfer world s leading manufacturers of MRI May I thank you once more for al- lowing me to make use of the article. Dear Editor, equipment -- General Electric, Siemens AG, Philips, Hitachi, Toshiba, In your recent article `Technology DrJ.0 Ramaer, Shimadzu and Picker. Belgium. Through the Looking-Glass (IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 2), you state several This only names three examples. inaccuracies about British Technology We also have considerable other The Editor welcomes letters for publication. Letters may be edited for reasons of space Group. `potential winners in the pipeline. or clarity. They should be addressed to The Firstly, BTG is the world s leading Even in these difficult recessionary Editor, IPA Rcvicw, Ground Floor, 128-136 technology transfer organization, times, BTG is still signing licence Jolimont Road, Jolimonl, Vic, 3002, and normally kept to no more than 300 words. which has been in existence for well agreements with major international
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 OVo .ALld ■■E■ DES MOORE
Why the Budget I felt, therefore, that I could make more from the continued high degree of Will Not Work of a contribution by going public rather government intervention in the than continuing the losing battle of economy. Since about mid-1984 I had "Correct diagnosis is three quarters of trying to reform from within. been particularly concerned about the any cure." If this maxim is anywhere About six months prior to resign- whole Accord strategy of trying to lift near correct there is a need to assess ing I had had a major disagreement with Australia s economic growth through a whether the current Keynesian ap- the then-Head of Treasury over advice highly interventionist policy of expand- proach of the Government, widely sup- which I felt impelled to provide to ing demand and employment. The ported in the media and (with Treasurer Keating — in effect, that un- strategy was based on the idea that, if qualifications) in the business com- less there was a major reduction in the only inflation could be contained by munity, towards reducing present dis- then existing extent of government in- having trade union leaders agree to astrous unemployment levels is taking tervention, the Australian economy was restrain wage demands in return for sufficient account of how such levels heading for serious trouble. Eventually, concessions on the social wage (in- have been reached. The need for "cor- that advice went forward and, I believe, cluding tax cuts), the economy and rect diagnosis" was brought home tome contributed to the Government s employment would be able to grow at a vividly when, during a recent radio in- decision to budget for a lower deficit faster rate — and there would be lower terview, it was suggested that present than it had previously had in mind. levels of unemployment. unemployment levels showed that But the slight lowering of the 1987- A nice theory! What I questioned, Australia has had enough of economic 88 budget deficit by the Government however, was the notion that, with an rationalist policies and that, as an advo- was no more than a marginal detraction expansionary fiscal policy and a cate of such policies, I should pull my monetary policy that was head in! `accommodating inflation, Australia would be able to sustain growth at a faster rate than the average for OECD First, some history countries. At that time (mid-1984) Mr Keating s personal advisors The irony of the suggestion that `explained to me that, if the expansion- free-market policies are the cause of ary policies led to balance of payments unemployment only struck home later. problems, the floating exchange rate In early 1987, I resigned my position as would take care of those problems by Deputy Secretary in the Common- depreciating the Australian dollar. wealth Treasury after 28 years in that Fearing that, however good in theory, institution advising successive Federal such a policy would not work in practice, Governments. A major factor influenc- I sought from that time on to have it ing this decision was my conviction, accepted that this expansionist interven- born of that 28 years experience, that tion by the Federal Government needed governments had become so to be modified. interventionist that they were actually That did start to occur from causing economic and social instability. Mr Keating about 1985-86 as far as budget policy
Des Moore is a Senior Fellow with the IPA.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 MOORS ECONOMICS was concerned (although by then much Treasurer (such as his 1988 budget of the damage in terms of the external Unproductive Spending which promised to "bring home the debt blow-out had already been done). bacon") fooled many people (including However, with a Reserve Bank which The 1992-93 Commonwealth many senior business people who consistently refused to acknowledge Budget includes a large increase in should have known better) into believ- that a 20 per cent per annum increase in spending both for its own purposes ing that perhaps, after all, the Govern- credit supply posed potential problems, (8.8 per cent increase) and as grants ment had the answers. monetary policy continued to pursue its to the States and local governments When in April 1988 Treasurer accommodatory course with respect to (10 per cent increase). Total spend- Keating did eventually set out on a path ing by the Commonwealth, exclud- inflation. The Bank argued that the of tightening monetary policy in order ing assets sales, is set to increase by increase in credit largely reflected the to try to reduce the growth in spending $9.2 billion in 1992-93 and lead to a effects of traditional financial institu- budget deficit (excluding assets tions regaining market share following sales) of $16.5 billion. financial deregulation. Also, our con- The main focus of the Common- sumer price inflation rate was not in- wealth budget is job creation, with The Government can creasing. This view overlooked the fact spending on employment and other `stimulate all it likes: but the that consumer prices had increased labour market programs set to ex- confidence is not there to lead relative to our major trading partners pand by $891 million or 48 per cent and had been allowed to remain at a to a sustained improvement in in 1992-93. The other programs to rate that could only encourage in- spending and employment. receive large increases in funding creased borrowing and speculation include welfare ($2.5 billion or 7.3 which would lead in due course to a per cent), education (10 per cent), bursting of the bubble. transport (77 per cent) and local and borrowing, he faced a problem The operators of monetary policy government grants (142 per cent). generated by his own rhetoric. Since we under the Accord strategy effectively The Budget is biased towards said to borrowers: "We are going to had been told that the Government consumption and will therefore would never impose a credit squeeze, pursue a policy of high growth and, produce few long-term jobs. Data many were initially unconcerned about while we will keep inflation under provided by the Minister for the tightening and, believing it to be a `control , we will not be pushing prices Employment Services indicate that temporary phenomenon, took no action down. Further, the days of `credit only 15 per cent of the jobs to reduce debt and repair balance squeezes are over." In circumstances produced by the various job crea- sheets. In order to convince people that where controls over lending and bor- tion programs will be `new jobs. it was serious, the Government had to rowing had been removed, giving more Notably, a large portion of the increase interest rates to much higher or less assured access to funds for all transport projects, flagged in the levels than should have been necessary and sundry, this constituted a virtual One Nation package and included in — and to hold them high for much guarantee that Australians would end the Budget, have been assessed by longer than should have been necessary. up with a massive debt problem. the National Rail Freight Commis- In short, what I am suggesting is sion as uneconomic. The end result is the much deeper cut- that the main cause of our existing The allocation of funds for back in spending and employment than problems is the deliberately interven- public works appears to be deter- should have occurred. tionist policies pursued by the Federal mined more by politics than by the Government. Those policies were pur- need to enhance the nation s sued with a view to increasing the rate of productive capacity. Local govern- Loss of Confidence growth in demand and employment ment grant recipients tend to be in while refusing to take any effective ac- the marginal electorates. And since The foregoing is relevant to the tion to deal with the rigidities of our councils are almost solely in the present situation. The inescapable fact labour market. Against the background business of providing social ser- is that people have lost faith in the of endemic inflation, that led to a rate of vices, these grants arc unlikely to capacity of governments to `manage the spending and borrowing which could add to the nation s capacity to economy and they are tired of being told not be sustained except by a marked generate exports and real jobs. Ac- that this or that `package of policies will improvement in productivity. That im- cording to the National Road restore employment growth and provement did not occur, and could not Transport Commission, spending economic prosperity. This is almost as have occurred without a reduction in on road repairs also appears to be much a problem for the Opposition as government intervention in labour directed more to marginal elec- it is for the Government — though it markets and in the protection of private torates rather than to the worst seems certain to prove fatal for the and public enterprises from competi- roads. Government. The present reality is that tion. The hyperbole that accompanied Mike Nathan the Government can `stimulate all it the various policy statements by the likes: but the confidence is not there to
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 MOORE ECONOMICS
produce a response that will lead to a very considerable easing in fiscal and Federal Government should include a sustained improvement in spending and monetary policies over the last two years contribution by that Government (and, employment. People are saying, in ef- has not made some contribution to possibly, other Governments too) to na- fect: "You have told us so many times in maintaining spending at modest levels. tional saving via the running of a the past that you are bringing home the But the remarkable thing is how small surplus. Such a strategy for central bacon and it hasn t happened. Why the response has been, and how little it governments also now forms part of the should we believe you now?" seems to have contributed towards a perceived wisdom of international Their attitude is exacerbated by revival in the key area of business invest- agencies such as the OECD and IMF. the perceived need to give priority to ment. Private consumption spending, The fact that the 1992-93 Budget aban- repairing corporate balance sheets and for example, increased by only 2.4 per doned the surplus objective further personal wealth positions following the reduces the Government s credibility excessive borrowing of the 1980s and and, hence, the likelihood of sustained the subsequent fall in asset prices. The recovery emanating from the Budget. 1992-93 Budget will scarcely have A permanent reduction in A permanent reduction in un- employment must be based on a fiscal removed the doubts. On the one hand, unemployment must be based it seeks to kick-start the economy policy that is predicated on increasing through a large increase in spending on increasing public sector public sector saving through a return to (5.9 per cent in real terms excluding saving through a return to budget surplus. (Of course, while this is asset sales), including a whole raft of budget surplus. a necessary condition, it is not a suffi- programs specifically directed at reduc- cient one: there will also need to be a ing unemployment. On the other hand, whole host of other steps, which cannot by contrast with the early budgets of the be explored here, to increase the com- Hawke era, the Government is giving cent p.a. in real terms last year, much petitiveness of private and public considerable emphasis to the tem- lower (appropriately) than the 3.5-4.5 enterprises.) There needs to be a porary nature of the stimulus and has per cent p.a. growth in the period run- realization that, just as an increase in suggested that by 1995-96 the large un- ning up to 1989-90, although higher than the Budget deficit may not reduce un- derlying budget deficit will be back to the 0.5 per cent increase in 1990-91. employment even in the short term, so manageable levels or, if it is not, there Against this background, to imply, as an a reduction in the deficit need not be will be tax increases. There is also an academic member of the Reserve Bank contractionary , particularly if it is ac- acknowledgment that Australia needs Board did in a TV interview prior to the companied by other measures that pro- "a considerable period when the rate of 1992-93 Budget, that the main option for vide an environment which restores growth of domestic production exceeds reducing unemployment was through confidence to consumers and busi- that of domestic demand." Against the Keynesian pump-priming is not only ir- nesses. If Opposition Leader Hewson background of the policy failures of the responsible but downright misleading. can establish that the package of 1980s one would have to be very brave to The point is that, while such an easing policies contained in Fightback! holds trust that the Government has got this could have some temporary positive ef- out such promise, we will surely find scenario right this time and that it will, as fects at the margin, it would not provide that his policy of reducing the deficit is a result, be safe to step up one s spending. the basis for a sustained reduction. in fact stimulatory . In a sense, we may be seeing the To return to my theme: the failure rational expectations theory coming to of successive governments to manage the fore. Broadly stated, that theory says Restore a Budget Surplus the economy has come to a head with that, if government increases spending Labor s failure during the 1980s to suc- and borrowing, consumers will reduce Indeed, as recently as last ceed with probably the most interven- theirs because they realize that, not too February the Government (rightly) tionist strategy ever attempted by an far distant, the government will have to committed itself to reversing the Australian government. Until it is recog- increase taxes to reduce the debt which stimulus in One Nation and moving back nized that it was such government inter- accumulates as a result of the attempt to to a budget surplus by 1995-96: because vention, and not the pursuit of economic stimulate. The net result is that the in- it accepted that, in order to lift rationalist policies, that has caused crease in government spending is offset economic growth on a sustained basis, our present problems, we will be in by the reduction in private spending Australia has to increase the deplorably danger of repeating past mistakes and below what it would otherwise have low rate to which saving has fallen as a of avoiding the very policies needed to been. In present circumstances con- result of a whole raft of government reduce unemployment on a permanent sumers and businesses undoubtedly interventionist measures over the past basis. Moreover, the more that credence have an enhanced realization, borne of 20 years. Contrary to when I first advo- is given to stimulatory government inter- the experience of the 1980s, that govern- cated it publicly in 1987 (when I was vention as the means of reducing un- ment promises are no assurance that ridiculed by The Australian Financial employment, the longer it is likely to higher growth will in fact be achieved. Review), it is now widely accepted that take to start down the path to per- None of this is to suggest that the any medium-term strategy for the manently lower unemployment. •
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 Inside the Covers of Ros Kelly s Education Kit
RON BRUNTON
HE recent Give the World a Hand education kit, which willingness to use violence to obtain one s ends are was endorsed by Minister for the Environment, Ros considered desirable traits. TKelly, contained a great deal of nonsense. Some of this "The Yanomamo appear to be constantly on has already been pointed out in the media. But so far no one the verge of extranormal behaviour, as we define seems to have commented on the way it celebrated "non- it, and their almost daily use of hallucinogenic Western ways of life." drugs reinforces these drives, to what might seem The kit describes the Yanomami (actually Yanomama), to the outside observer to be the limits of human who number about 10,000 people and who live in the forests capacity. Life in their villages is noisy, punctuated of the Orinoco River basin of southern Venezuela and north- by outbursts of violence, threatened by destruction ern Brazil. The Yanomamo are slash-and-burn cultivators by enemies." (although this term was not used), who supplement their gardens with food obtained from hunting and foraging. After three paragraphs about the Yanomamo environment and pat- Chronic State of Warfare terns of work the kit states: In the third edition of his book, published in 1983, Chagnon "The people use the forest carefully — for the wrote: Yanomami, the environment is part of a larger spirit-world which they treat with the same respect "I spent 41 months with the Yanomamo, during they have for each other. They have developed which time I acquired some proficiency in their elaborate rituals and ceremonies to display their language and, up to a point, submerged myself in love of the forest. their culture and way of life. The thing that im- "Their forest continues to be threatened by pressed me most was the importance of aggression mining companies and the [Brazilian] military, in their culture. I had the opportunity to witness a which claims that the lands, along the border with good many incidents that expressed individual vin- Venezuela, are a militarily sensitive area. dictiveness on the one hand and collective bel- "The people say they would like white people to licosity on the other hand. understand why the preservation of the hills is so "The fact that the Yanomamo live in a chronic important to them. They want white people to help state of warfare is reflected in their mythology, them defend their lands and to work side by side ceremonies, settlement pattern, political be- to preserve their way of life." haviour, and marriage practices." Before `white people rush off to enlist in the defence of the Yanomamo way of life, they may like to learn a bit more Using figures obtained from another anthropologist, a about the "respect they have for each other." A number of study of violence published a few years ago in the international anthropologists have studied Yanomamo culture, and per- journal, CurrentAnthropology, showed a Yanomamo homicide haps the most prominent is the American, Napoleon Chag- rate that was over 15 times the 1980 rate for the United States non. In their introduction to the first edition of Chagnon s as a whole, and around three times the 1985 rate for Detroit. study, Yanomamo: The Fierce People, the general editors of The Yanomamo also have a high rate of infanticide, and the series in which it was published observed: because men prefer sons, considerably more girls are killed than boys. As Chagnon notes "many women will kill a female "This is indeed a book about a fierce people. baby just to avoid disappointing their husbands." Yanomamo culture in its major focus, reverses the Perhaps it can be said that by keeping their population meanings of `good and `desirable as phrased in the down the Yanomamo live in some kind of harmony with their ideal postulates of the Judaic-Christian tradition. natural environment. But if so, it is only because of the total A high capacity for rage, a quick flashpoint, and a disharmony of their relations with each other. •
Dr Ron Bninton is Director of the Environmental Policy Unit of the IPA, based in Canberra, and an anthropologist.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 Decline since December 1989 Commonwealth payments to of the number of people the States and Northern Ter- employed in the private sector: ritory as a percentage of Com- 9.1% monwealth revenue. Amount spent by the average Japanese on American In 1983-8 products (1990): US$372. In the public sector: 0.8% Amount spent by the average In 1990-91 American on Japanese products: $357.
The Weekend Ausrral}mi,1 19 July 1992.
• Hansard (House of Representatives), 24 June 1992.
Net assets held by the Victorian Telecom account for the and New South Wales Department of Primary In- branches of the Federated Mis- dustries and Energy 1990-91: cellaneous Workers Union: $4.4 million. Hansard (Senate), 25 June 1992.
• Professor Shyam Kamath, Tie Freeman, Federation News, June 1992. July 1992.
• • Percentage of adults with bank ac- counts (1991). Percentage of adults with credit cards. Foreign exchange earnings from Inbound tourism to Australia In 1984/85: $2.2 billion. In 1990/91: $7.2 billion. Tourism s share of Switzerland 97 4 Australia s total export earnings In 1984/85: 6 per cent. In 1990/91: 10 per cent. Holland 93 1 JAPAN Germany 92 1 EUROPE 529,000 United States 63 60 257,000 ASIA USA 374,000 272,000 Britain 83 33 Italy 59 1 UK Japan 63 273,000 OTHER 185,000 Number of Australians with credit cards: 9.5 million.
N.Z. ORIGIN OF ^^J481,000 i- r TOURISTS (1991) a The Economist, 27 June 1992. Tourism: Australia s Passport to Growth, Commonwealth Department of Tourism, June 1992. Australian Bankers Association.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 Change since 1983 in the num- Ranking of Australia out of 22 Australian employees who ber of 15-24 year-olds with OECD countries in terms of would prefer to negotiate their university degrees: 43 per cent competitiveness pay and conditions directly with an employer: 64 per cent. increase. With trade qualifica- 1992 World Competitiveness tions: 11 per cent decline. Report, World Economic Forum Employees who would prefer a and the International Institute trade union to act on their be- The Bulletin, 5 May 1992. for Management Development. half: 29 per cent.
Newspoll, T eAustralian, 29 July 1992.
• •
Change in Newspaper Population Change Circulation 1972-92 1972-91
West Australian +21 Western Australia +51 Courier Mail - 4 Queensland +61 The Age. +15 Victoria +18 Sydney Morning Herald - 1 New South Wales +21 The,Advertiser - 5 South Australia + 17 The Mercury + 1 Tasmania +14 Average subsidy per patient per The Australian +10 Australia +29 day paid by the Commonwealth for State Government nursing Financial Review +52 Australia +29 home beds
NSW $35.75 The Bulletin, 9 June 1992. Victoria $52.50 Queensland $3.110 • • SAh m $42.65 WA $35.,15 ^, Average monthly prison Change in the participation rate Tasmania $3080 population in NSW (1990): in the Australian workforce ACT X36.35 5,311. Rate per 100,000 March 1983-March 1992 population: 91.2. Average (percentage points) NT $43.55 monthly prison population in Hansard (Senate), 25 June 1992. Victoria: 2,291. Rate per 100,000 population: 52.4. Males -2.4pp Potential savings In public Married Females + 10.6pp health expenditure In Victoria if staff salaries and staff per All Females +7.3pp occupied bed in acute care public hospitals were reduced Persons +2.6pp to the average for other States: s307 MI WON The participation rate is the proportion of a population seeking or in paid employment. Towards a Healthier State: The Restucturing of Crime and Justice Bulletin, NSW Bureau of Crime Victoria s Public Health Services, Institute of Statistics and Research, March 1992. Social Action, May 1992. Public Affairs, June 1992.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 9 Private Firearm Ownership and Democratic Rights Laws designed to restrict gun ownership further will not reduce the murder rate, but they do pose a threat to the rights of Australians.
DAVID LEYONHJELM
AS controlling private ownership of firearms in relate to the right of governments to turn law-abiding citizens Australia have been significantly amended in recent into criminals, to hold all members of a community group times. Victoria and NSW have severely restricted the jointly responsible for the activities of a few individual mem- typesL of firearms that may be lawfully owned and the condi- bers of it, and to utilize public resources in a demonstrably tions attached to licences while other States are also amending ineffective manner by failing to differentiate between ordinary licensing laws. The Commonwealth Government is encourag- members of the community and those who pose a threat to it. ing these changes as well as using its powers to prohibit the The debate about firearm ownership is rarely rational or import of many types of firearms, notwithstanding that they objective. Indeed, so hysterical and ill-informed has it been remain legal in several States. that many shooters see themselves as the victims of an or- Most of the impetus for this new legislation arose in chestrated campaign in which their rights, including the right response to the three mass shootings that occurred in Queen to be heard, count for nothing. Opposition to firearm owner- and Hoddle Streets in Melbourne in 1987, and in 1991 in ship has become, like many contentious causes, `ideologically Sydney s Strathfield Plaza. In each case a lone and apparently correct . deranged individual killed a number of people using a semi- The common view about firearms is that they are causally automatic rifle, although in the Queen Street case the firearm linked to the level of community violence, particularly mur- was so extensively modified that it was only capable of operat- ders and suicides. The evidence refutes this. Indeed, all the ing as a single shot rifle.1 data indicate that the amount of violence occurring in a com- The recommendations in relation to firearms of the 1990 munity has little to do with firearm ownership and a great deal National Committee on Violence, 2 since taken up by the to do with cultural and historical factors. Australian Institute of Criminology which has as its Director One of the best illustrations of this is Switzerland: where the Committee s Chairman, set out a program of action for the it is mandatory for all able-bodied males to have a military rifle Commonwealth Government that it is still pursuing. It seems and ammunition in the home, in keeping with that country s inevitable that even further restrictions will follow, not- policy of defence preparedness. The level of violence of any withstanding that the original report has been roundly kind in Switzerland is quite low. The shooting sports are very criticized.3 popular and officially encouraged as a means of increasing Much of the justification for the new legislation, par- defence preparedness. ticularly that in Victoria and NSW, is based on the premise By contrast, in what used to be Yugoslavia appalling that it will prevent another shooting of this kind. Nothing could violence is being practiced against innocent civilians, using be further from the truth. The potential for massacres is totally weapons supplied by governments, to settle rivalries and unchanged, yet the democratic landscape is radically altered. hatreds that originated centuries ago. In the process of implementing the new restrictions a In Australia there is simply no correlation between the massive erosion of the civil rights of hundreds of thousands of murder rate and the stringency of firearm laws. The Australian law-abiding firearm owners has occurred. Moreover, the Institute of Criminology reports that the homicide rate in status of the law in the eyes of these and other members of the Australia has not significantly altered in 50 years. Objective public has been seriously undermined. studies of the association between violence and firearm laws The issues are of importance to everyone in the have reached the same conclusion .4 community, irrespective of their interest in firearms. They Those States having the least restrictive laws (e.g.
David Leyonhjebn is a recreational target pistol and rifle shooter, and historical fireanns collector.
10 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. ), 1992 PRIVATE FIREARM OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS
Queensland and Tasmania) have no higher homicide rates has no effect on the suicide rate, influencing only the method than those with the most restrictive laws (e.g. Western used. In Japan, where firearms are almost impossible to obtain Australia and South Australia). That there are far more legally, the suicide rate is greater than in the United States and relevant factors than firearms is illustrated by the observation other countries where firearms are available. Simply put, that the Northern Territory has a murder rate six times the where firearms are accessible they are used to commit suicide. national averages with firearms responsible for just 11 per cent Where they are not, other means are used. In terms of the of these, in spite of having the highest level of firearm owner- number of deaths, the result is tragically the same. ship in the country.6 The Aboriginal communities in which Much of the recent legislation has been directed at most of the murders occur simply do not use firearms to controlling certain types of firearms, principally the so-called commit homicides .7 assault weapons. These are poorly defined but are mainly Even in the United States where murders due to all considered to be intermediate calibre, semi-automatic rifles causes, including firearms, have increased, there is no having a military origin. evidence of a relationship between these and the laws control- The new law in NSW, for instance, makes it an offence ling gun ownership. Washington DC, for example, shares both to own a military-style self-loading centre-fire rifle or any the most restrictive firearms laws and the nation s highest self-loading rifle or shotgun with a magazine capable of hold- murder rate. ing more than five rounds. Licences to possess other types of In general terms, communities having a cultural or his- centre-fire rifles will only be granted where an approved torical tendency to settle grievances with violence will be `reason is demonstrated. inclined to use whatever means are available, including Yet the number of homicides carried out with these firearms. Those where peaceful resolution of disputes is tradi- types of firearms, including in the United States where such tional, where there are practical legal remedies available and firearms are more freely available, is significantly less than which provide for democratic consultation, have no inclina- with other types or other means. Of the thousands of firearms tion towards violence, with or without firearms. seized by police in association with crimes in the US, few are With respect to individuals, the notion that murderers either assault weapons or even in military calibres .9 are law-abiding citizens who might have stayed law-abiding if Of the 76 firearm-related homicides in 1989-90 in they had not possessed firearms is demonstrably false. Far Australia, 80 per cent involved .22 calibre rifles and shotguns. from being ordinary people (or even ordinary criminals), the Hand guns, strictly controlled in all States since the late 1920s, characteristics of murderers suggest remarkable indifference made up most of the remainder.10 This is despite the fact that to human life and welfare — even their own. Almost in- gun ownership grew from one in six Australians in 1979 to one variably they have a background of serious crime, drug in four by 1989 11 while the murder rate due to firearms fell. abuse, family assaults and psychiatric or personality disor- The distinction is absurd if the aim is to reduce the lethal ders. In a lot of cases the question is not so much whether potential of the firearms that remain available. A single-shot they will kill themselves or others, but when they will do so.8 .22 rifle, in the wrong hands, is no less dangerous than a The evidence also shows that the availability of firearms self-loading centre-fire rifle, military or not. Apart from their general distaste of anything having a military connotation, those distinguishing between types of firearms seem to be assuming that a gunman is more readily tackled if the weapon is of a permitted type. If so, no-one bothered to ask those who might be called on to do the tackling. The small amount of time required to reload, or the presence of fewer rounds in the magazine, would not enable such heroics. Military-style semi-automatics may look more dangerous to the uninformed but that is hardly the point. Many butchers knives look less than friendly as well. While the intermediate military calibres are of lower ballistic ef- ficiency than quite a number of other types,12 in reality there is little difference in the lethal potential between firearms of any kind.
Disarming the Population
Given the history of ever tighter controls, most firearm owners are convinced the longer-term objective is effectively to disarm the civilian population. Certainly this is the aim of much of the anti-gun lobby and its media supporters. This raises questions about the foundations of our democracy. What is the government frightened of? With just the police
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 199211 PRIVATE FIREARM OWNERSHIP AND DEMOCRATIC RIGHTS and armed forces having firearms the temptation for makes as much sense to non-shooters as hitting little white totalitarian control must be greater. balls to non-golfers. There is a proud sporting tradition as- The United States Constitution guarantees the rights of sociated with shooting. At the Commonwealth Games its citizens to bear arms specifically for the purpose of remov- Australia regularly wins medals in shooting. A more mature ing a totalitarian government in the event that other approach to gun ownership could see us winning at Olympic democratic means fail. There is strong evidence that the in- Games as well. troduction of England s first firearms law in 1920 was a No one denies that firearms are capable of inflicting response to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. It cer- death and injury. Neither is it denied that some firearms were tainly had no other justification, the level of armed crime being designed for that purpose, like the javelin and long-bow before almost non-existent.13 them. There are plenty of examples of items being used more With constitutional safeguards to inhibit potential dic- constructively than their original purpose. There are also tators (although none that could not be overturned) and no numerous dangerous and deadly items available in the com- history of revolution, Australians are much less sympathetic munity, among them motor vehicles, drugs and kitchen knives. to this argument. Yet there is some historical merit in it. In To pretend that the community can be protected from considering whether to invade the country during the Second dangerous items by banning or draconian controls is fanciful. World War, the Japanese viewed the presence of an armed As one commentator points out — "homicide is not a leading citizenry as a major disincentive. cause of death. An unknown number of homicides is in- A desire to make the community safer for ourselves and evitable, or at least not amenable to any public policy measure our families can hardly be considered unreasonable. aimed at prevention. "15 Moreover, keeping firearms out of the hands of violent Shooters and firearm collectors share the community s criminals and the mentally unstable is unanimously seen as a desire to make their society safer, including a reduction in the worthwhile objective, especially by firearm owners. Regret- potential for random violence. Removing firearms from law- tably, measures purportedly designed to achieve these aims abiding citizens is not the answer. Keeping them away from do nothing but erode the rights of law-abiding firearm owners. criminals and those prone to violence, while seeking genuine One of the most tragic of these has been the need for means of reducing both, certainly is. such people to decide whether to become criminals by failing How fragile are our freedoms if they can be taken from to dispose of firearms rendered illegal. Simply by doing noth- us, for "the common good," because of the sins of a few? How ing an owner becomes a criminal. Both in Victoria and NSW safe is our democracy if a vocal minority can provoke govern- there are said to be tens of thousands of people electing to find ments into making laws that undermine the rights of convenient hiding places in the hope that future governments others? • will make their firearms legal again. A politically-condoned precedent for this was estab- lished in NSW in 1988 when the Unsworth Government intro- 1. Victorian Police evidence to coronial inquiry. duced anti-firearms legislation to take effect three weeks prior 2. Violence: Directions for Australia, National Committee on Violence, to the elections. The then-Opposition stated that its first Australian Institute of Criminology, 1990. action on obtaining government would be to repeal these laws, 3. One source of criticism was the NSW Joint Parliamentary Select Com- which it subsequently did. mittee on Gun Law Reform report, which stated that the National The issue is far more significant than simply disregarding Committee on Violence s report was "flawed". speed limits. Otherwise law-abiding people are threatened 4. Harding, R., Firearms and Violence in Ausrralian Life, University of WA Press, 1981. Fine, J.D., Gun Laws—Proposals forReform, Federation with penalties of imprisonment for periods of up to 10 years. Press, Sydney, 1988. Greenwood, Colin, Firearms Control 1972, Rout- In placing these people in such a position, governments are ledge and Kegan, Paul, London, 1972. fostering a decline in respect for the law itself, one of the 5. Mukherjee, S. et. at., The Size of the Crime Problem in Australia, factors that leads to a rise in community violence in the first Australian Institute of Criminology, 1987. place. 6. Chappel, Duncan, A National Gun Control Strategy. The Recommen- dations of the National Committee on Violence, CnminologyAustralia, There is a further principle that affects everyone. When January/February 1992. two people in Victoria and one in NSW go berserk, in each 7. Strang, Heather, Homicides in Australia 1989-90, Monograph No. 4, case possibly as a consequence of mental illness or the use of Australian Institute of Criminology. certain types of drugs, 14 all firearm owners are made to pay. 8. Klock, Gary, Point Blank.• Guns and Violence in America. Logically, it means all men are responsible when one man 9. Morgan and Kopel, The Assault Weapons Panic, Independence Issue commits rape simply because they also have a penis (not an Paper, Independence Institute, Golden, Colorado, 1991. irrelevant analogy since the control of firearms is promoted as 10. Strang, op. cit. a women s issue). It is also consistent with the Nazi practice 11. Criminology Australia, June/July 1989. of punishing a whole village when one or two of its inhabitants 12. Fackler, Colonel Martin, US Army Wound Ballistics Laboratory, A Review of Common Misconceptions, The Journal of the American were involved in the resistance. Medical Association, Vol. 259, 13 May 1988. A frequent question from non-firearm owners is why 13. Greenwood, C., address to the First National Conference on Firearms firearms are wanted. The fact is, most shooters think of their Laws and Use, Perth, 1981. firearms in the same way that golfers think of their golf clubs. 14. Contemporary reports of coronial inquests. Shooting little holes in paper, which is what most are used for, 15. Strang, op. cit.
12 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 Green, but not Clever A series of educational booklets on environmental issues has come under strong attack from an education advisor to the industry-backed Keep South Australia Beautiful Council. The author of the series responds.
PETER McGREGOR
[v a climate of heightened ecological angst — where the untrue", "superficial", "confusing", "cosmetic", "flippant", good guys constantly fight against the bad guys to save the "misleading", "simplistic", "provocative" and "meaningless", I planet — myths, half-truths and misinformation have together with a catalogue of trenchant comments such as "no dominated everyday discussion about the environment. evidence", "sounds like propaganda", "could do more harm Claims of dubious origin are circulated and recycled, and than good", "lifted straight from ICI s marketing brochure", emotion too often overwhelms reason. Inasmuch as the com- "who says?" and "of no educational value." The KESAB munity is awash with green zeal, fundamentalist fervour, and education officer also accused the author of the material of outright scare-mongering, so too are our schools. Invariably, being — wait for it — "human-centred"! one major casualty of the raging environmental war of words In essence, the KESAB notes indicate little under- is truth. standing of science and a hostility to industry and people. Yet TheAustralia series of illustrated "discussion papers for they express views widely held in the green movement. kids" was launched as an attempt to redress this situation, Readers can make their own assessment from the Australia particularly in schools. It began when the National Associa- series extracts, the KESAB response and my comments below. tion of Forest Industries requested something that would appeal to children, and that also stated the truth about our forests. Forests are Forever was the result, almost 200,000 History copies of which have been distributed on request to students, industry employees and members of the public seeking further Australia series: "For most of our life on Earth (thousands of information. Recycling Makes Sense soon followed, asking years), people didn t worry too much about the environment readers to think about new aspects of recycling; while Land in which they lived. Most of the time people simply worried for Life, the most recent addition to the series, tried to demystify about staying alive. Until fairly recently, most people worked community fears about chemicals - in the soil and our food. all day just to make ends meet. But lately, it seems, more of us Illustrated by a Victorian primary school teacher and have had more time (and more education) to think a bit more environmental educator with a flair for animation and a sense about the world around us. We have started to notice that of fun in communicating serious issues, these documents met some things aren t quite as good as they used to be — or should with an overwhelmingly favourable response. Communica- be. The beaches, the streets, the air, the countryside." tions Officer with the CSIRO Division of Soils in Adelaide, Cathy Sage, wrote praising the "comprehensive and profes- KESAB: Lots of cultures depend on environmental care for sional production." She said that her copies of Land for Life their survival. It is not true they didn t worry about their had been distributed widely — to laboratories from Adelaide environment too much. They depended on their environ- to Townsville — and that many scientists had commented ment for food, water, shelter, etc., and if by chance their favourably. "The content is accurate and well-researched," she environment was damaged, populations were so small wrote, adding that it "provides a balanced approach to com- they could move somewhere else. It is ludicrous to sug- plex environmental issues which gives students an oppor- gest that the only reason people are concerned about tunity to see both problems and possible solutions." Cathy their environment is because they are leisured, affluent and Sage rated the publication not only refreshing, but responsible. have nothing better to do. Imagine one s surprise, then, to read a set of notes from an education advisor with the Keep South Australia Comment: Throughout history, most people s lives were lar- Beautiful Council (KESAB) denouncing many of the gely taken up by survival. The few we read about in literature carefully-researched statements as "useless", "blatantly who apparently led rich and colourful fives were only a very
Peter McGregor is Director of the Centre for Economic Education.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1942 13 GREEN, BUT NOT CLEVER small elite. The vast majority of people lived poor, miserable the Middle Ages through to the Industrial Revolution. and brief fives. For thousands of years diseases wracked the Affluent 19th-century towns, such as Hamilton in health of families; most children died in infancy; of those who Victoria s pastoral Western District, are typical examples of survived infancy, few lived to adulthood; those who did reach how things once were in the civilized world. Don Garden, in adulthood enjoyed a life expectancy of little more than 40 Hamilton: A Western District History, describes the open gar- years. They didn t know that the water they drank might be bage pits in the town and the stench of rotting horse carcases infected with viruses, or that the air they breathed might kill that enveloped its inhabitants. "Another of the less savoury them. Without sanitation, without safe food preparation, aspects of Hamilton s life was the state of its sanitation," without reliable supplies of good food, without any defence Garden writes: against disease, they died in their millions. (The same is still true today in many primitive cultures in the world; Nepal, for "Smells from open or faulty drains and overflowing example, or many of the countries of Africa.) cesspools were a constant nuisance and gave the But the KESAB view seems to be that things in the world Council...a good deal to do. The disposal of night are, in fact, pretty horrible and inexorably getting worse. What soil was a major problem. Cesspools were most is the evidence? common and were plagued by overflows and As is now generally accepted, we have moved from a seepage. By the mid-1870s a manure depot was time when deadly viruses inhabited the air and water wherever arranged and night men were operating. In 1877 people lived, to the present where visible pollution of our cities represents only a minor threat to human health. In a recent book, In the Half Light: Reminiscen- ces of Growing Up in Australia 1900-1970, the author, Jacqueline Kent, in- terviews an aristocratic old lady whose privileged exist- ence many years ago repre- 6 -! sented an experience far above the average.
"Many things we took for granted then are now considered dread- fully unhygienic," she remembered. "For in- stance, we never washed our hands after going to the toilet or before sitting down to a meal, and the water we drank was not very clean. the depot was on the side of the hill near the When we went into town we had to be very careful Botanical Gardens and police station. It contained of where we stepped on the streets; not only did a large, open hole full of sewage and several dead people sell fruit and vegetables in fly-blown heaps, horses in varying stages of decay. After rain it but all kinds of rubbish, from decayed vegetable would overflow and run down through the police peelings to newspaper, ran down the gutters." paddock into the Grange Burn. "As clean water was also in short supply, it is not She didn t mention the putrid piles of horse manure that surprising that disease and periodic epidemics littered most streets. Even for this well-to-do family living on were part of life in towns like Hamilton in the a genteel property just outside Melbourne, "Iife was often nineteenth century...In some cases nearly whole desperately uncomfortable," compared with now. families were wiped out." American archaeologist, Professor William Rathje, of the University of Arizona, also reminds us, "It is difficult for anyone alive now to comprehend how appalling, as recently In his Atlantic Monthly article, William Rathje makes as a century ago, were the conditions of daily life in all cities the other point that KESAB ridicules. "Concern for the of the Western world, even in the wealthiest parts of town." In environment can be attributed in major part to the con- his article in The Atlantic Monthly (December 1989), he com- veniences — and the leisure time they afford — that some ments on the stupefying level of filth accepted as normal from activists want to eliminate," he writes.
14 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 GREEN, BUT NOT CLEVER
Development former Soviet Union and its satellites is tragic. An article in The New York Times, titled `Communism s dirty legacy scares Australia series: "People often say that the growth of industry Western investors, tells of decades of unbridled pollution is to blame for all the world s environmental problems. If there under communist governments; while the 1992 World were no industries, some believe, perhaps there would be Development Report records that in the Aral Sea area, where fewer problems. The air and water would be clean. The en- central planning ran amok, "Soils have been poisoned with vironment would be safe, they say. salt, overwatering has turned pasture into bogs, water supplies Unfortunately, in countries without — or with few - have become polluted by pesticide and fertilizer residues, and efficient industries, the situation is much worse. Their environ- the deteriorating quality of drinking water and sanitation is ment is at risk. People in these places have begun to destroy taking a heavy toll on human health." their forests, pollute their waterways and foul their air — much Yet according to the notes of KESAB s education of- worse than in countries like Australia." ficer, life in Australia and other Western countries is no different. KESAB: Not "much worse". A different problem. Develop- ment is responsible for incurred debts and the ensuring destruction of rainforest to pay debt, which can never be Science repaid. Australia has notorious pollution problems and al- though recently efforts have been made to make amends, Australia series: "...As society grows, gets smarter and learns Australia still has a lot of pollution problems; e.g. air quality, more about the environment, new problems are discovered. water quality, soil salinity, soil contamination, etc. Different Discovering problems is a sign that we are making progress. kinds of pollution are being lumped together with no defini- Importantly, just as we go on discovering new problems, we tion being offered. also learn to solve many. Thanks to science, many of the world s health problems have disappeared." Comment: `Development is a word that radical environmen- KESAB: Thanks to science, many of the world s problems talists use carelessly and pejoratively: often as a synonym for were created in the first place. This is not an anti-science `industry . They present it as the cause of, not part of the statement.. just a point that can be made to refute the material. solution to, the world s problems. A scapegoat for humanity s Scientists are not necessarily saviours. Problems are not al- ills, development is equated with destructiveness and ways solvable and when they are solved, often the solutions despoliation. turn out to be merely other theories. It is misleading children The United Nations Development Program suggests to indoctrinate them with the notion that science will solve all that development is the process of enlarging people s choices. "The most critical of these wide-ranging choices," says their their problems. "are to live a long and Human Development Report 1990, Comment: Prior to the Earth Summit in Rio, more than 200 healthy life, to be educated and to have access to resources scientists (including 54 Nobel Prize winners) signed a declara- needed for a decent standard of living... Development enables tion. "We are worried," they said, "at the dawn of the 21st century, people to have these choices." by the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to Development Report, the But how? In its 1991 World scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and World Bank says, "The key to global development has been social development." The group s chairman, one Professor the diffusion of technological progress. New technology has Perutz, said that humanity only progressed by harnessing na- allowed resources to be used more productively, causing in- ture to its needs and that many essential human activities comes to rise and the quality of life to improve. Scientific and involved manipulating hazardous substances. Progress and medical innovation has proceeded at a breathtaking pace development involve increasing our control over hostile forces, during the past two hundred years." he said. "The world does face very severe environmental The scientific and technological advances that dramatically problems which cannot be solved by rejecting science." changed the course of development, according to the World No one is suggesting that science can solve all of Bank, were Jenner s smallpox vaccine (1790), Pasteur s estab- humanity s problems, but without science our material lives lishment of the link between microbes and immunity (1880), would be much poorer. the development of other an- Flemings penicillin (1920) and The Director of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, Sir tibiotics. Also, "Steady increases in food production in the Gustav Nossal, suggests that science allows us to control and nineteenth century, followed by more dramatic increases in the shape the natural universe around us, rather than being its twentieth, made possible some remarkable improvements in victim. "Not mere flotsam and jetsam on the sea of life," he says. Innovations in transport, people s nutrition," the Report says. "Science helps give shape and direction to our lives." Sir energy and communications completed the revolution. Gustav continues: Furthermore, the 1992 World Development Report provides data which illustrate that over the past 20 years or so, "It s very easy for people to forget that before the while Gross Domestic Product in Western countries has con- Industrial Revolution — when technology became tinued to rise, pollution from lead, sulphur, nitrous oxide and widespread — the lot of most people was nasty, other particulates has consistently fallen. brutish and short. It was back-breaking labour...it Conversely, the story of environmental calamity in the was twelve or fourteen hours in your little cottage
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 15 GREEN, BUT NOT CLEVER
industry or working in the fields to dig up potatoes. in industrialized nations ingest in their diet at least 10,000 "So, if you really want to be tough on science times more natural pesticides (by weight) than man-made and technology, you d better ask yourself what the pesticide residues." Professor Ames is a former Chairman of alternatives realistically look like. If you look the American Cancer Society. around the globe, there is no country anywhere that On The Health Report (ABC Radio, 2 January 1989), is voting with its feet for Arcadia." Professor Ames said that "all plant evolution is plants devising #vG new and nastier toxic chemicals to kill off fungi, to kill off insects and to kill off predators... these are nature s pesticides and these are the real toxic chemicals in the world." He went on to name the dozens of everyday foods that damage our bodies. He spoke about celery, potatoes, herbs, alfalfa, tomatoes, pepper, horseradish and others..."every time you eat a raw mushroom you re getting a couple of thousand parts per billion of carcinogens? The world, he says, is full of carcinogens and reproduc- tive toxins, and it always has been. "We are beginning to realize that the risk from man-made pesticides (or pollutants for that matter) which humans ingest in their diets is utterly trivial, relative to the background of hazardous compounds provided by nature," he says. "The main alternative to using man-made pesticides is to grow crops that have been bred to contain higher levels of nature s pesticides." Ames, rejecting the notion that technology is destroy- ing us, suggests that newer technologies are far less hazard- ous than the ones they replaced. "I have little doubt that both health and economics will be on the side of human ingenuity, inventing better and better pesticides that are less dangerous to humans than their natural counterparts," he adds. Interestingly, he says the evidence suggests that indoor pollution (formaldehyde, smoke, benzene and radon; especially the last-named) is a far greater health hazard than outdoor pollution. Scientists at the CS[RO s Division of Human Nutrition
Illustration by Gavin Byrt from the Australia series in Adelaide point out that most of the world s people will eventually die, over many decades, from the action of chemi- cals that occur naturally in the foods we like to eat. Virtually Chemicals and Food none will die from man-made poisons of any kind.
Australia series: "You may be surprised to learn that most of the pesticides we ingest are nature s own chemicals. About Resources five per cent of every plant is toxic chemicals of one kind or another — the plant s own defence against insects, fungi and Australia series: "However, most of Australia s smartest humans. The tomato, the potato and even alfalfa sprouts thinkers say that human beings will always be able to provide produce their own nasty chemicals. They are far worse than the ideas that produce food, minerals and other goods and anything scientists have produced." services that we need to live. No-one believes that people will ever run out of good ideas. What do you think?" KESAB: Blatantly untrue statement that potatoes and tomatoes poisons/pesticides are "far worse than anything KESAB: Ludicrous statement about "smartest thinkers," it scientists have produced." Sounds like it was lifted straight contradicts many of the world s leading scientific views. How from ICI s marketing brochure. Although true that tomatoes long have the "world s smartest thinkers" been trying to solve and potatoes contain toxic chemicals, they could hardly be the problem of radioactive waste and haven t been able to? worse than Agent Orange, benzene, trichloromethanes, or- This statement is wide open to criticism. ganochlorides, etc. I think it could frighten kids off their vegetables! Comment: The extreme environmentalist position is that the world is fast running out of everything and that there is nothing Comment: In a series of articles for The Australian (18 we can do. When the world s resources are gone, it holds, June 1990), Professor Bruce Ames — from the Depart- human beings are history. But human beings are capable of ment of Biochemistry, University of California, and ar- great creativity. Throughout human history, the emergence of guably the world s leading toxicologist — writes: "People particular problems has given rise to innovative solutions
16 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 GREEN, BUT NOT CLEVER
which have left society better off than before the problem to do with the recovered materials. Effective recycling re- arose. There are countless examples. quires viable industries to make use of these valuable resour- One of the most interesting was the problem created ces. Companies make the process possible; however, it can be 125 years ago when the world s supplies of whale oil appeared a Catch-22 situation. Sometimes, companies don t set up recy- to be diminishing. For a variety of reasons, whale oil was cling and reprocessing plants because there is no community becoming increasingly difficult (and expensive) to obtain. The collection service; and some councils do not collect because future was bleak. How would America light its lamps? The there are no reprocessing plants in the municipality. problem, described admirably in Smithson and Clarkson s The There is no suggestion that "everything is OK" or that Doomsday Myth, gave rise to the discovery of potential uses enough can ever be done. The fact remains that, while govern- of a hitherto unused water pollutant called petroleum. It was ments and the community have roles to play in the recycling an idea that revolutionized the world. processes in Australia, their efforts ultimately depend upon ideas create resources — an insight lost on green left companies — without whom little would be possible. Who advisors and North American environmental gurus such as takes the paper, the cans, the non-ferrous metal, the plastic? Paul Ehrlich and David Suzuki. In 1980, Julian Simon, author Who other than industry reprocesses these resources? of The Ultimate Resource, bet Paul Ehrlich $1,000 that the William Rathje, during a visit to Melbourne in 1991, price of resources would fall rather than rise in the coming made much of the point that recycling for recycling s sake is decade. He let Ehrlich nominate the resources he wished and futile. Unless, he said, we are each prepared to buy an they agreed to settle up in 10 years time. Simon s view is based equivalent amount of recycled products to that which we put upon the belief that, as the world s people increase their skills out or return for recycling, the process is unsustainable. and the adoption of new technologies, we create resources. Rather than running out (as Ehrlich believes), resources are becoming more available; and with their increasing abun- dance prices fall. If Ehrlich was right, the price of commodities 1D1d to know -tka,t almost oy►e would rise over time. The bet was settled in late 1990. Ehrlich +h five of .prxL cts lost. ma a th A AStra,l %a are Made fm Just before his death in 1989 at the age of 83, distin- recyc. led rne4r,l guished Australian economist Colin Clark told Quadrant: "[W]hen I was a first-year chemistry student, in 1925, our LJ0 4 1 lecturers told us quite firmly that the world oil supply would know - cit t4e aveir"Y S r . run out in 1940. As 1940 approached, I asked some oil men V and they said, We re all right, but we will run out in 1955. By rno4.0(` cav- the 1950s I didn t bother to ask them any more." According to torito►ins about Clark, "The amount of metals known to exist within reach of 7 the earth s surface exceeds known mining companies reserves 1om^,w v. by factors of 100,000 to a million..." be c cfted ? Finally, the 1992 World Development Report definitively A Nmilar stv^^ refutes this persistent myth that extreme greens still espouse. Cav% be }odd about The authors conclude that "whereas fears that the world O, a.strcs a^d would run out of metals and other minerals were fashionable rubber : even fifteen years ago, the potential supply of these resources is now outstripping demand," and "fears that the world may be running out of fossil fuels are unfounded."
Recycling
Australia series: "A number of Australian companies in every Illustration by Gavin Byrt from `Recycling Makes Sense, one of State are actively involved in recycling. Companies which the Australia series. produce steel, glass, paper, plastic, rubber, petroleum and non-ferrous metals such as zinc and copper recover enough of Australia s resources to make a business of it. In the process, they create hundreds of jobs." What KESAB s comments reveal is the danger to KESAB: The sheet makes it sound like everything is OK, and knowledge posed by misguided educators in quasi-community enough is being done by companies in the recycling industry. groups. Adhering to radical green orthodoxy — attacking the Clearly this is not true. No mention of government or com- truth and maintaining myths about society, science and munity involvement in recycling. economic growth — is no way to become a clever country. Keeping Australia ignorant will not meet the difficult chal- Comment: The key to higher recycling rates is finding something lenges of this, and the next, century. •
IPA Review, Vol.45 No. 3, 1992 17 DEBATE YES
Subsidizing the Rich Very few Should the Australians ever tune in to the ABC. Those who do are mainly from the upper middle-class (precisely the economic group which least requires ABC be subsidizing). Why must the majority pay taxes for the minority s pleasures? Privatized? Political Bias Most ABC jour- nalists see themselves not as jour- nalists, but as -an alternative government, unaccountable either to TheABC was founded exactly 60 years ago. Its planners openly the Parliament or to the taxpayers modelled it on the BBC, whose first Director-General, Lord Reith, who fund them. ABC current affairs expounded his broadcasting credo by saying "Give them what they programs regularly display left-wing need, and they will come to respect you for it." ABC television bias. Only privatization can make transmissions began in 1956. ABC journalists accountable for In 1976 the Fraser Government considered imposing severe their mistakes and distortions. cutbacks on theABC and freeing it from public service appointments Numerous Alternatives Alter- procedures. Both manoeuvres were opposed by a newly formed native forms of program-viewing (e.g. group known as Friends of the ABC. The subsequent Dix Report VCRs, cable TV) and alternative recommended partial commercialization of the ABC. During the 1980s the possibility of fully privatizingtheABC was raised. However, it has not been acted on by any political party. Dr Clement Semmler, erstwhile Deputy General Manager at the ABC — and himself a severe critic of it — said in 1991: "No government would dare to do NO away with the ABC...the rural vote would ensure that." Most countries have at least one government-run broadcaster. Unique Service The ABC In Britain, government-run television is the norm. The main com- provides a service obtainable nowhere else. in its 60 years, it has mercial TVstation, ITV is not privately-owned; instead, advertisers blazed trails which no private or- buy air-time from the state. Canada s CBC network is government- ganization dared attempt. Without run, yet transmits commercials. America s nearest equivalent to the the ABC, Australia would have no ABC is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). This symphony orchestras; there would be organization, responsible for both National Public Radio and PBS no radio drama and a dearth of television, receives some governmental subsidy; but it depends serious current affairs; most of Britain s and America s better TV much less on such subsidy than does the ABC. Most of its income shows would never have been trans- derives from viewers and listeners donations. mitted here. The ABC has achieved these things precisely because it doesn t have to worry about winning the ratings war; whereas a private network does. As the commercial television stations demonstrate, commercial competition has not led to diversity; rather the reverse.
Rural Needs Most demands for the ABC s privatization come from city-dwellers spoiled for V choice in what they watch or listen
18 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 radio (e.g. the Music Broadcasting underwrite SBS programs, without series From Wimps to Warriors, for Society s community stations in thereby doing them perceptible example, included explicit features Australia s biggest cities) either exist harm. The advertisements are rare, on sado-masochism and on in Australia already or will do so brief, and usually placed between homosexuality). Does anyone soon. They have revolutionized the programs rather than amid them. seriously belief that a corporation world s broadcasting over the last Sponsors know that SBS s which produces Tim Bowden s self- decade. Though catering specifically audience (though small) is weal- congratulating Backchat segment - to minority tastes, as state-run or- thy, is vocal, and must not be an- or the Triple J network s hymns to ganizations are supposed to do, they tagonized. Why would sponsors be sexual revolution -- cares about manage with little or no money from any less cautious when it came to upholding cultural standards? Far taxpayers. They increase state-run the program content of a from upholding them, it lowers networks irrelevance. privatized ABC? them.
Cost The rise of SBS further Share Ownership if the Already Commercial in weakens the ABC s claims that it is ABC s supporters like it so much, Essence Whether the ABC likes the only alternative to mass com- let them pay for it, and ensure to admit it or not, its current orien- mercialism. Can a country with that they have a say in its direc- tation is in many ways commercial Australia s small population afford tion — by buying shares in a — and ratings-based — already. two state-run networks? The ABC privatized ABC. Soap operas like GP, variety shows alone absorbs half a billion dollars like Live and Sweaty, could have of public money annually. Privatiza- Hypocrisy about Standards been made by any commercial TV tion would relieve the taxpayer of The ABC s assertion that it preser- network. ABC radio and TV are this burden and ensure a more effi- ves civilized culture is entirely un- now as blatant in their advertising of cient service. convincing. In recent years, the ABC programs, books and record- ABC has led the field in the break- ings as any purely private enterprise SBS Unharmed by Sponsors ing of taboos against the broadcast- would be: and far more so than Recently, sponsors have begun to ing of offensive material (the TV most. to. By contrast, some rural regions of corruption of certain members of simultaneously insist that the ABC is Australia have no radio or TV at all the Wran Government in NSW and run by barbarian lowbrows. They except what the ABC furnishes. brought about the Fitzgerald In- should decide whether they con- (Hence the popularity of ABC TV quiry in Queensland. These sider the present ABC too Elitist or shows like Countrywide.) Commer- programs makers could report not a litist enough. cial broadcasters would not find without fear or favour: not being such isolated and sparsely-peopled perpetually obliged to worry about The American Experience areas a viable economic proposi- offending vested commercial in- America s main radio and TV net- tion: so privatizing the ABC would terests. works don t encourage confidence in effectively deprive these areas of all the mental level of a free-market sys- broadcasting. ... Private Oligopoly Assuming tem. For example, they reduce news that a future private owner would services to the level of what they call Public Education While it keep the ABC basically intact be- infotainment , thus leaving remains public the ABC can have an speaks gross naivete. Besides, Americans dangerously ignorant of educative role (evinced by the Open private media ownership in public affairs. Learning series). Commercialized, it Australia is already in the hands of would soon be catering to the lowest extremely few people; privatizing common denominator, with the ABC would in practice mean yet Further Reading educational offerings equivalent to another media outlet for Murdoch George H. Gibson,PublicBroadcasting: Sophie Lee s Sex program. or Conrad Black. The Role of the Federal Government, 1912-1976, New York, 1977. Journalists Independence Privatizers Self-Contradictory K.S. Inglis, This is the ABC: The The "alternative government" ac- The privatizers case is inconsistent. Australian Broadcasting Commission cusation ignores two things: one, that On the one •hand, they charge the 1932-1983, Melbourne, 1983. Patricia Kelly and Grahame Sibley, His- Australian journalists tend to be a ABC with commercialism (in pursu- tory and Development of the ABC, Syd- disrespectful lot overall, whether in ing ratings, in advertising its book- ney, 1984. the public sector or the private; two, shops); on the other hand, they claim Clement Semmler, TheABC: Aunt Sally that it was the ABC s current affairs that the ABC ignores commercial and Sacred Cow, Melbourne, 1981; and The (Abysmal) State of Australian programs — not their commercial realities. They insist that the ABC is Television , Quadrant, April 1991. counterparts—which exposed the run by incestuous highbrows, and
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 19 i4
MIKE NAHAN
^^ I
- i
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Pump-Priming is Territory Government, which released splurge was given an aura of respect- its 1992-93 Budget on 13 August under ability by being targeted at capital Back in Vogue the catch-cry "seize the initiative and works, with capital outlays expected to HE 1992-93 Budget round heralds shrug off the mood of pessimism grip- increase by 14.3 per cent and spending another rendition of the ping the nation." This was an entirely on repair and maintenance set to ex- TKeynesian chant — All we need is unconvincing excuse for big spending. pand by 16.8 per cent. However, the more government spending to kick-start In fact there is no sign of pessimism facts , are that the increased spending the economy and make us politicians in the Territory. The political scene is will be funded by additional borrow- look pretty (and re-electable). quite calm: it will be two years before the ings, used on things that are not current- The last time this theme was next election. Moreover, the NT ly required and concentrated on played with any seriousness in Australia economy is buoyant, having avoided the projects that are non-revenue-earning was during the last recession, when the recent recession that has sent politicians but dependent on taxes. Commonwealth and State Govern- in other governments reaching for the Recurrent spending, which the ments combined to generate a public pumps. The Northern Territory is cur- NT Government has been scaling back sector deficit of just under $13 billion rently recording real economic growth in recent years, is also scheduled to ex- (in 1983-84). In 1992-93, it is officially in excess of four per cent and experienc- pand in 1992-93, primarily because in- estimated to be $20 billion. ing the lowest rate of unemployment in terest payments are set to rise by 22 per As in 1982, the professed aim of the nation at 6.1 per cent. cent as a result of bad hotel investments. government budgets in 1992 is to do In addition, the NT Government In this context the 1992-93 NT something about the debilitating un- can hardly afford more spending and Budget represents an inappropriate employment which, as no one needs debt. Despite two years of fiscal restraint, relaxation of fiscal policy. The deficits reminding, currently stands in most the NT Government began 1992-93 with planned for both the total public sector States at near post-War highs. Also, as more debt per person than any State, ($96 million) and the general govern- in 1982, this year s budgets are with public spending punning at twice ment sector ($91 million) are, in per dominated by election fever with three the level of the States, and with taxes capita terms, larger than those ex- and perhaps four States, along with the above the all-State average. Moreover, perienced in any State in 1991-92. In- Commonwealth, facing elections within income from financial assistance grants, deed, as a result of this budget, it is highly the next 12 months. which represents about 70 per cent of likely that the NT Government will, for Again, as occurred a decade ago, the Government s total revenue, is under the second consecutive year, post the the latest budgets have chosen to pro- serious threat. A Federal Coalition highest deficits of any State and Ter- vide a stimulus via public sector spend- Government is committed to cutting ritory — an outcome it can least afford. ing rather than by cutting taxes and such grants by 10 per cent and , there is other imposts on business. growing support amongst governments Leading the Keynesian charge is to change the basis by which financial Victoria Illustrates the Dangers the Federal Government (see the assistance grants are allocated. This analysis of the Commonwealth Budget would result in a large, sustained reduc- The Victorian Budget, which was in Des Moore s column in this Review). tion in these grants to the Territory. released on 12 August, was the last gasp But close on its heels is the Northern The NT Government s spending of die-hard Keynesians. Mrs Kirner
Dr Mike Nahan is Director of the IPA States Policy Unit, based in Perth.
20 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 AROUND THE STATES abandoned her debt reduction strategy per cent in real terms over this two-year spending was cut slightly in real terms after only a year, dragooned more funds period, whilst capital outlays — the (0.9 per cent) during 1987-88 and 1988- from already cash-strapped govern- primary target of the fiscal expansion - 89, and capital spending was again ment agencies, raised business taxes, grew by only 0.3 per cent. Taxes, which slashed by 16 per cent. and spent big. The Budget s proponents according to the plan were to be kept low However, the move towards are not expected to survive the election so as not to depress economic recovery, restraint proved to be too little too late. scheduled for 3 October. grew in real terms by 10 per cent. The financial and political fall-out from Victoria s financial crisis Mr Cain s `innovative financing ac- emanates to a large extent from the fail- tivities began to have an impact. During ings of the last Keynesian wave and ser- Spending Binge 1990-91 and 1991-92, the collapse of ves as a clear warning to people Tricontinental, the VEDC, and the Far- currently clamouring for more govern- After the economy returned to row Group of Building Societies, plus ment stimulation. growth, the Cain Government kept up its losses arising from the Victoria Invest- Mr Cain and his economic gurus spending binge. From 1984-85 to 1986-87, ment Corporation and the government came to power in 1982 with the explicit recurrent spending grew by a weighty 17 investment in the Portland Aluminium policy of `revving-up the Victorian per cent in real terms. The Cain Govern- Smelter, added over $400 million to the economy. Their plan, detailed in Vic- ment did cut back sharply on capital State s recurrent outlays and eliminated toria — the Next Step, was to unleash the spending, which shrank by 16 per cent a revenue stream, which in the past had shackles constraining the public purse during this period, though higher assets reached $117 million. The net result was and undertake a Keynesian pump- further real increases in spending, taxes, priming exercise specifically designed debt and interest. to expand spending on public in- The Kirner Government, which succeeded Mr Cain s, made some ten- frastructure. The net result was further Unfortunately Mr Cain s boffins, tative initial attempts to stem the tide, and their cheer squad in the Victorian real increases in spending, but in the end gave up. As a result of Mr media, failed to take account of the taxes, debt and interest. Cain s grand plan and Mrs Kirner s in- well-documented defects of such exer- action, the State s finances are in a state cises. Once the public sector pump is of near crisis. The public sector has primed, politicians usually prove in- liabilities in the form of debt, unfunded capable of turning it off until forced to sales, which are treated by the ABS as superannuation, and financial guaran- by a financial crisis, and the additional negative capital outlays, may explain tees of $57 billion in 1992-93. These spending generated -by pump-priming some of the apparent decline in capital liabilities will consume over $5.2 billion almost invariably ends up being con- spending. Given the dominance of in public sector revenue in 1992-93, of sumed on unproductive activity. recurrent spending, and contrary to the which $3.2 billion will be borne directly There was also another hole in fiscal requirements of the day, total out- by taxpayers. Victoria has the second Mr Cain s plan: the benefits of pump- lays exhibited large real growth of 10 per highest level of taxes in the nation, with priming activity were likely to spill over cent between 1984-85 and 1986-87. The taxes 11 per cent above the all-State to other States whilst Victorians would growth in recurrent spending reflected average and a massive $1.8 billion or 58 be forced to carry the costs. the Victorian Government s subser- per cent above the standard of taxation Mr Cain s plan included a few cru- vience to the public sector unions. imposed in Queensland .2 cial `innovations designed to get access By 1987-88 the cumulative effects Along with the debt, the most to more funds. The various techniques of Cain s spending binge were painfully debilitating legacy of the Cain plan has available to facilitate increased borrow- obvious. Interest costs, which had been the huge build-up in the cost of ing to finance expansionary programs grown in real terms over the previous six government services, particularly in the included: `marshalling the funds and years by 63 per cent, were consuming 23 big-ticket areas of health, education and assets of public trading enterprises, per cent of total revenue — the highest transport. `pressing actively for a greater Loan of any State and greater than its com- It will take many years and much Council allocation, utilizing `innovative bined expenditure on health and wel- political pain and human dislocation to and off-Loan Council financing techni- fare. State debt had grown to $22 billion bring Victoria s spending levels and ques, and `better utilizing non-financial — $13 billion more than in 1982, and taxes back to the level of other States assets. since capital outlays had been reduced and to a level its economy can afford. ■ These expansionary policies went by 22 per cent over this period most of off the rails from the start. Although the additional debt was probably used, spending expanded dramatically as albeit indirectly, to fund non-productive 1. As of the time of writing, the Queensland, planned during the 1982-83 recession, activity. Western Australian, New South Wales and ACT have yet to release their 1992-93 the additional spending was directed In confronting the reality of Budgets. primarily to non-productive areas. failure, Mr Cain did begin, very timidly, 2. Report on General Revenue Grant Recurrent spending grew by a huge 13 to cut back on spending. Recurrent Relativities 1992, Update.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 21 Health Services A Potential Export Industry
A great opportunity exists for Australia to become an exporter of health services to South-East Asia.
JOHN POPPER
INCE the time when it was still a colony, this country has as the primary provider of post-graduate education to the been a supplier of raw produce to the great manufac- region, or to those countries where health service delivery is turing centres of the world. Initially our produce went not yet sophisticated technologically. primarily to Europe and North America. Over the past 20 Of course, the emerging affluent middle class in regional years, however, the growth of agricultural protectionism in countries will increasingly demand that services be supplied those markets has seen a major shift in our export markets to from within those countries. However, there is room for both Japan and other Asian countries. We have also started to approaches. Affluent Asians are already travelling overseas develop a wider range of exports, covering both manufactured for treatment requiring the support of specialized tech- goods and services. nologies and some of the more innovative Australian hospitals The trend towards the establishment of regional trading are now servicing part of that market. If access is made blocs emphasizes the need to develop service exports in par- available to Australian medical services at competitive cost, ticular. Such exports are less susceptible to preferential com- this could be an expanding market. mercial treatment and, with our high educational attainments, there is a clear opportunity for Australia to develop into a major service exporter to the South-East Asian region. My personal interest is in health service delivery, where While our clinical services and clinicians the march is being stolen by countries such as Singapore; but skills are comparable to the best in the the situation is not irretrievable. The Federal Government and its agencies could do much more by adopting an integrated world, Australia does not promote medical approach to the formulation and application of their policies. breakthroughs or innovations overseas. They need to foster the concept of Australia as a regional provider of capital-intensive and technologically-driven ser- vices. An analogy would be the way banking and insurance services have been developed internationally by, respectively, As to research, Australia can develop a niche within the the Swiss and the British. region if it is properly funded. Research needs to provide a Australia could similarly develop a role as a health financial return, possibly by being underwritten by sponsoring service provider by exploiting its advantages in medical re- agencies. Sponsorship from overseas governments, for ex- search and in the provision of sub-specialty clinical services. ample, could pay for specific requested research, which could Australia already has an international reputation for conduct- then focus on those areas likely to have the most direct and ing innovative medical research. There are some 15 interna- immediate benefits to that country. tionally recognized medical research facilities in Australia, Financial returns could also flow from the provision of supported by universities and hospitals of similar status. By medical and support staff training, especially at the post- harnessing the intellectual capacity of these existing research graduate level. For some courses the sponsoring recipient units and broadening their research capabilities, we can government would meet the cost of providing the training and relieve our regional trading partners of the need to invest in refresher courses. For some post-graduate training, especially high-cost, specialized research facilities and infrastructure. at the hospital registrar level, trainees themselves might con- They can then concentrate their resources on the supply of tribute to costs. community-level health care. Australia could thus offer itself Although Australia already offers limited training
John Popperis Chairman of theAustralian Hospital and Medical Services ExportAssociation, and Director of Business and Marketing a1 the Epwonh Hospital in Melbourne.
22 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 HEALTH SERVICES: A POTENTIAL EXPORT INDUSTRY
Australian Governments should recog- nize the potential for tapping into this market for our medical services and research facilities at both inter-governmental and community levels. In the area of foreign aid, for example, there is scope for our medical services to con- tribute to an integrated program of community development. If, say, a village is found to have an infant mortality rate three times the national average, an aid program could focus on the causal factors — such as, perhaps, polluted water supply, aggravated by the poor nutrition received by infants and their mothers; or peri- odic food shortages associated with rudimen- tary food storage facilities. Such an aid program could then manage the clinical manifestations on a short-term basis, while also addressing the underlying causal issues to minimize the recurrence of the problem. This may well involve research and education as an adjunct to the material initia tives of an aid program. For example, if the opportunities to Asian neighbour countries, we are well posi- causal problem is one of parasitism, apart from finding a tioned on a cost-competitive and geographic basis to capital- method to break the parasite-host cycle, it may be appropriate ize on the emerging demand for post-graduate training. to develop an insecticide and a method of insecticide dispersal Sponsoring countries would benefit from the economies of specific to that parasite. This would involve applied research scale, and the access to technologies not otherwise available. and have broader ramifications beyond the specific village Australia would benefit too. Patient management and receiving aid. problem resolution would be enhanced in Australian hospitals, Australia already sponsors safe and sustainable (from a through to a commensurate reduction in unit costs, and an health viewpoint) water-supply programs and agricultural increased capability to acquire new technologies. If Australia development projects as part of its foreign aid. These two were to develop a role as the regional focus for health service initiatives alone already contribute significantly to the reduc- delivery then we could realistically expect to capture the tion of rates of morbidity and premature mortality amongst the majority of South-East Asian patients now travelling overseas recipient communities, especially at the infant and maternal for treatment to, for example, the USA, Holland, Germany health levels. What is missing is an overview that incorporates and the UK. aid, foreign and diplomatic policy, and Australian external relations at the community level in the recipient countries. Australia also has experience in addressing the sorts Need to Raise our Profile of public health issues facing developing countries; includ- ing the issues associated with public health care at the This requires the Federal Government to start thinking village and rural community levels. Many of the Northern in a holistic way in terms of foreign policy. We must significant- Territory Health Department s initiatives in cross-cultural ly raise our profile at the community level with our regional programs — such as the Aboriginal health worker program neighbours. Media reports about Australia are relatively rare (which trains community representatives to deliver primary in neighbouring countries. What reports there are, tend to be health care) and alternative technology projects like hand- negative or ill-informed. operated washing machines, environmentally appropriate While our clinical services and clinicians skills are com- pit-latrines and arid-zone permaculture research — fall parable to the best in the world, Australia does not promote within these boundaries, and are of direct relevance to our medical breakthroughs or innovations overseas. Nor do South-East Asian neighbours. Australian doctors advertise their skills overseas. Indeed, Health services have been used as the template in the medical practitioners are prohibited by the law from doing so. foregoing. But the concepts are equally applicable to such By contrast, countries such as America and Singapore areas as telecommunications, education, rural sciences, infor- routinely advertise their countries medical services, both at mation technologies and so forth. With Federal Government the generic service and individual clinician levels. help, Australia can develop a strategy that links domestic This raises consumer awareness, and helps win the busi- growth with a sustainable regional role. By integrating foreign ness for those countries despite the additional costs in air aid and foreign policy, Australia can position and market itself travel and accommodation charges, increased civil risk and, as a "good neighbour" while at the same time developing a of course, increased health service charges. service-oriented export sector. •
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 23 Soulmates The Victorian Council of Churches has apply for and receive the appropriate local government joined with the Victorian Trades Hall Council in permit. On which day did God create red tape? condemning economic rationalism. The full title of the press release announcing the combined action is `A Joint Maximizing Risk The National Insurance Statement on the Primacy of Human Dignity and Justice Brokers Association s 10th anniversary convention comes for Australia s Social and Economic Future in the Light of up at the end of October in Queensland. It will include a the Failure of Economic Rationalism . It is signed by Robert session entitled "The Environment and Global Warming -- Gribben for the Council of Churches and John Halfpenny an Insurance Perspective." The capacity of insurers to for the Trades Hall Council. calculate risk depends on the quality of the scientific advice The statement Is replete with cliches such as "We they receive. Only one of the three speakers at this session believe the economy exists to serve people, not that people claims expertise on the environment; the other two are be used to serve the interests of economic theory." The insurers. The speaker claiming environmental expertise is statement includes a declaration of "solidarity with Dr Jeremy Leggett, Greenpeace campaigner and author of Victoria s unemployed." Victoria s unemployed would be Global Warming: the Greenpeace Report. The marked right to view such a declaration from the Trades Hall rise in global temperature and catastrophic consequences Council as a decree from their Creator. which Dr Leggett is sure to predict may turn out to be a mirage; but the rise in premiums, if the insurance industry Regime of Error Some people build castles in the believes him, will be real enough. air; social scientists tend to build dungeons. Take, for example, this description of present day Australia by Julie Marcus, Senior Curator of Social History at the National Law Against Work Shearing contractor Graham Bruce $2,200 Museum in Canberra: "...in Australia the gaze of the state was fined (including costs) by a Queensland is a racist one... Aboriginal Australians remain subject to a court for working on a Sunday, reports The Australian. degree of violence which, I shall argue, constitutes a regime Mr Bruce said his team of shearers worked through a hot of terror. The state bolsters its gaze by a violence so severe weekend last February In order to save the lives of that it produces... the violence within Aboriginal society..." hundreds of drought-stricken lambs. The prosecution was If Marcus was describing the state in Nazi Germany or Pol initiated by the Australian Workers Union. AWU State Pot s Cambodia, "regime of terror" would be an Secretary, Bill Ludwig, argued that weekends must be kept appropriate phrase. But contemporary Australia? Marcus is work free to maintain the award system. "You can t allow right when she says elsewhere in her article (in Social shearers to work weekends. Otherwise you have got Justice Studies) that Aboriginal Australians are made to anarchy," he said. "What I ll never get over," said Mr participate in the fantasies of others — precisely those Bruce, "is that we ve been fined for working when there s fantasies which Marcus herself is perpetuating. What 11 per cent unemployment." exhibitions on Australia can we expect at the National Museum with Marcus as Curator of Social History? Bad Company Detained Burmese Opposition Leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been awarded UNESCO s Dictation, Dictator Geoff Maslen, former Simon Bolivar Prize for her human rights campaigning. Education Editor of The Age and not known for his Some might question whether the winner of last year s affection for private education, has found one private Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent opposition to school about which he is willing to write in raptures. The Burma s military rulers deserved to be lumped with an school is Preshill, Melbourne s oldest counter-cultural award named after a violent South American school, headed by Margaret Lyttle. Of Ms Lyttle and her revolutionary. But worse than this, Aung San Suu Kyi had school, Maslen says: "There is probably no other person to share the human rights prize with the former Tanzanian like her, or her school, anywhere on earth. " I hope he Is President, Julius Nyerere. right. Ms Lyttle complains: "High schools are becoming As ruler of Tanzania from 1961 to 1985, Nyerere did more like independent schools and most of those are so much to cripple his country economically and politically. fascist it s unbelievable. They could be Hitler himself!" He demonstrated little respect for the rights of Tanzanians. In Nyerere s one party socialist state torture, forced labour, political censorship of the press and other publications, Permits to Pray The Waverley City Council in detention without charge, arbitrary seizure of property by Melbourne has banned Rabbi Yisrael Rosenfeld from using the State, and dictatorial controls on trade unions were all his home as a place of worship. According to the Rabbi, as commonplace. This is the man said by the UNESCO jury reported in The Australian, only about six people to have worked tirelessly in the struggle against pove rty, regularly attended the services. But the Rabbi failed to disease and ignorance. But then Nyerere did ratify the UN
24 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 Conventions on Civil and Political Rights and Economic, "was probably not exceeded in any nation of Europe Social and Cultural Rights. during any of the last three centuries."
Reprimand Of the recently deceased Max Dupain, Beyond the Stork The facts of life are becoming one of Australia s greatest photographers, Age critic Greg increasingly complicated. A new book for children, Where Neville wrote: "his bold, straightforward composition of Did I Really Come From? published by Little Ark, alms everyday subjects had that easygoing charm we associate to explain the new reproductive technology. It `offers with stereotypes of Aussie masculinity like Bondi lifesavers children clear, non judgmental explanations of sexual and Bryan Brown." Neville wrote that Dupain s work "was intercourse, assisted conceptions (DI,1VF, GIFT), so quintessentially Australian it would be almost unpat riotic pregnancy, birth, adoption, and surrogacy." not to like it." This lapse was not allowed to pass by politically correct Age reader Barbara Hall who, also having spotted The A New Angle The intrusion of political ideology into the curriculum In Australia has so far infected only the Age s use of the sexist word "master" to descri be Dupain s humanities. But mathematicians and standing as a photographer, launched into Neville: "Neville scientists should not complacently lumps jingoism with male exclusivity... Aussie be complacent. The British journal, Race and Class, has masculinity is associated less with an easygoing charm, published an article with the pointed title `Western Mathematics: the Secret Weapon of more perhaps with a neurotic misogyny, and inability to Cultural Imperialism . To most people mathematical truths — such as that appreciate and relax with women. It is often expressed in the sum violence." of the angles of a triangle always equal 180 degrees are universal. The article s author Alan J. Bishop s response to this is to ask: "But where do degrees come Evidently, the message of the Government s domestic from? Why is the total 180? Why not 200 or 100? Indeed, violence campaign had not been lost on Ms Hall. why are we interested in triangles and their properties at The advertising campaign has been appearing in newspapers under the heading `The Man Next Door? A all? The answer to all these questions," he says, "is because typical ad begins "Gary, 32. Charming, sensitive, some people determined that it should be that way. intelligent, friendly, sympathetic and funny — to his friends Mathematical ideas, like any other ideas, are humanly and colleagues. Hostile, verbally aggressive, physically constructed." Western mathematics, Bishop argues, is a vehicle for violent... to his wife and family." At least those of us Western cultural values, "a dehumanized, objectified, unfortunate enough to be devoid of charm, sensitivity, ideological world-view." "Clearly," he acknowledges, intelligence, friendliness, sympathy or humour are above "many societies have recognized the suspicion. benefits to their peoples of adopting Western mathematics, science and technology. However, taking a broader view, one must ask should there not be more resistance to this cultural Naked Violence A solution to male violence against women has been proposed by Jim Vickers-Willis, hegemony?" Bishop s answer is yes; but his arguments President of the Quality of Life Association. He notes that don t add up. Race and Class "one group in our community without reported cases of Elsewhere in The Ella Baker-Nelson Center for rape is nudists. This is particularly interesting," he Mandela Anti-Racist Education is advertised. It continues, " because the Aborigines in their uncivilized is located at the University of Michigan in the Engineering perhaps? days also claimed there were no rapes in their society. Like Building. Social engineering nudists, they were naked. This compares with our so-called civilized rape and flasher culture in which women and True Believers Faith is at a low ebb in Australia. especially girls are constantly at risk. Are we not paying a But not all faiths. The Unitarian Church in East Melbourne high price for going along with religious ideas and is as evangelical as ever, continuing to display Iarge posters attitudes which promote shame in certain parts of our of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara in its windows. human body." Mr Vickers-Willis believes that more nude beaches would foster "the natural respect for womanhood which was a fundamental port of the naked Aboriginal culture." Vickers-Willis seems to imagine Abo rigines before European settlement in Australia as early hippies. In fact violence then was endemic. In The Triumph of the Nomads Geoffrey Blainey concluded that the death rate from (fJ among traditional Aborigines arising inter-tribal war
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 25 The Economics and Ethics of Takeovers Corporate raiders are often seen as predatory and destructive. But in fact they contribute to the dynamism of an economy.
NORMAN BARRY
HE 1980s was the age of the takeover boom in Anglo- American economies, although it was by no means the most excessive in America s economic history. It was an era in which considerable disruption was caused to economic organizations, including plant relocation, manage- ment restructuring and localized unemployment. All this seemed to be brought about not by the normal processes of economic change but by the short-term desire for profit dis- played by corporate raiders in hostile, and costly, bids for major corporations. It seemed to illustrate perfectly the anonymous nature of Anglo-American market societies; societies in which individuals meet entirely as strangers without long-term obligations. Acting under impersonal and abstract rules, they are concerned solely to maximize their immediate advantage at the potential cost of a social good, which they may or may not be aware of sharing. It is certainly not the case that free-market economies have to be organized in the Anglo-American way. Two of the most successful market economies in the world, Japan and Germany, for example, are characterized by rather different economic arrangements. Here firms appear to be engaged in more `intimate economic relationships in which instan- taneous gratification for the shareholders is subordinate to long-term considerations. Indeed, takeovers are rare in these countries. Such discipline over management as is required is brought about by other methods; notably the close supervisory role played by banks as major shareholders. This is a phenomenon which is absent in America (by law) and in Britain (by convention). Indeed, the differing economic institutions in Anglo- American economies go a long way towards explaining their differing economic styles. It had been noticed, since the pioneering study of the American corporation by Berle and The New York Stock Exchange
Nonnan P. Barry is Professor of Politics at the University of Buckingham, and Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University, Ohio.
26 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 THE ECONOMICS AND ETHICS OF TAKEOVERS
Means,2 that ownership and control of large-scale corpora- corporate raider, it is alleged, is only interested in realizing tions have become separated since, at least, the beginning short-run gains and is therefore almost certain to shed labour of this century. The demise of the owner-manager and his whose value is not immediately apparent. Indeed, it is notice- replacement by dispersed stockholders who, in effect, hire able that in Japanese and German firms, labour is employed managers to run the enterprise that they (only) nominally own over a long period, and often for life (though, of course, this has, according to the original theory, led to the domination of causes a certain amount of labour rigidity). American industry by bureaucratic empires, responsible to There are at least two considerations in connection with no-one and immune from competitive pressures. takeovers that I would like to analyze. First, the utilitarian Nevertheless, this phenomenon, if true, does not mean arguments that are advanced, for and against this method of that competitive capitalism is ultimately doomed, for the dis- economic control; and second, the ethical issues that have persed stockholders are not necessarily powerless. America arisen in the aftermath of the takeover boom of the 1980s. is not destined to be run by industrial, managerial elites, as J.K. Galbraith3 and others have supposed. The ultimate con- trol of the stockholder over management is exercised through Takeovers and the Social Good his ability to trade his shares. The stockholder is, in effect, only concerned about the price of his shares. If they are If industrial economies can progress without the costly under-performing in the market he will sell to someone who and disruptive method of reorganization brought about by thinks he can organize the assets better than the existing takeovers, does this not cast doubt on the efficacy of Adam managers. Therefore, the periodic bouts of extensive reor- Smith s `invisible hand in subtly uniting private and public ganization that take place through the takeover mechanism interest? Indeed, does not the existence of loosely-held public function as surrogates for the close supervisory role that corporations itself render Smith s message inappropriate? owner-managers play in small businesses. After all, he was specifically distrustful of the joint-stock Yet, by a curious irony, the one instrument that the company, believing that it would cause management sloth in shareholder has for restraining the excess of corporate power comparison to the automatic incentives to efficiency provided --- that is, the threat to sell his stock — becomes the single in a system of owner-managers. reason for the hostility with which takeovers are regarded. For Despite a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the by buying up shares at a premium, the corporate raider is then operation of takeovers in the US, there is no convincing able to reorganize the company, sell off unwanted parts and evidence that they have had an adverse effect on the American (let us hope) produce a viable enterprise. But in doing so he economy.4 Indeed, the corporate elites, whose motivations will disrupt existing arrangements and bring about the disap- cannot by any stretch of the imagination be described as more pointment of many expectations. Thus, on the one hand, moral than those of the typical corporate raider, would be entrenched managements are the subjects of moral obloquy even more entrenched were it not for the fear of removal for their failure to secure maximum shareholder value, yet on brought about by a takeover threat. In America, corporate the other, the corporate raider is viewed with considerable executives become adept, if not always successful, at influenc- disdain because he promises to do precisely that. ing Federal Government (witness Lee Iacocca s attempts to How can we explain this apparent paradox? It is a secure protection for the American motor industry) and also paradox in which economic and moral considerations seem to state legislatures (notice Boeing Corporation s successful at- be inextricably entwined. Again, if it is the case that some tempt to secure a Washington State statute which was subtly serious penalties should be attached to those responsible for drafted to make it invulnerable to any predators). the mismanagement of a company s assets (the prime cause of Again, in Britain, is it really conceivable that ICI, the the under-performance of its shares and hence its vul- largest company in the country, could have improved its per- nerability to a takeover), how is it that economies, notably formance by some government protection or privilege rather Germany and Japan, can perform so well in the absence of this than because of a threat from the legendary predator, Lord `necessary control mechanism? Hanson (who had noticed that the share price did not reflect The crucial point here is the fact that Anglo-American the underlying asset values of the company, and who had public companies are largely owned by institutional investors, therefore made a small, but ominous investment)? pension funds, mutual funds and so on, which have no real The difficulty in making a utilitarian comparison be- interest in the day-to-day running of the companies that they tween the performances of economies which are largely regu- nominally own. They have a contractual duty only to secure lated by the takeover mechanism and those which are not is the best return for their investors: indeed, they are that we can never know what would have been the case were `programmed to buy and sell stock according to relatively the present institutional arrangements not in place. small changes in price. The same reasoning applies to another criticism of the However, from a strictly economic point of view, this is takeover mechanism: this is the claim that shareholder value said to be disadvantageous since managements will be more is not in fact maximized as a result of takeovers. Evidence is worried about share price changes than actually running their often produced to show that this value is increased more by companies and, hence, more likely to take a short-term view. internal company growth than by acquisitions. Of course, it is It is frequently held that they will be particularly disinclined certainly true that the share value of the target company is to take on highly specific labour, since this labour s produc- maximized because the stock is bought by the predator at a tivity is likely to be realized only over the very long term. The premium, but it is said this cannot be a reliable indicator of
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 27 THE ECONOMICS AND ETHICS OF TAKEOVERS long-term growth. The evidence appears not to be conclusive governments should be active in preventing takeovers. The on this issue. Certainly the shareholders of Hanson PLC have injunction is the simple one that governments ought to make seen the value of their assets increase during the company s the tax system as neutral as possible so that undesirable long period of growth, largely through acquisitions: The takeover activity is discouraged. People cannot be blamed, notorious Guinness takeover of Distillers produced a massive either economically or morally, for taking advantage of rules rise in the price of Guinness shares. In companies that appear and practices which may be to the long-run disadvantage of not to gain, the counter-factual is relevant: what would have society (which includes, of course, themselves). There are happened to them if they had not embarked on acquisitions? clearly prisoners dilemmas here; but they are mainly of In the absence of any convincing evidence that an arrest governments own making. by government of the process of industrial change through takeovers could generate utility gains, we need to be very cautious. Furthermore, public choice strongly suggests that The Morality of Takeover Activity any intervention in the takeover process would be at the behest of these particularized groups which suffer from takeovers, The moral argument against excessive takeover activity and not compelled by impartial spokesmen for the common (how much is excessive?) is that, irrespective of efficiency good (whatever that may be). If indeed it is the case that the consideration, a whole network of rights and duties ought to structure of Anglo-American industry does not favour long- act as constraints on corporate predatory behaviour. Instead term industrial projects, that those economies will gradually of there simply being duties that managers owe to atrophy because insufficient investment is made, then surely shareholders, which are normally exhausted by success in convincing evidence would have been produced by now. maximising returns, there are duties to other stakeholders in an organization. They will include employees, their families and the members of the community who may be adversely affected by industrial reorganization brought about by a The main employment losses in recent takeover. Since the predator is normally motivated by greed years in America have come in the he will not take these other interests into account. There is a problem here, for a free market operates with automobile industry, where huge a somewhat attenuated morality. It is a blind, impersonal corporations are more or less process whose benefits (and disadvantages) are not in theory takeover-proof experienced by known individuals but rather by anonymous agents. There is actually some advantage to this, since it ensures at the minimum that the rules under which exchange operates are themselves blind and impersonal. It specifically Indeed, if the efficient markets hypothesis is broadly precludes rules that favour one group as against another or true — that is, if the stock market is correct in its evaluation those that make the right to exchange turn upon racial, of profitable opportunities — then the prospects of future religious or sexual criteria. These are normally inefficient in profits will have been incorporated already into prices. In that, under them, possible gains from trade are foregone. But other words, there is no possibility of further profitable ven- they are also morally condemnable. However, i.n a rule- tures since, if there were, somebody would have already governed and well-functioning market, it is difficult to know noticed them. But even if this is a somewhat misleading in advance who will be the victim of a takeover process, and general equilibrium approach to the market (an approach even if a person notices that his activity is under threat, he is which underplays the importance of entrepreneurial activity not being specifically picked out. A minimalist sense of justice in the discovery of new opportunities) it does not follow that is thus preserved. the state itself could make judgments which, in effect, beat the Still, the critic of the takeover process can always point market. Far from it, if the experience of British Governments to specific cases of apparent injustice: people laid off or made at picking winners is anything to go by. unemployed and whole communities affected for no other There is, however, a connection between government reason than the (perhaps minor) downward movement of a and the market that is worth exploring. It might be that a share price. Many debt-financed takeovers are designed considerable amount of undesirable takeover activity does specifically with the break-up of companies in mind. A com- take place; not because a natural market process generates it, pany will be bought with borrowed money, bits of it will be sold but because government activity distorts the market. Govern- off or closed down, and the new owners are left with a shell of ment taxation policy is highly relevant here .6 I am thinking of a company at virtually no cost. It is no comfort to those the fact that, in general, interest payments on debt are disadvantaged that the company may well have been (as was tax-deductible for corporations while dividend payments on often the case) a conglomeration that had diversified unwisely, equity are not. This is surely one reason why there has been so and whose purchases had not brought about useful synergies much debt-financed takeover activity in America. but were emblems of corporate empire-building. The person Distortions such as this probably increase the amount made unemployed will feel that he has been used as a means of merger and takeover activity beyond its optimal level - to the ends of others, no matter how impersonal the process the amount required to discipline incumbent managements. is in theory. However, the recognition of them does not entail that Whatever the reason for unemployment it is difficult to
28 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1942 THE ECONOMICS AND Emits OF TAKEOVERS construct an uncontroversial ethics system for business people In the absence of such activity it is difficult to see how in general, and corporate raiders in particular, that dictates Anglo-American economies could progress. Any legislation how they should act. For one thing, it is surely impossible to to protect incumbent managers from predators would merely write a statute which would distinguish the adverse conse- serve to delay that progress. Indeed, the corporate raiders of quences of a hypothetically unjustified takeover from one that the 1980s in the US were actually disturbing, sometimes quite occurs through natural economic processes of change, and dramatically, the torpor of corporate America. In this sense, necessary adjustment to, say, a fall in demand for a particular corporate restructuring through raiding is a part of the natural product. It is seldom commented on that the main employ- competitive process. Contested bids are in fact illustrations of ment losses in recent years in America have come in the rival competition. automobile industry, where huge corporations, such as General Motors, are more or less takeover-proof. No one directly blames the corporate bureaucracy there for the un- employment. Furthermore, the available evidence suggests The feature of the corporate raider s that it is management rather than workers who are the major victims of corporate restructuring. activity that has economic value is his The emphasis on the duties to stakeholders is often a mental alertness to the possibility of new device through which corporate managers can evade their and different ways of doing things. duties to the principals, the stockholders. It should be noted here that in economies of the Anglo-American type, in which the dispersed owners of companies are actually members of pension funds and insurance schemes, the victims of an over- The activities of the much-maligned junk bond king, zealous concern for the stakeholders are in fact ordinary Michael Milken, can be explained in terms of entrepreneur- people; not the large capitalists. Fund managers are merely ship8 (leaving aside the relatively trivial offences for which he fulfilling their duties to them when they apparently churn was eventually imprisoned). He, in effect, discovered a new needlessly their paper assets around the stock markets. way of financing speculative business ventures. He noticed that the ratings awarded to various corporate bonds by the standard credit rating agencies did not reflect accurately the Entrepreneurship and the Takeover Process credit-worthiness of corporate debt. On his extensive analysis, it turned out that the default rate on risky bonds was really There is, perhaps, a more fundamental economic and quite low and there was an opportunity for profits to be made moral explanation (and justification) of takeovers in Anglo- by linking borrower and lender. Of course, the fact that these American economies. This relates to the practice of bonds were not given a credit rating meant that they had to entrepreneurship, by which these economic systems are pay high returns. But, as Milken noticed, the majority of powered. People mistakenly tend to think of modern production American corporate bonds were not given a credit rating (they processes as routinized, almost mechanical, systems in which the were, technically, junk). Hence, if a person spread his risks production possibilities of labour, land and capital are known in widely he would be unlikely to lose. advance; and in which these factors of production are paid just In fact, the bulk of Milken s bonds were originally used enough income to keep them optimally employed. by small, expanding corporations who could not otherwise However, we know from modern Austrian economics7 raise capital. However, the fact that later on some significant that this is an inadequate description of the way that modern American corporate raiders were financed by this method was economies work. They are characterized by such change and sufficient to make his actions condemnable, especially in the uncertainty that we can never know in advance what the eyes of the corporate establishment. optimal method of producing a good is, or what future market Why are such activities commonly regarded as immoral? demand there will be for what goods, or what profitable I suspect it is because Western countries are still in the grip of opportunities may arise. It is the function of the entrepreneur rather primitive notions of social justice. Despite the in- — who is not, technically, an owner of capital — to grasp these creased understanding of the role that markets play in the opportunities (which arise naturally in a state of disequi- allocation of capital, there is still a widely-held view that the librium) and turn them into profitable activities. rewards (which can be enormous) from this are undeserved Now it should be clear that takeovers involve because they do not relate directly to physical production. entrepreneurship to a great degree. The raider notices that They look far too much like windfall gains, rather than the the current assets of a company are being mismanaged (as rewards for genuine discovery. Yet, to the extent that they revealed by the falling share price) and he guesses that they reflect the market s evaluation of wealth-creating activity, they can be reorganized to achieve greater profit. Not necessarily can be validated in terms of distributive justice. being a resource owner himself, he will most likely have to borrow heavily to achieve the takeover, although he may eventually become the owner of substantial capital. The fea- Rights and Wrongs in Takeovers ture of the corporate raider s activity that has economic value is his mental alertness to the possibility of new and different None of this is meant to deny that there were serious ways of doing things. moral misdemeanours and, of course, crimes during the
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 29 THE ECONOMICS AND ETHICS OF TAKEOVERS
takeover era of the 1980s. But it should be noted that the bidders, who have invested a small amount in the target s scandals were just as likely to involve the financial inter- share, have their shares bought back by the target company at mediaries involved in takeovers as the raiders themselves. I a premiums, on the understanding that they will not go ahead mention here the problem of insider dealing, the practice of with the bid. Thus, not only is the deal not consummated, but trading by company employees, or other connected parties, in the pre-existing shareholders are unfairly treated: in that they company shares on the basis of undisclosed information. The do not have the opportunity to sell at the high price. But even morality of insider dealing is itself a complex issue, 9 but in the here, the real immorality is with the management for offering events of the 1980s the matter was relatively straightforward. to pay greenmail, rather than with the raiders for taking it. Ivan Boesky, for example, was an arbitrageur who bought up shares in companies which he thought likely to be the targets of a takeover. Arbitrage is, of course, in principle a perfectly Conclusion respectable activity which pushes prices in the right direction. Boesky, however, bribed a financial intermediary, Dennis As long as capitalist economies remain as they are, Levine, who worked for a number of Wall Street investment mergers and takeovers will be an integral part of them. At the banks, to get information about forthcoming takeovers. Bid- level of small business, of course, they are taking place all the ding companies do not want the information about their inten- time, with scarcely a whisper of dissent. They become con- tions to be revealed since this will push up the price of the target troversial when large corporations, whose owners are company. Levine, who handled a number of takeovers and separated from the managers, become the subject of hostile mergers, was under a strict duty not to reveal such information. bids. All sorts of emotional, and indeed nationalistic, symbols The fact that he sold information to Boesky made him a thief come to the fore when a company goes into play ; particularly and Boesky a fence. They were rightly convicted. when the bidder is a foreigner. The hostility to them reflects to a great extent the lack of understanding that still persists of the sometimes arcane workings of capitalism. The unpopularity that they often generate no doubt stems from the undeserved rewards that accrue to the par- ticipants, especially the financial intermediaries. Indeed, takeovers are costly and sometimes there seems to be little of economic benefit in the result. Nevertheless, they are a part of commercial liberty which governments would be unwise, for ethical and utilitarian reasons, to suppress. The only way in which they could be reduced would be through the re-emer- gence of a significant number of owner-managed enterprises; a somewhat unlikely occurrence. The close corporations and interlocking directorships of other economic regimes would surely not be welcomed in societies which pride themselves on their openness, and in which shareholders (either as individual investors or as members of institutional systems) are thought to be entitled to their rewards. ■
1. The 1890s saw proportionately more takeover activity in the US. Ivan Boesky 2. Adolph Berle and Gardiner Means, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, New York, Harcourt Brace, revised edition, 1967. It is, no doubt, the ruthlessness that often takes place in 3. John Kenneth Galbraith, The New Industrial State, Harmondsworth, the competitive struggle which gives sustenance to the com- Penguin, 1974. mon prejudice against takeovers. However, it should not be 4. See Henry G. Manne, Mergers and the Market for Corporate Control , assumed that, because particular individuals commit immoral Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 73, 1965, and Michael Jensen, Takeovers: Their Causes and Consequences , Journal of Economic acts, the activity itself is necessarily immoral. A generalized Perspectives, Vol. 2, 1988. prohibition of it because of past misdeeds would deprive the 5. See Peter Linneman and Elizabeth Callison, Understanding Target public, and, of course, individual shareholders, of legitimate Management s Role When Facing an Unsolicited Takeover Attempt , gains. in W. Hoffman, R. Frederick and E. Petry (eds.), The Ethicsof trgnnua- tional Transformation, New York, Quorum, p. 153. Indeed, much of the immorality involved in takeovers 6. See A.T. Peacock and G. Bannock, Takeovers and the Public Interest, arises out of the activities of incumbent managements anxious Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press, 1991, Chapter 3. to preserve their jobs and privileges. Ali manner of complex 7. See F.A. von Hayek, Individualism and Economic Order, London, and exotic schemes have been devised to deal with hostile bids, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948; and Ludwig von Mises, Human including poison pills , golden parachutes (schemes by Action, Chicago, Henry, Regnery, 3rd edition, 1963. 8. Sec Norman P. Barry, The Morality of Business Enterprise, Aberdeen, which managements are handsomely rewarded for their com- Aberdeen University Press,1991, Chapter 5. pliance with a predator) and greenmail . Greenmail is par- 9. See Henry G. Manne, Insider Tradingand the Stock Market, New York, ticularly dubious morally. In a greenmail operation hostile Free Press, 1966.
30 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 Beyond self-interest: ethics and the market Management must provide leadership in underlining the role of moral standards in business.
ROB FERGUSON
"At the beginning of the 1980s there was a kind of moral fad in parts of the United States that spread almost immediately to Europe. The age-old, Anglo-European taboo of handling money was shoved offstage by the sheer force of events in the financial world, clearing the way for a new money culture." — Michael Lewis, The Money Cuhure,1991.
T the 1980s saw was a cyclical explosion in "the money culture" and the financial markets were the centre of that activity. The "sheer force of events" that pushed aside the long-established conservatism of the banking and finance sector was the arrival of financial deregulation via a market-driven approach to our economic people they attract, but there is a special attraction problems. Now in the downward phase of this explosion, we of markets. If somebody goes through life and are in a reflective mood. We can all see the wreckage of measures themselves solely by how much they have collapsed companies, the debt overhang and the suffering this or how much they earned last year, then sooner or has brought. We are questioning what went wrong. What later they are going to get into trouble."1 happened to the checks and balances that were supposed to This sounds like another version of describing love of protect our economy from the abuses we have seen? money as the root of all evil. As one would expect, the answers to these questions are not simple. There are many factors that have contributed to the follies we have witnessed, but the overriding issue revolves around the timeless question of ethics. The worlds of wealth The Nature of Markets and ethics can make demands upon us that create tension, and If one reads between the lines, what Buffett seems to be when society experiences a boom (albeit a largely phoney saying is that markets are not corrupt, but that they can be boom) of the magnitude that we saw in the 1980s, this tension corrupting. Markets are not a living thing but an abstraction. is likely to be at an extreme. They therefore lack a charged moral quality, being neither When Warren Buffett, the new Chairman of Salomon moral nor immoral, but amoral. Bros, appeared before a sub-committee of the United States Essentially, our financial market system works reasonab- House of Representatives to apologize for the activities of a ly well in allocating the scarce resource of capital, and certain- number of ex-employees of Salomon s in the US Treasury ly better than any known alternatives. Problems emerge when Bond market, he summed up the issue nicely: the humans who operate in markets fail to exhibit a disposition "Huge markets attract people who measure them- to be ethical. One response to this is to insist on prudential selves solely by money. It s not the only type of standards expressed in the form of rules and regulations. But
Rob Ferguson is Managing Director of Bankers Trust Australia.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 31 BEYOND SELF-INTEREST: ETHICS AND THE MARKET while these work as a disincentive to bad behaviour, they do they were to ask themselves whether they would be willing to not necessarily have the positive effect of increasing the for- have the contemplated act reported the next day on the front mation of appropriate moral attitudes. Rather, they tend to page of their local paper to;be read by their spouses, children reinforce an attitude based on the fear of getting caught. and friends. He made the point that if you adopted this There are some regulations that, within limits, have a attitude, there was little need to consult the statutes or ring a positive effect on the smooth and efficient operation of a lawyer: because this approach, which is based on the law of market. Essentially, these are rules which try to achieve main- nature, would abide by the spirit of the legal system and not tenance of competition through requirements such as that of just the letter of the law. full disclosure. Other forms of regulation, which assume that What he was really doing here was seeking to equate the participants will act immorally if allowed the opportunity, are typically higher standards and values of the home with the necessary evils. They are necessary because they ensure that workplace. The underlying assumption of this approach is that market players do not transgress community expectations, and those closest to you at home or elsewhere have views and they are evils because they impede the efficiency of markets. opinions which you really value. These rules and regulations are the cost of not being able to trust market participants. Interest and Self-Interest
A Question of Ethics The tendency for those dealing in money to be corrupted has long been recognized. Aristotle said in Politics: "Interest, This leads to the subject of appropriate ethical be- which means the birth of money from money...of all the modes haviour. What are ethics? The word `ethic comes from the of getting wealth this is the most unnatural." Greek thos, which means custom; `moral comes from the Anti-usury laws long existed in reflection of the Church s Latin mos, which also means custom. So, ethics and morals views on usury. The charging of interest for profit was legal- are to do with how one behaves where one belongs. Socrates ized in Great Britain in 1571. This liberalization facilitated the posed the first ethical question when he asked, "What ought growth of the great family banks of Europe and, when ul- one to do?" As has been pointed out, "Such a question chal- timately combined with the inventions of the Industrial lenges every aspect of our fives: ,from the way we allocate our Revolution and the creation of limited liability in 1855, time to the way we treat one another in our dealings with each produced the capitalist society that we know today. But other."2 The question of ethical behaviour is, therefore, an capitalism is based on self-interest which, on the face of it, immensely practical question, and not just one for academic seems to conflict with ethical behaviour. So, if (as C.S. Lewis theorists. However, like any profound question, it sometimes says) "Selfishness has never been admired," how do we recon- seems difficult to pin down an answer. cile this apparent conflict? Is it too far-fetched to suggest that in regard to everyday When people talk approvingly of the power of self-inter- matters we all know what is right or wrong? Dr Johnson once est they use Adam Smith s "invisible hand" as justification. But said of morals: "People need to be reminded more often than in The Wealth of Nations, Smith also said: "To promote the they need to be instructed." C.S. Lewis believed that we all little interest of one little order of men in one country, it hurts "have in mind some kind of law or rule of fair play or decent the interests of all other orders of men in that country and of behaviour"3 about which we all agree. This law, frequently all other men in all other countries." This statement was made called the law of nature, crosses the gulf between different in relation to cartels and monopolies. However, it does go to cultures and different ages. As C.S. Lewis says, "Can you think show that Adam Smith, a moral philosopher, never aban- of a country where people are admired for running away in doned his concern that "good be gained for all" set against battle, or where a man felt proud for double-crossing some- "the selfish interests of a few." body who had been kind to him?...Selfishness has never been Having said this, it should be observed that appeal to admired." self-interest can take you a fair way along the road of good One test of our awareness of right and wrong is to ethics. For example, as a bank you may decide not to lend to compare our behaviour in private life with the values and somebody who is immoral because that person is unlikely to standards we apply in the workplace. (This, of course, assumes feel overly inclined to repay you. This stand avoids the reputa- that good standards of behaviour apply at a person s home.) tion risk of being involved with immoral people and may also They should be complementary. Often they are not, because be good ethics from a community standpoint as it denies the workplace is to do with competition, ambition and survival, funding to an immoral person. whilst support, acceptance and belonging tend to be the But self-interest runs into difficulties when you consider founding principles of the home. At the end of the day, this Glaucon s argument to Socrates. Imagine, says Glaucon, that test can be no more than that — a test. But values, once you have the magic ring of Gyges. Possession of the ring makes established, should transcend one s environment, otherwise you invisible and therefore allows you to get away with all they are superficial. manner of unethical and even evil deeds. As a bonus it protects Buffett s response to the ethical issue at Salomon Bros you from the damage to your reputation that might flow from was to try to call on people s sense of right and wrong. The dealing with immoral people. With this device it would be way he did it was to ask people to think of themselves as their possible to lend money for any purpose — however reprehen- own compliance officer: before they undertook any action, sible. Glaucon said: "If you could imagine anyone obtaining this
32 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 BEYOND SELF-INTEREST: ETHICS AND THE MARKET power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or career. These people ran the risk of burn-out and usually touching what was another s, he would be thought by on- failed to balance the requirements of their business and lookers to be a most wretched idiot." private lives. Ultimately the only counter to Glaucon is to have an Business, and the financial sector in particular, needs to ethical standard that surpasses self-interest. Self-interest is reaffirm its purpose in the community. For those industries too narrow a standard under which to operate. Ethical be- which, unlike the financial sector, create tangible products, it haviour involves preparedness to take account of the well- is often relatively easy to see this purpose (though seeing a being of others. purpose does not necessarily mean that one adheres to that C.S. Lewis expands on the definition of ethics, saying: purpose). "Morality seems to be concerned with three things. First, with fair play and harmony between individuals. Second, with what might be called tidying up or harmonizing the things inside each individual. Third, with the general purpose of human life Mark Twain had a saying which went: as a whole: what man was made for; what course the whole "Fish go bad from the head first." feet ought to be on; what time the conductor of the band wants it to play."4
How does the community see the financial sector? Essentials for Enduring Success Traditionally the community has looking to us for stability, conservatism and advice. We are the custodians of the I am reminded of a story told to me by my colleague, community s savings, and quite rightly the community expects Bruce Hogan. Bruce was attending a school speech night and a high standard of behaviour from us. "When banks begin to listened to a lady speak on the research she had done to try to do things which threaten either stability or trust, it causes a discover the common characteristics of successful organiza- tremendous sense of unease. You expect banks to be fair tions -. not just in business, but in health, education, welfare players. I believe above all what people seek from banks is and other activities. truthfulness, trustworthiness and fidelity."l In her view, successful organizations are characterized by three things: . respect for the individual; Doing the Right Thing a desire by the organization to be the best and to develop How do we ensure that in the future the ethical issue its people to be the best they can be; remains at the forefront of employees minds rather than a sense that the organization s purpose and activities are drifting into the unconscious, as it seemed to do in the 1980s? worthwhile. Mark Twain had a saying which went: "Fish go bad from the head first." What he meant was that the ethical standards This analysis resembles C.S. Lewis s, and suggests a of any organization are set at the top. Unfortunately, group framework for answering Socrates question: "What ought behaviour and the nature of organizations are such that people one to do?" So it seems to me that the resolution of the conflict tend to suppress their sense of right or wrong if they feel that between capitalism s emphasis on self and the ethical question this is what is required of them. The positive side of this is that becomes a little clearer. people would prefer to do the right thing. So management has In a capitalist society we only accord genuine respect to to make it clear where it stands. enduringly successful organizations, not fly-by-nighters. To be Remember Dr Johnson s observation: "People need to an enduringly successful organization you need the members be reminded more often than they need to be instructed." This of that organization working to their optimum, respecting is not done simply by written codes and pronouncements, but each other (that is, a minimum of internal politics) and, finally also by setting the right example and communicating expecta- and most importantly, the organization needs a social purpose tions in terms of daily conduct. If management convinces beyond itself and its constituents: in other words, values and employees that it expects ethical behaviour, then the sense of standards that go beyond self-interest. right and wrong under which we all operate, aided by the It seems to me that the main problem in the 1980s was healthy discipline of peer-group pressure, should ensure our that business, and particularly those in the financial sector, lost industry does its part in upholding proper standards. ■ sight of the three fundamentals on which are built enduring, successful organizations. There were plenty of people in or-
ganizations who were motivated to work hard, fewer who 1. United States House of Representatives, House Committee on Energy respected their fellow workers efforts, and not many at all who and Commerce, Washington DC, 4 September 1991. felt they had a social purpose beyond themselves. This 2. Morals and Ethics: Where is Society Headed? Speech by Dr Simon syndrome is epitomized by the 1980s attitude of working hard Longstaff, Executive Director, The St James Ethics Centre, 1992. to accumulate wealth quickly to enable early retirement to 3. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity. some beach resort. Implicit in this was an attitude of doing 4. Ibid. something that you didn t necessarily like or see as a long-term 5. Longstaff, op. cit.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 33 Making the Police More Accountable If they are to continue to command public confidence, the police must be accountable to the public. A former member of the Victoria Police Force argues that we could usefully learn from Britain s methods of independent appraisal of police departments.
ERIC HORNE
HE 1985 Neesham Committee of Inquiry into the func- the evidence of racial prejudice in the New South Wales tions of the Victorian Police Force made 220 recom- police; the Continental Airlines scandal involving police in mendations directed towards reforming that force. Victoria; the drug-dealing by a senior South Australian police TheT report also stated that "every organization (particularly officer: all these are evidence of the need for increased public government agencies) at regular intervals should be subjected supervision of the police. Many cases of irregularities in police to detailed and objective appraisal." During my 36 years behaviour and procedures become widely known throughout service with the Victoria Police there were only two such a particular force, but for many and complex reasons, senior appraisals, the St Johnson inspection in 1970-71 and the police are reluctant to act. Offences by lower-ranking police Neesham Inquiry some 15 years later. I firmly believe that, in are often energetically prosecuted but those committed by the interests of both the public and the police, this arrange- senior police have a tendency to be overlooked. ment — that of crisis-type appraisals — is not satisfactory. The What we urgently need is an organization with a function important and sensitive role which police play as part of the similar to that existing in the United Kingdom, in the form of public suggests that they should be subjected to continuous Her Majesty s Inspectorate of Constabulary. It should, like the and detailed appraisal, rather than appraisal at irregular and Inspectorate, be a body independent of police control and lengthy intervals. In the light of recent events involving should report on all aspects of police efficiency and effective- Australian police, this proposal is particularly relevant to the ness. I would suggest that such an organization report directly more senior levels of police superintendence. to Parliament rather than to a Police Ministry. It should be Robert Haldane, the police historian, comments in the civilian in nature, and be headed by a person of irreproachable book The People s Force that "since 1836 almost every impor- character: preferably a person with a professional legal and tant decision and action on the development of policing in criminological background. He or she should be assisted by Victoria has come from beyond the force." He adds that the tertiary-qualified ex-police officers of senior rank, who are not Victoria Police has "generally been a slow, timid and erring former members of the force which they inspect. A staff of a bureaucracy." There is some evidence to show that these Chief Inspector and two Assistant Inspectors would probably comments are relevant today, for most Australian police be adequate for a force the size of the Victoria Police. Such forces. an inspectorate could be provided by a Federal authority which would be responsible for inspecting all Australian law enforcement bodies. Disturbing Incidents The proposed inspectorate should be a consumer - oriented organization and should conduct its inspections ac- In recent years incidents which may have been due to cording to public expectations of law enforcement, rather than inadequate supervision have occurred with disturbing fre- to the dynamics of police service imperatives. It should be quency. The inquiries into police corruption in Queensland; noted that the Victoria Police has adopted as one of its
Eric Home served for 36 years in the Victorian Police Force in a wide variety of positions, retiring as a Chief Inspector. A graduate of Deakin University in the Social Sciences, he is now employed part-time as a tutor of Anthropology and History at Mannix College, Mon ash University.
34 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 MAKING ThE POLICE MORE ACCOUNTABLE principles "that the police are the public and that the public was then ordered to assault a further eight houses in succes- are the police." This principle, still valid today, was created sion — on speculation only. Then, with no explanation given, by Sir Robert Peel in 1829 when he was establishing the the group vanished into the night, leaving a street of terrified London Metropolitan Police. Yet recently it seems to have and puzzled residents. Even to this day, I cannot fully under- been overlooked by many police of all ranks. stand how an organization such as the Victoria Police could allow such a disastrous situation to develop, particularly when it had been warned of the potential for disaster at a senior Bad Leadership, Misguided Loyalty level. Why were these two situations allowed to arise? In the My own experiences with the Victoria Police strengthen first case it appears that the police command gave the Govern- my belief in the need for independent inspections of police. ment House and Shrine of Remembrance Security Group a When I took charge of the Government House and Shrine of low-level status in police affairs, not realizing its detrimental Remembrance Security Group in 1977 — at the request of effect on the reputation of the Victoria Police as a whole. In Chief Commissioner Reg Jackson — I found a group of the second case I suspect that it was a misguided sense of badly-led police, with filthy and unorganized accommodation, loyalty which took priority over the police and public interest. and with no specialized training to meet the high-security needs of Government House. There were many top-quality sub-officers and constables in the group who were over- Police and Public Benefit whelmed by poor leadership and departmental apathy. It was only after several incidents provoked the then State Governor These and more recent events — both in Victoria and to threaten to disown the guard that the police hierarchy sat interstate — reveal, I believe, an urgent need for reforming up and took notice. They became aware that distinguished the public s supervision processes of its police. The present visitors to Government House were often affected by the poor system of inspection within the Victoria Police is carried out standards of the guard; and somewhat unfairly, these visitors by the Force Inspectorate under the superintendence of a attributed such poor standards to the rest of the Victoria Commander: that is, an officer one rank above the Chief Police. Superintendent. The Chief Superintendent has considerable autonomy within the police, and is usually responsible for police operations within a large group or a defined geographi- cal area. The people who appear to do the actual inspections Their terror as a group of black-suited of the Chief Superintendent s activities are Chief Inspectors, two ranks below. Such subordinates are unlikely to submit armed men burst in through the windows adverse reports on the efficiency and effectiveness of their and doors can only be imagined. superiors. An independent police inspectorate, reporting directly to Parliament, would be in the interests not only of the public at large but also of policemen themselves. From my ex- A further example, more serious this time, became evi- perience, most of the police who are in direct contact with the dent when in 1981 I was promoted to Chief Inspector at the public do a sterling job; but their resources are often limited, Protective Security Group. I had been involved in this group s and they seldom receive the support which their dangerous establishment, through my service as a Major in the Army and difficult job demands. As the Police Association has at Reserve. By reputation it was a most efficient group, dealing times stated, police officers rising through the ranks to the top with a range of critical and highly dangerous emergency situa- of the hierarchy tend to lose their knowledge and under- tions. Yet it did not take me long to become aware that the standing of the problems which their juniors in the public eye group had severe problems at the command level. I shall never undergo. They also tend to ignore the welfare aspects of forget discovering by accident that I was responsible for a operational police and their families. Independent inspec- high-risk operation, about which I had not been told, and tions may do much to reveal the true state of affairs within a which had been running for some hours. Eventually, on the police force, and the true state of police relations with the advice of the Police Association s Secretary, I took the career- public. damaging course of advising a Deputy Commissioner of the Some police may find the suggestion of an independent situation. At times, I told him, I feared that the lives of police inspectorate unwarranted and demeaning. But evidence indi- and the public were at unnecessary risk. To my knowledge cates that police affairs, if they are to receive public support, nothing was done. need to be publicly known. And certainly there is nothing I was therefore not surprised when in September 1983, demeaning about the public accountability of police in a at Healesville, a search for four dangerous prison escapees democracy. Those who criticize independent inspections was an operational fiasco. Members of the Protective Security should remember another of Sir Robert Peel s principles. It is Group, early one morning, broke into a house occupied by an this: "To recognize always that the power of the police to fulfil innocent man and his young children. Their terror as a group their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of of black-suited armed men burst in through the windows and their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to doors can onlybe imagined. Discovering its mistake, the group secure and maintain public respect." ■
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 199235 Where man is not, nature is barren
The traditional understanding of work as a means to the fulfilment of man and nature is challenged by environmentalism.
ROGER SWORDER
LLIAM BLAKE wrote Where man is not, nature is organization of society is the division of labour. The basic barren. He is suggesting that unless man is working argument which Plato gives for the division of labour is that with nature, nature produces nothing. It strikes me each of us is born with a predisposition for a particular kind that environmentalism as we have it is essentially sterile: that of work. When a society is organized in a way that allows is to say, its way of thinking about nature and people denies people to fulfil or live out their predispositions, it is a just and much more positive views of the human and natural worlds. productive society; everybody attends to the work to which he Other and older ways of thinking suggest that the kinds of work is called. In this Plato is close to another valuable philosophi- we do with nature are extraordinarily important both to nature cal tradition — the Indian tradition. In Hinduism, we are told and to ourselves. that the path we must take if we are to be spiritually fulfilled When I was growing up in England, the English fox-hunt is the path of Karma Yoga. Karma Yoga is precisely the became a matter of considerable dispute. I remember seeing following of one s vocation. on television, week after week, news items which showed One of the most upsetting things about the environmen- protesters attempting to stop fox-hunting. In part this protest tal debate is the readiness with which those who oppose was class-based, but there was something else to it. The certain kinds of work claim that those kinds of work are protesters claimed that in trying to save the foxes from hunters performed only through greed. We are told that miners want they were standing up for life and nature, and that the fox- to mine, and timber worker s want to cut down trees, merely hunters were destructive and evil. This is really a very odd because they want to make money. That, I think, is slanderous. assertion. What we saw in those news items were beautifully Why would those who wish to devote their lives to working groomed horses, and well-trained and cared-for hounds. with the earth, or administering mining companies, or felting When the hunt started, the hunters would cross miles of forests be thought to be operating solely out of greed? On the countryside which they knew extremely well. Quite clearly, the contrary, it seems to me that even now, when the notion of people who were doing the hunting were engaged with nature predispositions for particular kinds of work is less strong than to an exceptional degree. it used to be, people go to those kinds of work because they What were the protesters claiming? They were interven- are called to them. The notion that work is central to human ing in a process which they misunderstood. They had a certain life, and that without it we cannot be who we truly are, is seen concern for the foxes, but they seemed completely blind to the even now in the way in which people pursue hobbies in their way in which the care of the hounds and horses constituted a own time: they engage in unpaid work for the sheer love of it. very much more real engagement with the natural world than Plato s notion of predisposition to work was also strong their own. This is a good example of the way in which the in the Middle Ages. The culminating author of the Middle environmental problem arises. What we have are, on the one Ages, Dante, emphasizes the importance of work as a means hand, people working with nature, who understand and live it; to human fulfilment and spiritual realization. The proper way and on the other hand, people who are objecting but who, in to live in accordance with God is to carry on God s work in many cases, know very much less about it than those to whom creating the natural world by creating things ourselves. Those they object. who do not so create are guilty of a sin. In The Inferno they are To learn how the human and natural worlds interconnect placed naked on a burning plain on which rain flakes of fire in the traditional understanding, we should look at Plato. In for eternity. The Republic we are told that the fundamental basis for the The Platonic theory of work involves another important
Dr Roger Sworder is Head of Humanities at La Trobe University College of Northern Victoria, in Bendigo.
36 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 WHERE MAN IS NOT, NATURE IS BARREN element. For Plato, the craftsman and the farmer are as much the milking. In general, fairies were considered very helpful to involved in contemplation as they are in action. This is a central human workers in all sorts of ways. element of many traditional theories of work, not only in Europe but in India and among the Aborigines too. Just as the painter needs to look at a scene in order to represent it, so the Wordsworth, father of environmentalism craftsman needs to contemplate the idea of the thing to be made in order to make it. If he merely copies what other people In the early 17th century, in the wake of the Puritan make, he is not truly a craftsman. This division of work into two Revolution in England and Europe, we are told by the poets parts, the contemplative and the active, assigns a superior that the fairies left. The English poet, Wordsworth, later status to contemplation. The craftsman s work is a kind of regretted the loss of nature spirits strongly enough to give up prayer. In the Middle Ages there was a dictum: Laborare est his own hope of salvation to see them back. In a famous sonnet orare, "to work is to pray." The prayer which is involved in the which begins: work is not something over and above the work or incidental to it; it is essential to the work. Once again, the doing of one s "The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste ourpowers: proper work, the doing of work which carries through and Little we see in Nature that is ours; extends the creative energies of God and nature, involves a kind We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" of spiritual development on the part of the worker. In both the Greco-Roman and the Judaeo-Christian traditions, the worker in nature — or with nature — not only imparts an idea to it but releases its energies: the world Dwarves and Miners contains possibilities and the craftsman acts to release these possibilities. This tradition survived well into the Renaissance. There is a vault in the once valuable Copper Mountain Michelangelo used to go to the quarries to look at the stone, mine in Germany called the Dwarf Chamber after the and he could see within the stone the sculptures which he story which is told about it. Three miners once descend- would make. The tomb of Pope Alexander VI is another case ed down the deepest shaft and after working hard for where the sculptor seems to be freeing from the stone what is most of their shift were suddenly surprised by the most already there rather than imposing a form upon it. In medieval beautiful music, which seemed to come from the inte- Cathedral-building there was a peculiar custom whereby any rior of the mountain. This music was even better than mason who damaged a stone that had come to the Cathedral the music played by the miners band at the yearly site from the quarry was regarded as having killed the stone. festival of the miners feast. And the three miners quiet- He had to follow, as "chief mourner", behind a cart which took ly prepared to depart so as not to disturb the spirit of the stone where it could be used for other purposes. It is as if the mountain. But as they did so, they saw a great the stone "became alive" as a result of being worked on by the number of little men coming towards them, each hardly quarry men and the mason, and "died" when damaged. As a bigger than a human hand. The little men carried musi- result, the person who damaged it had to pay a certain penalty. cal instruments, and after a little dance they greeted the From this standpoint, the working with nature is not so much miners and asked them to join them. They told the the imposition of an idea upon it as a kind of obstetric process, miners not to worry about their work since they would a bringing to birth; this idea was particularly appropriate to themselves do anything left undone; the miners gladly the mining of metals. This concept is an important element in agreed because they were tired. Then the dwarves the erstwhile belief in dwarves and fairies. danced, jumping over each other, and so fast that the One of the richest sources for beliefs about dwarves, whole mountain seemed to spin. The miners could not especially in relation to mining, is 16th-century Germany. resist laughing at them but the dwarves did not take it Many stories are told about the ways in which dwarves assist amiss. When the dwarves had sat down again, one of the miners in their work (see the box). The dwarves are the them came up to the miners and touched their eyes. elemental spirit of the metals, and they are anxious to help They felt they were blinded, but the dwarf took them by human beings get on with the work of releasing those metals the hand and led them to a chamber where they from the ground — even though that work often involves the recovered their sight. The chamber was full of precious disruption of their own underground homes. In cases of stones and gold and silver bars stacked like pieces of danger, the dwarves often intervene to help the miners protect wood in the kitchen tub. After a silence, the dwarves themselves. Where dwarves are seen, there are metals to be told them to take what they wished, saying they would found. be happy provided they remained diligent and thrifty. Environmentalists would probably think that the dwar- When they emerged from the mine, the gold was still in ves and fairies were on their side, but they would be wrong. their hands and each brought a little home and lived The stories of this period make it clear that the spirits of the happily with his family. But later, one of them became earth help miners, require them to do their work, and do some proud and thought he wouldn t have to work any more, of it for them if necessary. Dwarves were not the only fairies and dire poverty overcame him because he had ignored who helped workers in this way; there were the fairies of the the dwarves warning. farm who danced when the milk-maids came out to help with
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1942 37 WHERE MAN IS NOT, NATURE IS BARREN
He concludes: work. Wordsworth s view is that of a middle-class man who "Great God! I d rather be looks at nature as something to be worshipped . Nature is not, A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn, for him, something which can be better known through our So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, involvement with it. Wordsworth s notion resembles the idea Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; people get of nature from watching wildlife programs on Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; television: it is a detached view of nature as something wonder- Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn." ful but remote. Wordsworth was nonetheless a visionary. He tells us But if Wordsworth is a traditionalist in this regard, he is himself that he had strange experiences on his way to school. a dangerous revolutionary in other respects. His under- He would suddenly conceive that the world around him was standing of work and nature in many ways heralds the modern in fact nothing more than a projection of his own mind, and environmental movement. In fact, it would not be too much to he had to take hold of things in order to persuade himself that say that Wordsworth is the spiritual father of environmen- it was not. He feared this "abyss of idealism", as he called it. But talism. Though he felt nature s desecration, he had no very in Wordsworth we do not find any real sense of how the con- clear idea of how to cope with what he felt. templation of ideas produces things. When we read T eDafodils In Wordsworth we do not find anything of that morality we are not contemplating the daffodil , we are looking at a of work which for centuries had shaped people s under- particular bed of daffodils at a particular time. In these ways he standing of themselves and of nature. In Tintem Abbey, rather is very different from another romantic poet, Blake. than a belief in the importance of work, we find these lines:
"...that best portion of a good man s life, Work and Nature in Blake His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love." For Blake the creation of a poem depends very much upon the conscious contemplation of an idea. It is worthwhile There is nothing setting Blake s Tiger against Wordsworth s Daffodils. If the wrong with kindness memory of the daffodils inspires Wordsworth s poem, it is and love; they are something rather different which inspires Blake s poem. The obviously of the tiger which Blake describes is not any tiger; it is the primordial greatest impor- tiger, the veritable first tiger in the mind of God. tance; but this is a Blake seems to be the last great exponent of the tradi- very circumscribed tional theory of work and nature in English thought. He is a account of the best man who spent his life trying to realize himself through his portion of a good work, quite consciously, as a supreme spiritual path. He man s life. Think believes his work to be the most important part of himself. The back to Plato or following passage from Blake s address to the Christians at the Dante. What would beginning of the fourth book of Jerusalem shows just how they say was the best different he is from Wordsworth: portion of a man s "We are told to abstain from fleshly desires that we life? They would say Wordsworth it was doing one s may lose no time from the Work of the Lord: Every work properly. Yet by the time we get to Wordsworth, kind- moment lost is a moment that cannot be redeemed; ness and love have become the "best". We find exactly the every pleasure that intermingles with the duty of same absence of any real understanding of the spiritual power our station is a folly unredeemable, and is planted of work, of its importance to human life properly lived, in like the seed of a wild flower among our wheat: All Dickens. the tortures of repentance are tortures of self- If Wordsworth does not have much to say about work, reproach on account of our leaving the Divine Harvest to the Enemy, the struggles of intangle- he has a great deal to say about nature and the way in which ment with incoherent roots. I know of no other it can sustain the human heart. But it is a nature which is to be Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty left largely untouched. It is a nature which is spectacle. both of body and mind to exercise the Divine Arts Wordsworth does not convey any sense of how nature itself of Imagination. Imagination, the real and eternal may be made better through human work, any sense that its World of which this Vegetable Universe is but a fulfilment requires our involvement with it. He talks of rustic faint shadow, and in which we shall live in our life as being a better site for the understanding of human Eternal or Imaginative Bodies when these nature than city life, but he does not seem to understand rustic Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more. The life in terms of rustic work. Instead he talks about the great Apostles knew of no other Gospel. What were all and permanent forms of nature which ennoble us if we live in their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is permanent contact with them. His peasants live in that enor- the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual mous backdrop, but they are not valued by Wordsworth for Fountain? What is the Harvest of the Gospel and the work they do, nor do they find themselves validated by that its Labours? What is that Talent which it is a curse
38 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 WHERE MAN IS NOT. NATURE IS BARREN
to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which For Blake the true poet, like the true craftsman, con- we are to lay up for ourselves, are they any other templates the idea of the thing to be made in the eternal than Mental Studies and Performances? What are world of the imagination. That is where he really lives. The all the Gifts of the Gospel, are they not all Mental Wordsworthian poet remembers experiences of nature from Gifts? Is God a spirit who must be worshipped in childhood — that period of our life when we are, according to Spirit and in Truth, and are not the Gifts of the Wordsworth, closer to the divine than we are in adulthood - Spirit Everything to man? 0 ye Religious, discoun- and he reproduces those recollections in later life. But, according tenance every one among you who shall pretend to to Blake, they are not properly works of the imagination. When despise Art and Science! I call upon you in the Blake says that those who talk of benevolence and virtue Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art murder time on time, he may have in mind precisely that and Science? is it Meat and Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is mortality but the passage of Wordsworth s quoted earlier concerning the best things relating to the Body which Dies? What is portion of a good man s life. For Blake that does not qualify as Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit the best portion of a good man s life. To claim that it does is which Lives Eternally? What is the Joy of Heaven profoundly destructive, because people who talk of kindness but Improvement in the things of the Spirit? What and love are replacing a real part of the spirit, the path of are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance, Bodily Lust, proper work, by a kind of sentiment. Blake hates this attitude. Idleness and devastation of the things of the Spirit? Answer to yourselves and expel from among you those who pretend to despise the labours of Art and Science, which alone are the labours of the Gospel. Is not this plain and manifest to the thought? Can you think at all and not pronounce heartily That to Labour in Knowledge is to Build up Jerusalem, and to Despise Knowledge is to Despise Jerusalem and her Builders."
In much of this, Blake is recapitulating the traditional doctrine Z, a of work. He does not talk very much here about its importance to nature, but elsewhere he does. His belief is that I where human workers have to interfere with the natural world in order to do their work, nature forgives them. He B says that the lamb misused breeds a^ public strife, but yet forgives the . One other influence on environmentalism is worth men- butcher s knife. He believes that the cut worm forgives the tioning. The environmental movement has been acquiring plough. He is particularly harsh on Wordsworth, regarding the strength from the 1960s. That decade in the West was a very Wordsworthian attitude to nature as a kind of murder. In peculiar one, not least because it saw a great many young Milton, he writes as follows (and he is surely talking of people come under the influence of what they thought to be Wordsworth here): Indian philosophy. It was the period of "Turn on, tune in, drop "He smiles with condescension, he talks of out"; a period in which our best and brightest often gave away Benevolence and Virtue, the notion of productive work. They thought that in giving it Arid those who act with Benevolence and Virtue away they had a quick route to heaven through meditation. they murder time on time. From what I know of Indian teaching, they could not have been These are the destroyers of Jerusalem, these are more wrong. In supposing that Indian philosophy required the murderers them to give away whatever careers their parents worked so Of Jesus, who deny the Faith and mock at hard to provide them with, and that all they had to do was to Eternal Life, sit and look, they were in fact doing something utterly opposed Who pretend to Poetry that they may destroy to the spirit of the philosophy which they thought they had Imagination acquired. That way of thinking, I dare say, has done very much By imitation of Nature s Images drawn from more harm to the world we live in than all the environmental Remembrance. " damage done by workers and industry. •
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 39 Feminist Wars
JAN SMITH
HE arrival of much-hyped Susan laid and less often driven to kicking the Faludi s Backlash: The Un- cat than ever before. Well, all right, Tdeclared War Against American some are. But if you are this happy, do Women was, in some ways, a relief to any you need to tell people? Or answer IN REVII/ %)^ Australians who had been scanning opinion polls? Aren t Americans having their own media in vain for a twirl of a recession too? waxed moustache. Why so many The trouble with Faludi, and she feminists see `the media as an arch is not alone in doing this, is that she enemy is curious. Are we not daily treats `women as a generic category, urged to support Murphy Brown s bid Susan Faludi, Backlash: The rather as pornographers do, who also for single motherhood, and to rejoice Undeclared War Against live in a world where mundane realities about women priests (although in real American Women never intrude. In other words, dif- feminist bastions, like the monastery Chatto and Windus ferently abled still only applies to what where I passed a night recently, the big- used to be called the handicapped, not gest problem seems to be women so Marilyn French, The War to those women who would rather raise good at celibacy they want to turn Against Women llamas, or children, or wait until they are professional)? Hamish Hamilton 40 plus to hit their stride. Still, monastic life is a better solu- Faludi s constituency is what you Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae tion than running amok with a bread might call assimilationist feminists, whom Penguin knife or an icepick, as child-free career she claims are losing heart because not women do in the movies — the other Jennifer Barker Woolger and just Hollywood and the media but prime villains in Backlash. It is also Roger Woolger, Goddess Within several million shrinks, doctors, cheaper than cosmetic surgery which, Rider therapists, and academics have also like pregnancy, youngsters such as been insisting that such women are not Germaine Greer, The Change happy, or soon won t be. Faludi will Hamish Hamilton have none of this. To her, any woman complaining that feminism has wor- sened her lot, or anyone else s, is a rot- Faludi imagine is forced on helpless ten Christian fundamentalist (both women by vile misogynists. Faludi is genders) or a dumb high school dropout spot-on about invasive foetal surgery (male only — all women without tertiary and vile American-style obstetrics. But degrees are automatically oppressed then if feminists gave as much attention victims). to childbirth as they do to abortion, What really riles Faludi are the things might have improved yonks ago. rich and successful who have put the Faludi s mission is to produce boot into her peer group, actually a copious statistics, too often derived heartening number if you have been from Yankelovich opinion polls, to losing faith in American sanity lately. To prove not only that there is a backlash Faludi, critics such as Professor Allan against feminism, but that single child- Bloom (The Closing of the American less career women are happier, heal- Mind) and Camille Paglia (Sexual Per- Susan Faludi thier, richer, more fertile, more often sonae) are mediocrities venting their
Jan Smith is a freelance journalist who writes on management and women s issues.
40 IPA Review, Vol.45 No. 3,1992 FEMINIST WARS spleen on feminist mafias in academe After 20 odd centuries of being told movement, where women are urged to and publishing. Robert Bly (Iron John what to do by celibate men, women do discover their true female heritage and men s movement guru) is a pot-bel- not need to be lectured by little girls. through mythic stories of female lied bully of old ladies. George Gilder, In Marilyn French s The War shamans, Earth Mothers, and goddes- author of Men and Marriage, is a sexually Against Women, no woman has a ses. In many ways this is a healthy sign. suspect Republican. Betty Friedan, a snowball s chance in hell because the But naturally it is Amerindians and Democrat, is a failed power-seeker who backlash has been going on for about Minoans who get the attention, rather lost out to Gloria Steinem — whose Es- 4,000 years, ever since the Earth than Aborigines, apart from the excellent teem From Within sounds promising. Daughters of The Dreaming by Australian (Perhaps it had not appeared by the time anthropologist Diane Bell. The major op- Backlash was published.) Robin Nor- position comes from Camille Paglia — an wood, best-selling author of Women Faludi is driven by a Italian-Catholic feminist who sees her Who Love Too Much, also gets a bucket- heritage in a more favourable light than ing. Fortunately, Norwood has gone feminism whose goals Irish-Catholic feminists see theirs. (She reclusive lately and probably has not and perceptions are so avoids Judaeo-Christian , a word about read Backlash. as often applicable as `Czechoslovakian .) As anyone not living at the bottom past their use-by date it is As Paglia gleefully points out, of a well has noticed, assimiliationism embarrassing. women in matriarchal cultures (more has died out in virtually all minority accurately, matrilineal), did not spend groups. It is about 25 years since their days tenderly birthing babies and American blacks stopped straightening floating around herb gardens patting their hair, and at least 10 since they Mothers lost out to the Sky Fathers, who lambs. Maiiy also tore people of either began querying affirmative action. Gay from then on did nothing but disem- gender to pieces, threw innocent men men, long uncloseted, openly attend power and degrade them. Undoubtedly into bogs as ritual sacrifices, and Gay Bankers and Publishing Triangle many did, but of course it depends how engaged in unsanitary rituals with pigs. lunches. How any New Yorker, let alone you define power — and it goes without As the better books stress — most Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, has saying that in the US, a country not recently The Goddess Within by Jen- failed to notice pregnant Lubavitch strong on subtlety, it is largely about nifer Barker Woolger and Roger Wool- women, schlepping tribes of kids and how much money you earn and how ger, on the Greeks — every goddess has insisting they are happier too, especially many of your sex are visibly shooting a dark side. In societies where this about ur-patriarch Rabbi Schneerson their mouths off in public. It is quantity, dark side, or even the entire goddess, aka the Messiah, is also a mystery. Of not quality, all the time. is denied or reviled, strange neuroses course, many of these women used to be So there are still more men in manifest themselves: for instance, feminists. public life. Why not admit that in In short, Faludi is driven by a Australia, women s opportunities have feminism whose goals and percep- improved out of sight? And that in tions are so past their use-by date it is politics, despite more women than embarrassing. before, men have, if anything, In the corporate world both deteriorated? genders have long ago kicked the idea Perhaps what is most embarrass- that women are the powerless victims ing about Faludi and French is that they Marilyn French thinks they are, and never credit any woman with having whom Faludi insists can only be saved enough nous to backlash all by herself, by regirding their exhausted loins to whether against assimilationist fight another round. Even in parts of the feminism or the real problem of male public sector, many women have been values — assuming `values is the word. persuaded — after several million dol- Compared with what passes for male lars worth of training programs -- that values these days, chivalry, or bushido, people are about as happy as they make or even patriarchy, might be a distinct up their minds to be. Gloria Steinem is improvement. not the only person who has grasped that accepting personal responsibility is not the same thing as "blaming the New Directions victim." In England, as Faludi herself ad- Actually there are now strong mits, female journalists were quite signs of what might be called the ready to snarl "who is this American Zionist, or different-but-equal, arm WOMEN, AGEING API) THE MENOPAUSE woman telling us what to think?" Quite. of feminism — as in the goddess
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 41 FEMINIST WARS viewing pregnancy as disgusting, or biologist rather than Martina Nav- Sale s Indians in The Conquest of hating the Reverend Fred Nile instead ratilova shooting rabbits. Her finest Paradise, or Kevin Costner s Sioux in of your mother. hour, apparently, was having Actaeon s Dances With Wolves, everything was Unfortunately, even Jungians like hounds tear him to pieces as punish- peachy until the arrival of white males. the Woolgers think some goddesses more ment for sexual harrassment. The bulk of Sexual Personae - equal than others. Despite delivering a Similarly Athena, the con- very bulky at nearly 700 pages — is few raps over the knuckles for being fidante of powerful males, becomes about the galloping decadence of beastly to mothers, The Goddess Within an early version of the Armani-suited Western culture since we got the idea still favours the child-free inde- ladies in L.A. Law, or the sort of that nature and sex, aka Woman, can be pendent goddesses over those who woman the ABC wishes the BBC had tamed and sanitized. As a humanities refuse to undergo reconstruction chosen for Sylvania Waters instead of professor and Rolling Stone con- tributor, Paglia is fearsomely cultured. So will you be if you check out even half the poems, novels and paintings she This is simply Jean-Jacques claims are riddled with morbidity, and Rousseau Comes to violence. But even if you are left gasping in Manhattan, a fantasy for her wake, you can see that if Hollywood urban women whose closest has been keen on lesbian vampire killers, it is probably less due to back- acquaintance with nature is lash than because scriptwriters have mould on their yoghurt. been dipping into Coleridge s Chris- tabel, or Poe, or Emily Bronte. The Pre- Raphaelites attitudes to female sexuality would make even Faludi s the tragically unintellectual Noeline. Republicans and Christian fundamen- Today, Athena would probably have talists look wholesome. gone to TAFE, and invented software If you admired Leslie Fielder s programs instead of bridles. Love and Death in the American Novel, Hestia, the solitary goddess of the Sexual Personae is for you, though hearth with no visible career, gets little Paglia ranges far beyond quasi- attention from goddess feminists, and homosexual fictional heroes holing up Ita Buttrose is still the only woman with other men in woods and on whaling under 90 game to admit to celibacy. But ships rather than risk violating splen- help has come from an unexpected didly virginal, genteelly intellectual, quarter, with Germaine Greer s The American womanhood. Well, plus ca Change striking a long-overdue blow for change. Paglia accuses romanticism post-menopausal women who arc less in- and puritanism, but Fielder (not a terested in hormone replacement therapy Republican) blames the 19th-century than exploring than Amazon, where emergence of the book-reading mid- nobody worries about women with whis- dle-class female, demanding that kery chins. Greer s big hate is Joan Col- literature be wholesome and morally lins, and any older woman still fooling uplifting. around with toy boys or rock stars. If backlash against women is an Meanwhile, Paglia has accused old American tradition (Salem and The Greer of preferring gardening, called Scarlet Letter), so is political correct- through workshops and higher educa- Faludi a twit, and savaged French and ness. So, you can understand why Susan tion. Naomi Wolf (Body Image). The has it in for Camille (I think Fielder has Athena — warlike goddess of wis- woman we should be applauding, she joined the dead white males, and is dom — and Artemis — the virgin says, is Madonna. In Sexual Personae, safer), why Camille hates Marilyn and huntress armed with bow and arrows - Paglia s jibes are directed more at the goddesses, and why one half of the have been significantly reconstructed to matriarchal feminists of the Woman goddesses hate the other half. Or even suit eco-politically correct American as Noble Nurturer school. This, she why women who do not hate anyone, sensibilities. Artemis s killing of furry says, is simply Jean-Jacques Rous- even men, arc also taking to the woods, animals and of Niobe s seven innocent seau Comes to Manhattan, a fantasy or monasteries, and putting their libido daughters are forgotten, as is her role in for urban women whose closest ac- on hold for the rest of the century. Equal helping women with childbirth. Today quaintance with nature is mould on opportunity, maybe, but this is not the Artemis is a keen greenie, a marine their yoghurt. As with Kirkpatrick kind of equality we need. •
42 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 A Time of Uncertainty Insecurity in the Asia-Pacific Region
PAUL DIBB
The security situation in the Asia-Pacific region in the 1990s promises to be less certain than it was in the Cold War period.1 The naval forces of the former Soviet Union are leaving the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. The United States is reducing its military presence in the region. Questions are being asked by the smaller regional countries whether these trends will offer greater opportunities for influence by such large regional powers as China, Japan and India. There is growing concern about the dangers of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biologi- cal) and of ballistic missiles in the Asia-Pacific region. Advanced conventional weapons are also becoming more easily affordable, as the leading arms manufacturers in North America and Western Europe compete for a contracting arms market. In the Asia-Pacific region, military power will remain a fact of life and a fundamental determinant of relations between States. From an Australian security perspective, these trends raise important issues about our relations witii countries- in the Asia-Pacific region and the alliance with the United States. They suggest a more fluid strategic outlook. Change and instability are not generally welcome to security planners. Not all change will, however, be adverse: the rapid economic growth of the region as a whole, and particularly of North-East Asia and South-East Asia, is underpinning political stability and the development of more participatory forms of government. This article examines these issues and their relevance for Australia s security policy in the 1990s.
Professor Paul Dibb is Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. His previous positions include Deputy Secretary of the Department of Defence, Director of the Joint Intelligence Organization, and Consultant to the Minister for Defence.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 43 A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY
Elements of Continuity and Change advantage in its defence force structure in the 1990s. The introduction of more capable conventional weapons systems Monitoring strategic change is an important function of into the Asia-Pacific region seems likely to reduce Australia s the intelligence agencies in any modern system of government. advantage in this area. Imported high-technology weapons Australia has highly developed capabilities in this area. For systems will be incorporated effectively into regional orders over 20 years now intelligence agencies have evolved a con- of battle more quickly than has been the case in the past. cept of strategic warning time, which has largely determined Australia will still retain a technological edge over the next the size and preparedness of the Australian defence force decade, but with less and less reason for complacency. structure? Briefly, this concept — which has been endorsed It will be important, therefore, for Australia s defence by successive governments and more than 25 Service Chiefs industry to concentrate on those high-technology systems - and Secretaries of Defence — judges that Australia would such as intelligence and surveillance sensors; command, con- have several years warning time of the development of a trol and communication; combat data systems; and integrated regional capability to mount a large-scale military attack. In logistic support — which will be key force multipliers for the the absence of the build-up of large military capabilities in the Australian defence force in the next decade. region capable of such an assault, let alone the emergence of hostile intentions, Australia s defence planning is unlikely to move dramatically away from the force structure priorities set The Role of the United States in the Region out in the 1987 White Paper, The Defence of Australia. The United States Administration states that it intends to remain a military power in the Asia-Pacific region, where it still has important strategic and economic interests to There are doubts about the ability of protect. By the end of 1992 the US will have withdrawn its America to sustain such a large military military presence from the Philippines, but it will retain a substantial military presence in Korea and Japan (including presence in the Asia-Pacific region in the the Marine force on Okinawa), in Hawaii and at sea with the longer term. Seventh Fleet. In addition, the US is negotiating access to naval and air facilities in South-East Asia. The US thus remains a substantial military power in the region. But there are some doubts about the ability of America Australia did not structure its defence force to meet to sustain such a large military presence in the Asia-Pacific the Soviet military threat, so there is no requirement for a region in the longer term, particularly given the disappearance `peace dividend in the form of reduced defence spending. of the Soviet military threat and the domestic economic Rather, it is important that Australia continues to build up problems that the US faces. Many influential leaders and its self-reliant military capabilities so as to meet the uncer- officials in the region believe that, despite Administration tainties of the future, without being dependent on external reassurances, the mood of the Congress and the US people is combat assistance. moving against distant military commitments.3 These elements of continuity in Australia s defence cir- A pessimistic scenario would see the American military cumstances are important to stress at the outset. Australia is presence substantially reduced by the late 1990s in South one of the more secure countries in the world. It does not have Korea and Japan — and the centre of gravity of United States any land borders with adjacent countries, nor does it have any military forces having moved eastward, to be based in Hawaii, heavily armed neighbours. The countries in Australia s area Alaska and the West Coast. American interests would focus of direct military interest (Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the primarily on its strategic concerns in North-East Asia, South- islands of the South-West Pacific and New Zealand) are East Asia, Australia and the South-West Pacific would be seen basically friendly and they have no issues of territorial or by Washington as areas of low strategic interest. Under this military contention with Australia. These circumstances are scenario, the United States would not move to check Chinese unlikely to change quickly. But lower levels of contingency, military ambitions in the South China Sea, and Japan would and the requirement for us to have closer defence relations be encouraged by the US to expand its military capabilities with our neighbours, will be demanding of our limited defence significantly. The South-East Asian countries would be ex- resources. pected to do more for their own defence; and Australia, as the What, then, are the main elements of uncertainty in strongest military power in this region, would be encouraged Australia s security outlook in the 1990s? In addition to the to expand its military activities. Even in this scenario, however, strategic developments in the Asia-Pacific region I have al- the United States would retain formidable power projection ready mentioned, they concern, primarily, the economic capabilities; and its capacity to regenerate forces, with mini- strength of the nation and whether sufficient funds will be mum access to military bases in the Asia-Pacific region, would allocated to the defence portfolio to ensure that the act as a deterrent. capabilities needed for the defence of Australia arc acquired A more optimistic scenario would see the United States by the end of this decade. They also involve making judgments retain essentially its current level of military forces in the about Australia s capacity to sustain a margin of technological region once the withdrawal from the Philippines is completed.
44 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992
A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY
United States concerns about North Korea — and an acute natural claim to regional hegemony. Its manifest sense of awareness that the alliance with Japan is the keystone of historical destiny and its culture, population, size and military strategic stability in the region — would see Washington potential all lend weight to this ambition. China will not in the reduce its military presence only by some 10 to 12 per cent. foreseeable future develop a global military reach, but it has The Seventh Fleet in particular would be largely protected much more international status and potential power than from large cuts because of the essentially maritime nature of either Japan or India. the Asia-Pacific theatre of operation. It is too early to discern how these policy outcomes will be resolved. From an Asia-Pacific security perspective it will be crucial for America s close allies in the region — especially China sees itself as possessing a natural Japan, Australia and South Korea — to impress on claim to regional hegemony. Washington the importance of remaining engaged militarily in this part of the world. Several reasons suggest themselves:
• United States trade interests in the Asia-Pacific region China will be concerned to prevent the emergence of are now larger than with Europe; Japanese military capabilities, and to avoid a disintegrating • the US alliance with Japan is a constraint on Japanese former Soviet Union from infecting its own political stability military expansion; and minority groups. It will increasingly attempt to gain in- fluence in South-East Asia — which it sees as a natural area • the withdrawal of American military power would leave for expansion of Chinese influence. The key strategic question China with the region s largest military forces; surrounding the future of China is whether communism will be • an American drawdown will encourage the build-up of overthrown. An unstable China erupting in turmoil would not regional military capabilities with the attendant risks of be conducive to a peaceful Asia-Pacific region, and it might arms races and perhaps even the proliferation of weapons encourage China in the direction of external adventures. of mass destruction. China is modernizing its military capabilities and is
p O • The Influence of the Great Powers MONGOLIA p With the exception O of Russia, the regional JAPAN .aye. great powers — China, CHINA Japan and India — seem likely to increase their in- fluence in the region in 9 /1 TAIWAN the 1990s. This will be INDIA ,t ^^c. q ,^,q ^0•
particularly the case if the I^^c ry o PNrupmNES 6^ V^i United States reduces its ,Y VIETNAM
military presence rather 0 _ more quickly than cur- s,h M^,YS1A rently expected. Large .N6wcu^u,Vl1,,W Iu mA.n wo NZ powers tend to be am- ° bsa^°^"°" ,J.r^ rxrloMFS1^ a bitious and, where op- .1 portunities present r„^An
themselves, they will seek 71xq^ to extend their influence. 4 AUSTRALIA With the removal of su- perpower alignments, the large regional powers will
be freer to exert Kew ZEALAND predominance not only over their immediate region, but — if domestic circumstances and economic strength allow it — further afield. Thus, China sees it- self as possessing a
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 45 MI ^IpL^3^i1^L^7^i:^11►:^I: bl developing naval and air forces that will extend its strategic Weapons Proliferation reach. In the South China Sea, for example, China is already capable of operating decisively against local South-East Asian In this uncertain strategic climate, nations military forces. are likely to acquire more capable means of Japan shows little sign of moderating its military build-up, defence. Nuclear weapons proliferation is even though the former Soviet military threat no longer exists. already occurring in North-East Asia Japan has long-established suspicions about the Russians, and (China and North Korea) and in South Asia is likely to retain substantial defensive military forces against (India and Pakistan). There is a risk that the regeneration of Russian military power in the future. The nuclear weapons might be used in any fu- very proximity of the Russian Far East — and the fact that ture Indo-Pakistan war. North Korea s Russia will continue to be the second largest nuclear power in nuclear weapons program — if it is allowed to develop un- the world — will cause the Japanese to be cautious about hasty checked — could encourage the development of similar cuts to their defence expenditure. capabilities in South Korea. A nuclear-armed Korean penin- Japan already has very sizeable sula would encourage deep concerns in Japan about its own military forces. Its navy and air nuclear vulnerabilities. Japan could very quickly develop a force are larger than those of the nuclear weapons capability, and the means of delivery, if it ASEAN countries, Australia and decided to do so. This is highly unlikely, but the prevention of New Zealand combined. Japan s nuclear proliferation on the Korean peninsula is important to defence spending (US$36 billion Japan s sense of strategic confidence. this year) and its acquisition of Together with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, major weapons systems — such there is a spreading of ballistic missile technology to India, as Aegis class cruisers -- cause Pakistan and North Korea. Several nations also have chemical suspicion amongst the South- and biological weapons. The proliferation of such weapons East Asian countries. Japan s fu- must not extend to South-East Asia, which so far has remained O ture defence build-up, and the free from weapons of mass destruction. The creation of a deployment patterns of its navy, will be closely watched by nuclear-free zone in South-East Asia contiguous to the South other regional powers. China, in particular, will not allow Pacific Nuclear Free Zone would be a useful arms control Japan to gain a military edge. initiative. India s economic and social problems seem likely to In addition to the proliferation of weapons of mass curtail its military ambitions. India has a natural desire to be destruction, most countries in the region are gaining access to taken more seriously as the largest democratic nation in the much more capable conventional weapons. Modern combat region. It fears China, and it wants to be recognized as the fighters, such as F-16s, and warships equipped with modern pre-eminent power in the Indian Ocean. India is steadily missile systems, such as Harpoon and Exocet, are becoming developing a more capable navy and maritime reconnais- commonplace. As the arms market in North America and sance capabilities; and it continues to expand its ballistic Europe shrinks, so the major arms manufacturers are compet- missile potential. India is unlikely to use military force ing for the remaining lucrative markets in the Middle East and except in its own neighbourhood. But if China expands its Asia. The risks here are the well-known action/reaction model influence in the South China Sea and in South-East Asia, of regional arms races, and thg,.factrthat in even low-level India will be concerned. confliet,the destructiv+^fofce of weapons being used will be India may seek to develop military relations with the much greater than hitherto. The agreement on a United Na- United States as a counterbalance to China. And America tions regional arms transfer register for major items of military may be tempted — now that India is no longer an ally of the equipment is a useful initiative in the area of military former Soviet Union — to develop India s military transparency and confidence-building. capabilities. This will not necessarily be to the advantage of smaller countries in the region. Russia will not be a major force in Asia-Pacific affairs. Security Problems Facing Medium-Sized Powers It will be largely preoccupied with its domestic problems. Russia s main interests in the Asia-Pacific region will be in The medium-sized countries in the region gaining access to the dynamic economies of North-East Asia, (the ASEAN countries and Australia in which will be important to the development of the backward particular) will face difficult defence plan- economic infrastructure of Siberia. Russia s military forces in ning problems over the next decade. The the region will be substantially reduced. By the late 1990s, cost of acquiring modern weapons plat- Russia s Pacific Fleet will be less than half its current size and forms is doubling with every new generation its naval deployments will be concentrated essentially around of weapons. Typically, also, the cost of its own territorial waters. Russia has no natural partners in the operating advanced modern weapons, region and it will continue to be the odd-man-out, a country such as F/A-18 fighters and Blackhawk that is seen as basically having little to offer (especially helicopters, is doubling at a similar rate, making the affording economically) to the Asia-Pacific region. of even minimum numbers of such aircraft very difficult for small countries. Modern submarines and surface ships are
46 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY also characterized by the high costs of their weapons North Korea and Vietnam — the centrally planned economic systems. system is faltering (in North Korea it is demonstrably a Ways will have to be found of designing weapons plat- failure), and dynamic processes of economic and political forms that are not optimized for high-intensity conflict in the change are occurring. It seems immutable that any country northern hemisphere. Much more attention will have to be desiring economic success must, in the long haul, move to a paid by medium- basically free-enterprise system. Moreover, future great sized countries to powers will be those that take advantage of the information common designs technology revolution. For communist countries, this is almost iii.iiiiIiiiiEW and to indigenous a contradiction in terms. The free dissemination of knowledge technology. The optimization of equipment for low intensity that the information revolution brings is a fundamental threat conflict in tropical environments will be a central issue for to central authoritarian control. defence planners in our region. Much of the defence equip- ment made by North American and West European suppliers has significant deficiencies in this area. Among the ASEAN countries and Australia, there will Nuclear weapons proliferation is already also be an increased emphasis on defending themselves occurring in North-East Asia (China against possible external aggression, without reliance on and North Korea) and in South Asia direct combat support from other powers. There will be an increased emphasis on the maritime environment as far as (India and Pakistan). credible threats are concerned. Unlike the large military powers in North-East Asia and South Asia, the medium-sized countries face no direct military threat. But they need to establish demonstrable sovereignty As for economic interdependence, much more analyti- over their territories and off-shore resources, and to create a cal work needs to be undertaken to determine whether the military presence and patterns of patrol and surveillance. fruits of interdependence necessarily are a stabilizing force. These will lend weight to territorial claims and support vital Economic differences will become sharper as economic com- defence interests. petition is less moderated by the need to co-operate in the face Regional contingency planning will focus around low-in- of East-West strategic competition. Generally, trade between tensity operations in the maritime environment, including nations is asymmetrical and the benefits are not perceived as such non-military areas as unlicensed fishing operations, evenly distributed between trading partners. The trade im- refugee movements, illicit drug traffic, piracy and marine balance between the United States and Japan, for example, pollution; as well as the protection of off-shore islands and has resulted in political confrontation. reefs, resource zones and oil and gas platforms, and territorial In the past, wars have occurred when an economic new- waters. This suggests a need for more co-operative defence comer displaces an established power. But the political ten- efforts. sions that inevitably accompany growing economic The areas to which defence planners in these interdependence cannot be settled in the modern world by countries should give highest priority in the war. Yet the necessary political mechanisms for settling such 1990s are: intelligence and surveillance; disputes are not in place in the world of the 1990s either. The command, control and communications sys- situation will be exacerbated if closed trading blocs emerge tems able to combine data - in •quick time for military com- out of the much more intense focus that economic issues will manders; combat data systems capable of delivering ordnance now receive because of the end of the Cold War. (including expensive tactical missiles) accurately onto the In our own region, the growing economic mass of Japan target; and local logistic, industry and defence scientific sup- (as well as of South Korea and Taiwan), relative to China, has port. These capabilities are crucial to the defence of countries important security connotations. The relative economic con- which can only afford relatively small numbers of aircraft, traction of Australia is also of concern in this regard. warships and submarines. Much more work needs to be done What is being argued here is that not all aspects of in these key areas through the sharing of common defence economic growth and international economic interdepen- planning problems. dence will work in favour of regional stability. In extremis, the economic disparity between nations and the emergence of powerful new economic competitors could lead to confronta- Economics and Security tion. We need much better analysis in this area of security studies. It is commonplace to argue that the growing economic interdependence which is occurring in the Asia-Pacific region is a force for political stability. It is true that the impressive Outlook economic growth of Japan, South Korea and Taiwan has un- derpinned the stability of those nations and the development The outlook for security in the Asia-Pacific region in the 1990s of their political systems. In the communist countries — China, is for a period of greater uncertainty. Change will take time.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 47 A TIME OF UNCERTAINTY
But the region is unsure about the future military presence of status as an ally of America now diminish as the United States the Americans, and some regional leaders believe that they concentrates more on domestic issues and, in our part of the can no longer rely on the United States to provide military world, more on its important economic interests in North-East security. The region is also concerned about the ambitions and Asia? future influence of China, Japan and India. The most unstable Australia seems likely to have to plan on a more inde- parts of the region are South Asia, where there are attendant pendent defence policy. We should also develop closer risks of war between India and Pakistan, and North-East Asia, military relations with our friends of South-East Asia, who will where China s authoritarian communist regime and North have many defence planning problems in common with us in Korea s nuclear weapons program are the key strategic con- the 1990s. The alliance with the United States will, of course, cerns. Japan s future leadership role — and the region s reluc- continue to be an important element in Australia s security. tance to let Japan s economic power translate into military While seeking to keep the United States strategically engaged power — is another key area of strategic uncertainty. in the region, Australia should also build in the next decade In Australia s neighbourhood the situation is much more on its existing defence interests with South-East Asian favourable. ASEAN will continue to exhibit strong economic countries. This is not to suggest some form of regional military growth, basic political stability and limited military alliance. Australian defence policy will need to concentrate capabilities. In South-East Asia, the South China Sea is the on the network of bilateral and trilateral defence relationships most serious potential flashpoint, which could involve the we already have with the ASEAN countries. That network military forces of China against those of Vietnam or even some might be expanded to include closer defence relationships in of the ASEAN claimants. In the South-West Pacific — and selected areas (such as intelligence, maritime information, particularly Papua New Guinea — the concern will be more defence planning) and perhaps in some common defence with domestic instabilities. External powers are most unlikely production ventures. to interfere militarily in the South-West Pacific. In adjusting In the new world order, Australia is likely to encounter to a changed world, however, island countries are looking for more requests for contributions to United Nations reassurance and protection, as well as aid. And because the peacekeeping. We can make appropriate (but essentially interest of powers external to the region is declining, island limited) contributions — with priority given to our region of expectations of Australia are growing. primary strategic interest. Australia s force structure must not There are several important strategic planning issues be determined, however, by peacekeeping requirements. facing Australian policy-makers in the 1990s. The first issue As a prudent measure of insurance against the uncer- focuses on the question: what kind of ally will the United States tainties of the future, Australia should press ahead with be? Part of this question centres on judgments about the likely putting in place the military capabilities to defend itself. Now size and nature of America s military presence in and commit- is not the time to retreat from the essential force structure ments to the Asia-Pacific region in the 1990s. Prudent defence priorities identified in the 1987 Defence While Paper. Defence planners must contemplate a rather more rapid United States planning is about the long term. This requires the allocation military withdrawal than the present Administration is plan- of enough defence funds to meet the $25 billion that is re- ning. As well, some rather cold-eyed judgments will have to quired for new capital equipment in this decade and before be made about the situations where United States combat the onset of block obsolescence in key weapons systems next forces are likely to be committed. For example, the Indian decade. sub-continent and the South China Sea are not priority areas The above has identified sufficient uncertainties in our for the United States in this regard, whereas North-East Asia own region — and concerning the policies of our major ally, -- and particularly the Korean peninsula — will retain its the United States — for a self-reliant defence policy to be the strategic importance for US defence planning. The United central element in our security planning for the 1990s. To an States allies will have to ask themselves a series of questions even greater degree than before, Australia will need to look that, for the first time in several decades, probe key defence after its own security needs in a regional security environment policy questions — such as: that will be increasingly fluid. • • What does `alliance mean when the discipline of a com- mon threat has disappeared? • What are the United States vital interests in its traditional 1. The Asia-Pacific region is defined here as including India and Pakistan in the west and Japan and the Russian Far Fast in the east. Australia, allied partners, Japan, Australia and South Korea, in the New Zealand and the islands of the South-West Pacific form its new strategic order of the 1990s? southern limits. • What does the United States expect of its allies in terms 2. See Paul Dibb, The Conceptual Basis of Australia s Defence Planning and Force Sducture Development, Strategic and Defence Studies of regional military commitments? Centre, Canberra Papers on Strategy and Defence, No. 88, Australian National University, Canberra, 1992. 3. For example, "...the perceived prospect for American force reduction For Australia there is the particular point that, as a in the region is a matter of common concern to many Asians...The medium-sized power, we gained considerable international lowering of American political attention to the Asia-Pacific affairs has stature from being seen as one of the close inner group of already been felt acutely in the region," Yukio Satoh, a senior Gaimusho official, in an address entitled Asian-Pacific Security after the Cold War United States allies (along with Britain and Canada). Will our and the Japanese Role, unpublished, 1992.
48 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 New Light on Bougainville
DAVID ANDERSON
ugntALlANs are well informed, if (BRA) immediately took over control theywant to be, about the internal and later declared an independent Aaffairs of remote Georgia and republic, which no government to this Azerbaijan, the fighting in Mogadishu date has recognized. The Port Moresby and the disorders in Haiti or Algiers. authorities then applied a blockade. We hear very little, on the other hand, Meetings between PNG Government about what is happening on Bougain- delegations and secessionist repre- ville to our near north. sentatives — the first aboard a New There are understandable reasons Douglas Oliver, Black Islanders: Zealand frigate in August 1990, the for this. It is not easy to enter Bougain- A Personal Perspective of second at Honiara in January 1991 - ville, although an SBS television team Bougainville 1937-1991 failed to reach any kind of lasting agree- has done it. And for the matter of that, Hyland House Publishing ment. Repeated attempts to set up a Port Moresby is not a particularly at- third round of talks have all broken tractive place for Australian journalists Paul Quodling, Bougainville: down. PNG troops have reoccupied to work. Even so, it is deplorable that the Mine and the People Buka and an area in the north of the situation on Bougainville receives Centre for Independent Studies Bougainville island, apparently at the such fragmentary and sporadic invitation of local chiefs opposed to coverage in our media. For the eventual the BRA. An accommodation has also outcome of the continuing crisis on the been reached between Port Moresby island is of vital importance to Papua Copper (BCL) had closed its mine and and tribal leaders in Southern Bougain- New Guinea (PNG), our closest neigh- evacuated all its employees, PNG ville. Some medical supplies have been bour, and therefore of more than pass- security forces were withdrawn from the delivered to the BRA -- which ing interest to ourselves. province of the North Solomons, The rejected a consignment of food the In March 1990, after Bougainville Bougainville Revolutionary Army first time round and set fire to a second ship carrying emergency sup- plies — but there are disquieting reports of pitifully inadequate medi- cal services and a threat of spreading disease. This is a bald outline of develop- ments over the last two years. But some much-needed light has now been thrown on the background to this tragic affair by two recent books: Black Is- landers — A Personal Perspective of Bougainville, 1987-1991 by Professor Douglas Oliver, an American anthropologist; and Bougainville, The Mine and the People, by Paul Quodling, who retired as Managing Director of
4- Panguna Mine, 1988
David Anderson has just retired as Director of the Pacific Security Research Institute of the IPA.
IPA Review, Vol.45 No. 3, 1992 49 NEW LIGHT ON BOUGAINVILLE
BCL in 1987. Both are required reading but the extent of support for the • the agricultural potential has been for an informed understanding of the BRA leaders is difficult to gauge - pushed almost to its limit (yet the situation on Bougainville today. they have a record of violence and mine is out of action and many Among the facts which emerge intimidation, having murdered the plantations are devastated); from these studies are the following: provisional Minister for Commerce • if the current political deadlock is in 1989 and taken over from the • the people of Bougainville and resolved and the mine reactivated, elected provincial government at Buka take pride in their very dark the operation will generate fewer gunpoint — and there have been no pigmentation and share a sense of profits for distribution than it did elections since then; distinctive identity from the pre-1989. `redskins of mainland PNG; • annual population growth is es- Given the BRA leaders insistence • but they do not form anything like timated at 3.5 per cent, one of the highest rates in the world; on full independence and PNG s refusal a homogeneous society — there are to grant it, there seems little present nine different languages, and the prospect of a negotiated settlement. A social structure is highly frag- military solution, involving sustained mented, with family and clan group reoccupation of the whole island by the loyalties predominating; PNG Defence Force seems just as • the Nasioi clan, from which the remote. In the longer term, if the effects principal BRA leaders come, is of the blockade on an increasingly im- only one of four language groups poverished society begin to weaken within the old area of BCL opera- BRA resolution and/or control, a settle- tions and with only a small share of ment could conceivably emerge which the total island population; would recognize the distinctive per- sonality of the Bougainville people, and • the Nasioi and other village societies grant them a special autonomous status affected by mining operations have within PNG with the right to a substan- been deeply influenced by cargo cult tial share in future profits from a reac- attitudes and expectations; tivated mine. But that is looking a long • aspirations towards independence way ahead, and in the meantime the go back at least as far as 1968 and Sam Kauona who left the PNG Defence sufferings of the Bougainville people are not confined to the BRA; Force to join rebel leader Francis Ona. seem bound to increase. ■
FOREIGN RELATIONS Australia and Indonesia
Never has a detailed knowledge of our dealings with Indonesia been more desirable for Australia than it is now. This collection, published by the IPA s Pacific Security Re- search Institute, provides thorough and wide-ranging analyses — by both Australians and Indonesians — of the two countries relationship in all its many aspects. It draws on the expertise of politicians, military personnel, academics, public servants and businessmen. Nobody interested in Australian foreign policy can afford to ignore it. Australia and Indonesia: A Partnership in the Making is available from IPA for $7.00 per copy (inc. postage). Write to IPA, Ground Floor, 128-136 Jolimont Road, Jolimont, Vic, 3002. Cheques should be payable to the Institute of Public Affairs. Or phone (03) 654 7499 to pay by credit card.
50 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 Crises and Commitments in South-East Asia
DAVID ANDERSON
ATHER in the manner of Canning, when, in its eagerness to commit our present Prime Minister seems Australian combat forces, the Menzies R to see himself as calling a new Government came close not only to Asian World into being to redress the treating the Saigon Government as an balance of the old. Indeed, a Martian American puppet but to appearing in visitor, arriving here in 1992, might well the same light itself. Hasluck neverthe- imagine that Australia was interesting less established a strong rationale for itself in Asian affairs, and conducting an the military commitment to South Viet- Asian policy of its own, for quite the first nam, and in the circumstances of the time in its history. Peter Edwards and Gregory time his assessments were soundly To dispel such impressions, our Pemberton, The Official History based. Martian — and not a few Australians as ofAustralia s Involvement in As the authors demonstrate, Has- well — should be required to read the South-East Asian Conflicts, luck and his colleagues saw a Coc_- first volume of The Official History of 1948-1965. Volume One munist take-over in South Vietnam as Australia s Involvement in South-East Allen Unwin posing a direct threat to the security of Asian Conflicts, 1948-1965. `Crises and the rest of South-East Asia. In the Commitments , written by Peter Edwards climate of the Cold War, with the with Gregory Pemberton, examines highly accurate, l objective and Soviets and Chinese vying in their ef- Australia s role and policies between 1948 balanced treatment and analysis of the forts to arm and influence Hanoi, and and April 1%5 in the Malayan Emergency, factors — domestic and international - with the knowledge that the North Viet- Confrontation, the successive Laotian underlying Australian decision-making namese armed forces were by far the crises and the Vietnam conflict. For in the several South-East Asian crises strongest in the region, their fears were completeness sake, a discussion of during the 17-year military involvement not illusory. But a still more powerful Australia s strong and far-sighted support in South Vietnam. The competing factor was the concern — most strongly for the Indonesian revolution — a notable claims of resistance to Sukarno s Con- held by Menzies, with memories of the example, incidentally, of the inde- frontation of Malaysia and support for lonely wartime years before Pearl Har- pendence of judgment brought by post- counter-insurgency in Vietnam were bour — to keep the United States com- war Australian governments to Asian not always easy to reconcile, but they mitted to the security of the South-East affairs — should have been included. were managed by a government pursu- Asia region at large. The Johnson Ad- This, however, fell outside the terms of ing national policies of its own, and not ministration on its side had indicated reference given to the Official Historian. those of great and powerful friends. clearly enough that there was a nexus Even so, the book provides a convincing In the event, External Affairs Min- between Australian support for the demonstration of the importance at- ister Hasluck persuaded his cabinet col- American effort in Vietnam and tached to South-East Asia by successive leagues that the Vietnamese situation American backing should this be re- Australian governments in the pursuit of was more dangerous than Confronta- quired for Australia in its opposition perceived national interests. tion. Hasluck s preoccupation with the to Confrontation. It was not long, As he notes, Dr Edwards had Vietnamese problem sometimes verged moreover, since Australia had found unrestricted access to Australian on the obsessive — bad news dispas- itself opposed to Sukarno over West official records and was also able to sionately reported from Saigon drew an New Guinea without prospect of consult British, American, French and imperial rebuke on one occasion. As American support. New Zealand archives. The result is a seen from Saigon, there were also times In their approach to the Vietnam
David Anderson was Australian Ambassador to Vietnam, 1964-66.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 51 problem, as the Official History notes, Malayan Emergency and Confronta- thrust by Communist China between Australian policy-makers also bad in tion — an outcome due to a mixture of the Indian and Pacific Oceans" should mind the precedent of successful good luck and good management - have been qualified by the phrase (in- Western military intervention against with the disastrous commitment to cluded in the departmental draft) "ex- Communist insurgency in Malaya. (A Vietnam. But disasters, like blessings, ploiting weaknesses in the multi-racial British Advisory Mission led by the late can be mixed. Edwards suggests that the and economically underdeveloped Sir Robert Thompson was still attempt- failure of the commitment was due lar- countries of the region." The dominoes in ing at that time to apply in South Viet- gely to an assessment that American Cambodia and Laos fell, of course, along nam the strategies successfully adopted and Australian intervention could go with the fall of South Vietnam, but, Ed- during the Emergency.) The far greater forward without a politically stable base wards observes, had the North Viet- difficulties posed by the situation in in Saigon but "would somehow help cre- namese won in 1965, the active Vietnam were not ignored, although Communist insurgency in north-east they were certainly underestimated, but Thailand would also have become "a the Republic had already survived as an focus of the East-West struggle." At that independent State for more than 10 The abandonment of time, too, the political and economic years, while the Viet Cong, despite the South Vietnam in 1965, if fabric of Malaysia and Singapore was gains made after the overthrow of Ngo ever an option, would much weaker than today, and Confronta- Dinh Diem, was still predominantly a tion was unresolved. In Indonesia itself, guerrilla force, pursuing the same tac- have led, not to overt in- the powerful PIG, indulged by the erratic tics of terrorism and intimidation as the vasion of South-East Asia Sukarno and actively supported by insurgents in Malaya. Nor was there any by China or North Viet- Maoist China, was preparing its forces evidence that a majority of the people of nam, but almost certainly for a trial of strength with the Army South Vietnam wanted Communist rule which culminated in the nearly success- or domination by the North, from which to the emergence of Com- ful Gestapu coup. The abandonment of some 860,000 refugees had emigrated munist-dominated, anti- South Vietnam in 1965, if ever an option, 10 years earlier. Western regimes would have led, not to overt invasion of Another element, not apparently throughout the region South-East Asia by China or North Viet- mentioned in official documents but nam, but almost certainly to the emer- one which underlay and coloured the gence of Communist-dominated, hopes for a successful outcome in South anti-Western regimes throughout the Vietnam, was the Korean example. ate" stability. It is true enough that region at a time when the Cold War was Analogies between the two situations South Vietnam was dangerously un- a hard reality. were, of course, misleading, for South stable in 1965, with deep divisions The long conflict in South Viet- Korea — unlike South Vietnam — was among the nationalist forces which nam, initiated as it was by the leadership not vulnerable to infiltration by land continued well into 1966. But in sub- in Hanoi and renewed by Hanoi in viola- across the porous frontiers of a neutral sequent years a substantial degree of tion of the Paris Agreements, led to neighbour, but some encouragement governmental stability was in fact immense suffering and destruction in was drawn from the fact that in the achieved, elections were held, the NLF Vietnam and Cambodia — a human dis- 1950s invasion from the North had been all but disappeared as a significant aster on a massive scale. The collapse of successfully resisted in Korea, and an force, and the war effort on the ground the Western commitment to South Viet- independent state preserved in the was taken over by the South Vietnamese nam bore all the marks of a major South with the ultimate acquiescence of army. The success of the North Viet- strategic disaster as the victorious Moscow and Peking. (Memories of namese invasion in 1975 — an earlier North Vietnamese divisions smashed Chinese intervention in Korea also all-out offensive had been fought off in into Saigon in 1975. But looking in 1992 served to moderate enthusiasm for all- 1972 — was due not to political in- at the stability and prosperity of the out action against Hanoi.) stability in Saigon but to the shameful region beyond Indo-China and the Fundamental to the Australian denial of American air and logistic sup- peaceful and secure environment which decision, of course, was confidence that port during Watergate, in breach of Australia now enjoys, we can conclude American power would be decisive. But American undertakings to Saigon and that the price paid by this country was a few could foresee in April 1965 that the at a time when the North was still receiv- small one and that the sacrifices made war would drag on for 10 years more ing massive supplies of sophisticated by our soldiers were not in vain. ■ and that American public support for weaponry from the Soviet Union. the commitment would collapse as the Dr Edwards concedes, however, 1. One minor error of fact appears on page prospect of quick victory disappeared. that the domino theory was neither a 307. General Nguyen Khanh was not the The final chapter, in which Dr Ed- truism nor a "groundless folly". Inter- nominal head of the Saigon Government at wards offers reflections rather than estingly, he reveals that Prime Minister the end of 1964. Khanh was still a powerful, if tarnished, figure but the Chief of State was conclusions, contrasts the successful Menzies description of the Communist Phan Khac Suu and the Prime Minister was outcome of Australian policies in the threat to South Vietnam as part of "a Tran Van Huong.
52 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 Terrorism and Justice
CLAUDE RAKISITS
HE massive bomb explosion which For example, Renamo, Mozambique s recently killed an Italian judge anti-government organization, is T(who had been successful in lock- generally considered a guerrilla group, ing up members of the Mafia), along mainly because of its structure and ap- with his family and innocent bystanders; pearances; but, applying Smith s the 40-kilogram Libyan-supplied IRA categorization, its terror tactics against Semtex bomb, which killed two people innocent civilians squarely makes it a and injured 91 people the day after the terrorist organization. Similarly, few British elections; and the mortar attack para-military groups only target com- in Sarajevo during a ceasefire, which R.C. Smith, Ethics and batants. The many urban guerrilla killed 20 people and maimed many Informal War groups which have emerged in Bosnia- more: these are only three recent ex- Vantage Press Herzegovina in the last few months, and amples of terrorism at its worst — the which deliberately include civilians as deliberate and indiscriminate killing of targets, are cases in point. There is no civilians for political ends. It is therefore just, they may not fulfil all five of the doubt that this is terrorism. no wonder that discussion about ter- above conditions. For example, many As with terrorism, Smith sees only rorism can rarely be rational. This is why would doubt that the IRA is any closer one justification for guerrilla warfare; R.C. Smith s Ethics and Informal War is to achieving its aim of a unified Ireland and that is in the case of self-defence. a welcome contribution to the debate than it would have been without ter- However, he appears to negate this about terrorism and guerrilla warfare. rorism; and few would accept the Iran- when he gives equal right to both sides, He successfully manages to avoid emo- backed Hezbollah s tactic of killing stating that "the inhabitants of the de tional arguments, and to separate sym- innocent Israelis. facto political entity are entitled to pathy for a cause from justification for Moreover, according to Smith, the defend themselves if attacked. Again, it terrorism. underlying philosophy by which an act should be stressed that this should not Using examples, Smith analyzes of terrorism must always be judged is be taken to prejudice the moral right and categorizes terrorism and guerrilla whether the consequence of the act will which the official authorities may have warfare along an intolerable-acceptable be to the benefit of humankind rather to restore the unity of the original state spectrum according to how these two than being only of limited good. Put or defend its present institutions." Sup- forms of non-conventional warfare differently, he supports Machiavelli s porting both sides, as Smith does, will meet five just war principles. These are: adage that "the end justifies the means" not assist in the resolution of the con- but only if the end is the welfare of flict. The case of Sri Lanka would be ■ just cause: it must be shown that the humanity. According to this principle, the such a situation. As for the case of specified gains to be achieved out- assassination of dictators like Hitler and guerrillas fighting for political freedom or value the probable losses; Stalin would have been justified and minority rights which are being denied, • last resort: after all non-violent would therefore not have been terrorism. Smith stresses that all five conditions for means have been explored; Smith determines that the a just war must be met to justify guerrilla • prospect of success: war cannot be essential difference between terrorism activities. His argument is that unless justified if success is unlikely, and guerrilla warfare is that in the latter guerrilla war leads to a comprehensive the intended victims are generally com- reshuffling of the political order and the • proportion: balance between the Mujaheddin and racial/ethnic groups — and this rarely good ends to be achieved and the batants. The Afghan losses likely to be sustained; and UNITA in Angola would both be clas- happens — the result may well be more sical examples. And while guerrilla war injustice down the road. • non-combatant immunity: civilians will inevitably blur the distinction be- Moreover, he surprisingly ap- are in principle excluded as targets. tween combatants and civilians, there pears to agree with the assertion by So while some terrorist groups are cases where some guerrilla groups the guru of terrorism, Walter La- objectives may be viewed by some as will deliberately target non-combatants. queur, that the "historical record
Dr Claude Rakisits is an advisor to Senator Robert Hill, the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 53 TERRORISM AND JUSTICE shows that guerrilla warfare, with one The ANC and South Africa only is South Africa not suitable for exception (Cuba), has succeeded only guerrilla warfare because of the terrain against colonial rule or during a general Surprisingly, Smith does not at- and the Afrikaners determination to war." Although it is not clear what he tempt to categorize the African Nation- fight back, but the guerrilla s chances of means by "general war", in recent times al Congress (ANC) as either a terrorist success are probably minimal. Smith is Pol Pot in Cambodia, President group or a guerrilla organization. While right on both counts. Museveni in Uganda and the Mujahed- I realize Ethics and Informal War does Moreover — and this is a theme he din in Afghanistan each successfully not pretend to be exhaustive in its study developed in other cases — he argues toppled the regime in power. Certainly, of non-conventional combatant groups that, if a guerrilla war had eventually it is debatable whether these guerrillas (it stresses instead theory), the failure to ensued (that is if the ANC had been actually improved conditions for the discuss the ANC, even in a section deal- militarily capable of bringing one people, but that is not the issue. Similar- ing specifically with South Africa, is an about), "the historical record would ly, Smith questions whether the French unfortunate lacuna. Nevertheless, his suggest that the habits of lawlessness Revolution was really necessary, and short analysis of South Africa is interest- and cruelty acquired in such a `war wonders whether political freedom ing and convincing. In his discussion of would persist long after political change could not have been achieved by more the South African situation (prior to the was achieved, if it was achieved." As a peaceful means. In any case, he would present constitutional negotiations), result, in his judgment such a course not condone guerrilla attacks or violent Smith rejects justification for political could not be morally supported. Cer- revolutions to correct real or imagined violence. This does not mean he is not tainly, he is right to worry about the socio-economic injustices, especially if sympathetic to the plight of the black habit of violence in South Africa. One political rights already exist. majority. But, rather, he argues that not only needs to look at the townships, where inter-tribal, gang and political violence have already taken a life of their own. Furthermore, it is unlikely that this violence will stop once majority rule becomes the norm in South Africa, especially when it will become glaringly obvious that no government — black or white — will be able to deliver the economic goods to the black townships for a long time to come. So, as he states, while political violence may appear to be justified, poor prospects of success and the disproportionate likely cost of the attempt (which contravene two of the five conditions for a just war) would lead one to argue against such a course of action. Certainly, the present negotiations and the general improve- ment in the political situation of South Africa confirm that a non-violent and negotiated approach, even in highly divided and polarized societies, remains the best option for resolving political conflict. I would recommend this book to anyone who seriously believes terrorism and guerrilla warfare are the best options for achieving political goals. Even in the worst cases (Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Arab-Israeli dispute), everyone s human rights must be respected, espe- cially non-combatants . Absolutely noth- ing can justify the killing of innocent civilians. Or as Smith puts it when dealing with revolution — but his question is ap- plicable to the issue in general: is it jus- tified to redistribute injustice when seeking to dispense justice? •
54 IPA Review, Val. 45 No. 3,1992 Pofitical Activism and Literary Decline When authors aren t demanding an Australian republic, they seem to be crusading for abortion `rights or for an ecologically sustainable population. But authors -- despite Shelley s belief that they are the world s unacknowledged legislators — have no more moral authority on non-literary issues than the rest of us.
R. J. STOVE
UTURE generations, if they have the bad taste to think The Advertiser) commented that "Keneally s religious roman- of Thomas Keneally at all, are much likelier to remem- tirism comes to much the same thing as the contemporary Fber his hysterical (in both senses of that adjective) post-modernism which rejects any concept of truth by which republican propaganda than any serious literary efforts he one model of reality can be preferred to another. Just choose might have left behind him. "It is" — as Marxists say — "no the form of irrationality that `fits you ..J find it [the novel] more accident" that Keneally s recent activism follows the fall of his astonishing — and intellectually ominous —than convincing. "4 novelistic reputation: a fall so sudden and dramatic as to have The Australian s Imre Salusinzslcy gave Flying Hero Class the few modem parallels. His newer novels, whether under his own most devastatingly hostile review that our newspapers name or under his pseudonym William Coyle, have met with the book-pages have seen in years: sort of rubbishing which even five years ago was unimaginable. The Spectator s Patrick Skene Catling, having noted that Coyle "When I told a friend in Melbourne the plot of the is KenealIy s mother s maiden-name, observed that "William new Thomas Keneally novel, he looked at me Coyle"s incompetence "makes one wonder what he [Keneal- knowingly across the top of his beer glass and said: ly] thinks of his mother." I News Weekly offered the sugges- `You re making this up of course. I would give tion that both the anything for it to be so ... in its deathly treatment of "William Coyle" novels these moral dilemmas, Flying Hero Class ap- "are pap and were seen proaches, then finally achieves, the level of to be by reviewers and boredom achieved by a Geoffrey Robertson ordinary readers."2 The Hypothetical. With eyes fixed on his Big Issue, Age s John Hanrahan Keneally rushes happily along, concerned neither poured scorn on the with the pacing of the plot ... nor with the structure "William Coyle" book of many of his sentences."5 Chief of Staff: "No pot- boiler this, unless you like But Keneally is more a literary symptom than anything else. your pot to simmer with in- Perhaps the single most obvious character trait of authors over gredients the greengrocer the last hundred years — including authors much more sig- couldn t sell...the lovers nificant than Keneally — is their predilection for believing that seem like virginally con- authorship gives them the right to lecture the human race on ceived children of mas- non-literary issues. Shelley believed that the author s true turbating seminarians. "3 function was as an "unacknowledged legislator"; our own Flying Hero Class, Living Literary Treasures scorn any such limits to their for which Keneally used might, and seek to have their own legislation acknow- his own name, fared little ledged on every side. When they are not forming the Thomas Keneally better. Rob Johnson (in Australian Republican Movement, they seem to be bellowing
R.J. Stove is a Sydney freelance writer and broadcaster. His articles appearin The Australian, The Canberra Times, Quadrant, National Review (USA) and The American Spectator.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1942 55 POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND LITERARY DECLINE through megaphones at pro-abortion marches, or organizing support Dreyfus in public. Socialism necessitated breaking weird cabals like "Writers For An Ecologically Sustainable down all national barriers ("the worker knows no Fatherland", Population." Marx had maintained); therefore, the French nation-state did This activism generally coincides with a most ruinous not have the right to exist, let alone the right to an efficient decline in (and often an outright cessation of) the authors espionage system. creative gifts as they abandon the irksome, often ill-paid The Dreyfus case s real issue was summed up by the literary craft for the instant satisfactions of mouthing crude royalist Comte d Haussonville, who said that French soldiers propaganda. It is possible that their creative decline directly would never fight if socialists taught them to disobey their springs from their activism. Yet the converse is equally pos- sible: that their activism directly springs from their creative decline. In other words, that authors consciously seek to revive waning artistic powers with the monkey-glands of political, [Some] authors consciously seek to revive sexual and/or pharmacological revolution. waning artistic powers with the Authors did not always con- - activism a moral im- monkey-glands of political, sexual and/or perative. Chaucer gave no pharmacological revolution. sign of having joined such fir protest vigils as the 14th cen- IU_ -- (^ \ ` tury had to offer. Shakespeare . seems to have been free from commanding officers. This, of course, was exactly what the urge to don T-shirts socialists did teach them. By publicly humiliating the French .^ upholding Galley-Slaves security services (and thus the armed forces), Zola and his Rights. And Dr Johnson ap- comrades signalled to Germany that she could invade France pears to have remained to- whenever she chose. A few short years afterwards, well over a DrJohnson tally silent on the subject of million French troops on the Western Front had paid with holes in 18th-century England s ozone layer. their lives for Zola s campaign against the French Intelligence It was not that authorship ever presupposed indif- Bureau. Zola s own career, by contrast, had been enriched ference to public life. Often, in fact, authors have had political, beyond the proverbial dreams of avarice. Authorial activism administrative or diplomatic careers far more distinguished had notched up one of its first and greatest triumphs. than those which any modern writer can boast. Chaucer was Tolstoy represents a less a diplomat; Spenser governed Ireland; Milton served as a hypocritical, yet no less obses- . translator for Cromwell; Fielding helped organize London s sive, kind of activist. It is sober- Q,P first police force; Trollope worked as a Post Office surveyor; ing to be reminded that the man z . o° Charles Lamb, Thomas Love Peacock and John Stuart Mill responsible for two of the -- all had jobs in the East India Company; Gibbon was a Member world s greatest novels turned ° p of Parliament; Macaulay was not only an MP but a himself into a voluble crank frontbencher. Indeed, it may well have been because writers who invited comparison with}-. , regularly did well as official politicians and bureaucrats that King Lear. P. J. O Rourke Tolstoy they so long resisted the temptation to become unofficial once cruelly epitomized Chris- lobbyists. But for whatever reason, the temptation overcame tian rock music by his hypothetical album title I Found God them about 1890. And Lost My Talent; Tolstoy s old age inspires similarly un- Among the earliest and best-known instances of an charitable, and accurate, conclusions. The worst of his cranki- author-turned-activist is Emile Zola. For every individual who ness lay in this: that be came to reject everything his former, has personally tried Zola s fiction, there must be a thousand unregenerate self had done, including writing great novels. who know that Zola s J accuse letter eventually helped end He even attempted to renounce the property rights to his Captain Dreyfus imprisonment on Devil s Island. This effect books; while simultaneously embracing vegetarianism, was quite unintentional. Zola s major novelistic successes pacifism, anti-smoking mania, do-it-yourself cobbling, the were well behind him by the time he joined the Dreyfusards; doctrine of the Inner Light, Christ-less Christianity, and besides, Zola was a self-conscious socialist, and French whatever else comprises the rebirthing-in-a-Balmain-back- socialists initial attitude towards Dreyfus was one of simple yard package. Unaware that theology without reason is worth- contempt. They saw Dreyfus as merely one bourgeois Iess, Tolstoy regarded his intellectual suicide as a step in the militarist (and Jewish at that) being attacked by other bour- right direction. This is not a belief which those who care about geois militarists. What ultimately made them champion War and Peace andAnna Karen ma have been able to endorse; Dreyfus was not sudden belief in Dreyfus innocence, but their but it certainly made authorial activism look attractive, given realization that he had by accident become the perfect that Tolstoy had by his death become an incomparably more socialist weapon. Even as they continued to despise Dreyfus powerful figure than the Tsar or than any Russian prime in private — sharing Clemenceau s conviction that it would be minister. useful if the Captain stayed in gaol — the socialists began to Gabriele D Annunzio practised an even more
56 IPA Review, Val. 45 No. 3,1992 POLITICAL ACTIVISM AND LITERARY DECLINE extraordinary brand of activism. Having shocked many Kenneth Tynan (1927-1980), who like Huxley combined compatriots and delighted many others by producing British birth with disastrous Californian residence, was an some of the most opulent poetry and fiction in all Italian even sadder activist case. Whether in his youthful drama literature, D Annunzio decided that his true role lay in criticism or in his feature articles he bad proved himself an combat. A pugnacious socialist who eagerly fought duels with epigrammatist as merciless, as unashamedly readable, and his enemies, he astounded commanding officers during almost as amusing as Muggeridge. World War I by his reckless courage as an aviator. So great Alas, mere reportorial brilliance was was his aversion to the Treaty of Versailles that (along with not enough in Tynan s eyes. The rot a mere handful of volunteers) he invaded the Adriatic port started when he publicly abased him- of Fiume and ruled it for months. Some, at least, of self before the strenuously obscene D Annunzio s activities might have been politically justified; puerilities of Lenny Bruce. Bruce, in f after all, it is impossible to withhold admiration from any man his incoherent style, taught the who can describe Woodrow Wilson as "full of false words and gospel of erotic evangelism: a gospel which led Tynan to devise the musi- 3 cal Ohl Calcutta. . This masterpiece, by its full-frontal nudity, was in- He embraced vegetarianism, pacifism, tended to be the sexual revolution s Kenneth Tynan anti-smoking mania, do-it-yourself most mind-blowing climax. The British critic Maurice Cranston s comment on Ohl Calcutta! cobbling, the doctrine of the Inner Light, is irresistible: "Unfortunately for its creator, his own mind was Christ-less Christianity, and whatever else blown even if that of his audiences was not." Tynan spent his last decade mired in self-delusion, his comprises the rebirthing-in-a-Balmain- career as activist shock-trooper having been ended precisely backyard package. by his own success in making audiences unshockable. Most of his post-Calcutta writing is as vapid as one would expect from a man who thought that Wilhelm Reich could save the world; who expressed his own grubbily sadistic tastes in the less-than- false teeth." Nevertheless, his wartime and postwar behaviour Cartesian credo "Sex is spank and bottom is beautiful"; who did nothing to increase his creative flow. After being expelled bragged in Who s Who of having been the first person to say from Fiume he wrote nothing of importance, though Mussolini on British TV; and who in his last years considered it a (overlooking D Annunzio s — and his own — socialist past) sacred duty to compile in book form the masturbation fan- offered him every incentive for producing new work: "We all tasies of the great .7 await fresh books from you." By the time D Annunzio died, in Jean-Paul Sartre managed to combine political, sexual 1938, he seems to have been not just artistically burnt-out but and pharmacological revolutions in his own singularly dis- clinically insane. He was also, however, very rich; and a col- agreeable person. He expressed his ideological dogma in the lected edition of his works had been published on the orders deathless words "An anti-communist is a rat." Valiantly he of Mussolini s government .6 endeavoured to destroy his de facto marriage with Simone de Aldous Huxley adopted a different type of activist ap- Beauvoir by almost daily coitus with a succession (one that proach; scorning political agitation, he believed that lasting practically stretched "out to the social change would come about through mind-altering drugs. crack of doom") of nubile students. i The result of his theorizing, however, was no less pernicious Moreover, the sums which he spent than joining the Communist Party would have been. As one on his barbiturate and amphetamine plods through The Doors of Perception, that rambling paean intake would have kept in palatial to hallucinogens, one s incredulity mounts: that the lethally comfort any of the Third World effective satirist of the 1920s and 1930s should have churned peoples whom he so vociferously out this effortlessly self-satirizing nonsense! With Huxley, at championed. Nowadays even the least, creative collapse unmistakably preceded activism, average communist can no longer rather than the other way around. Well before the hippy-trippy force himself to read the drug-in- stuff came to be written, commentators like Julian Symons were duced diatribes of Sartre s middle complaining tha . Huxley s recent novels had been well below his and old age, whatever virtues his former excelle:.c^. (These novels moved Orwell to remark that early fiction and plays may still have. Jean-Paul Same in a sane society writers who had outlived their talents would Nor is Patrick White s later output — with its genius simply retire, just as boxers do.) After Huxley s chemicobabble for proffering caricatures instead of characters, and began, of course, there was no stopping it. During his last years lavatory-wall Anglophobia instead of intelligent analysis --- he died in 1963 — his conversational gambits towards un- — likely to retain much artistic, as opposed to historical, familiar guests apparently seldom ventured beyond asking if significance. Even the biographer David J. Tacey (hardly they had brought any mescaline with them, and promptly one of White s antagonists) has now conceded that losing interest in them if they hadn t. White s post-1975, openly politicized, openly homosexual
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 57 POLITICAL ACIIVISM AND LITERARY DECLINE productions are embarrassing when compared to his earlier rest of us. Case-histories such as those cited above suggest work .8 that, if anything, they have less. Theoretically, there is no reason why an author The fact that most of the foregoing case-histories have could not become a whole-hogging conservative activist dealt with British- and European-born artists gives rather than a whole-hogging leftist one. In practice, no Australians no cause for complacency. Australia is exception- internationally celebrated modern author comes to mind ally and depressingly rich in long, as having done so. Four reasons suggest themselves for the indigenous traditions of intellectual absence of conservative-activist authors: corruption. Henry Lawson, who seems not to have possessed the • Conservatism realizes that politics constitutes only a tiny smallest idea of how his country part of human experience, a realization which tends to had benefited from British institu- thin out the numbers of conservative activists; tions, dreamed of blood staining • Conservatism, dealing as it does with permanent truths, the wattle. From 1917 onwards, knows better than to imagine that salvation can be found most antipodean literary gurus in whichever twopenny-ha penny crusades the mass (including Lawson) were declaring media happen to be promoting this week; that Moscow embodied democratic • Conservatism is primarily a doctrine of obligations, statesmanship; even after Hungary Henry Lawson whereas leftism prefers the much easier course of inces- and Czechoslovakia their main ob- santly demanding rights; session was to assure readers that their mild regrets about • Even after the Soviet empire s collapse, conservatism is individual commissars were free from all taint of Mc- still such a dirty word among the West s intelligentsia that Carthyism. 9 One factor which has undoubtedly assisted such any author who actively espoused it would be gravely noxious fantasies as Manning Clark s is the predominantly low damaging his career. Mario Vargas Llosa s failed can- standard of Australian journalism. Even the newspaper and didacy in Peru s last presidential election indicates that TV pundits who can recognize authorial activism when they even a radical free-marketeer is, at best, wasting his time. see it are apt to rejoice in it. Australians therefore have even more reason than most people to recall certain powerful lines by Kipling: lines which were originally written as an epitaph for a politician, but which apply to authorial activists with equal force. We can sum up authorial activism as follows: • Whatever a writer was like before turning activist, he is I could not dig; I dared not rob. unlikely to amount to anything afterwards. Therefore I lied to please the mob. Now all my lies are proved untrue • Nonetheless, he may well make a large financial profit And I must face the men I slew from his activism. He will certainly get lots of free What tale shall serve me here among publicity, and (like pop stars who jump up and down on Mine angry and defrauded young? behalf of starving Ethiopians or of AIDS research) he will be widely taken for a deep political thinker. • Foes of Western civilization — whether they be com- munists or drug-barons or pornographers — will find his 1. Patrick Skene Carling, Pseudo-history under a pseudonym, The Spec- tator, 25 January 1992, pp. 28-29. activism immensely useful in furthering their own aims. 2. Anon., Did readers reject K eneally s latest work?, News Weekly, 28 March 1992, p. 10. These factors indicate that authorial activism is not at all 3. John Hanrahan, Keneally: a poor shot by a big shot, The Age, 11 the innocuous variety of menopausal self-indulgence which it January 1992. may at first appear. Instead of pampering Thomas Keneally, 4. Rob Johnson, Culture and religion help shape the hero, TheAdveniser, Donald Horne, Blanche d Alpuget, and suchlike_ haranguers 16 March 1991. every time they wish to pontificate on subjects completely 5. Imre Salusinzsky, Nothing but disaster on this flight, The Weekend beyond their grasp, it would be much better to tackle their Australian, 23-24 March 1991. 6. Anthony Rhodes, The Poet As Superman: A Life of Gabriele D - pontificating urge head-on. Any reasonably competent Annwzz,o, London, 1957. reporter could, with profit, pose to them the sort of searching 7. Kathleen Tynan, The Life of Kenneth Tynan, London, 1987; Paul questions ("How much public money is being expended on Johnson, Intellectuals, London,1988; Maurice Cranston, Rte Life and your activism?" "Do you imagine activism improves your Death of Kenneth Tynan: On a Revolutionary Hedonist, Encounter, January 1968, pp. 43-47; and the present writer s Profiles: Kenneth writing?") which they currently manage to avoid. When they Tynan, TheAmerican Spectator, June 1991, pp. 39-40. shout in praise of republicanism, abortion, greenies, Gay 8. David J. Tacey, Patrick White Marred, Quad rant, October 1991, pp. 7-I 1. Rights, E.G. Whitlam, Fretilin, the African National Con- 9. Lynne Strahan, Just CityAnd The Mirrors (Melbourne, 1984) provides gress, or any of their other beaux ideaux, it behoves the rest an unintentionally chilling account of the knots into which subsidized of us to treat them with the utmost scepticism. They have Australian writers — not least Miss Strahan — habitually tic themsel- ves. They will practise any self-deception rather than admit that anti- no more moral authority on non-literary issues than do the communists were right all along.
58 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 t rp RON BRUNTON
Moral Panic ignored me from then on. considering the dangers of a collision The concept also offers scope for with an asteroid, as Earth s orbit is HE concept of `moral panic was thinking about the way in which en- crossed by hundreds large enough to introduced into sociology in the vironmentalists present issues, although cause global damage. However, greens Tearly 1970s. It refers to a process the scale of both the supposed threats cannot draw a moral tale about the whereby the media, politicians, and and the responses demanded far ex- wickedness of our society from this kind others sensationalize social problems ceeds a moral panic about teenage of danger. Worse, were such a threat to such as street crime, and present them gangs. Greens happily bandy around eventuate, nuclear missiles would have as a threat to good order. Moral panics notions of planetary devastation and ex- to be relied on to shift the asteroid off tend to occur where social and tinction, and the media are often willing course. So now we are hearing that the economic changes have resulted in to co-operate. `It s a green revolution or asteroid risks are being greatly exag- widespread moral uncertainty and in it s doom, warns Worldwatch, ran the gerated so as to maintain support for the yearnings for a sense of community. Sunday Age headline for a story on the nuclear arms industry. Perhaps this is They follow a characteristic sequence: true. After all, we would expect that feelings of general disquiet become greens would be the first to recognize focused on a specific threat, which is the appearance of their own tactics in rapidly magnified as various interested someone else s campaign. parties offer diagnoses and solutions in- Environmentalists sometimes sug- evitably requiring stronger social and gest that worst-case scenarios are legal sanctions. necessary to galvanize people into The concept of moral panic em- taking remedial action. But there are bodies the idea of an exaggerated and strong arguments against this. The most inappropriate reaction, which may obvious is the danger of crying wolf, even worsen the original problem. inuring people to genuine perils that Given their radical sympathies, most may arise in the future, and discrediting sociologists often claim that these reac- release of the 1992 State of the World. science as a whole. tions serve the interests of the powerful, This far-too-influential report commen- Environmental panics also tend to and implications of manipulation or ces with `Denial in the Decisive divert scarce resources into the wrong fabrication may be present. So usually Decade, by Sandra Postel, from the problems. Over the past decade the US sociologists talk about moral panics only US-based Worldwatch Institute. She Environmental Protection Authority s when the social problems are ones that warns that unless we have "a fundamen- attempts to present itself as the protec- they regard as relatively unimportant, tal restructuring of many elements of tor of public health has led to a totally such as crimes against property. Once, society" including "a wholly new inappropriate ordering of priorities. In after hearing a left-wing sociologist economic order" and "a rethinking of the November/December 1991 issue of present a particularly tendentious semi- our basic values," we could "end up the The American Enterprise, Michael nar on the reaction to video nasties, I only species to have minutely monitored Greve points out that Superfund — the suggested that chattering-class agita- our own extinction." program to clean up toxic waste sites - tion about Australian racism could Not all doomsday scenarios are was based upon wildly exaggerated es- similarly be analyzed as a moral panic. suitable for an environmental panic. timates of the risks these sites posed. He responded with indignation, and Recently space scientists have been "The statute may not have saved a single
Dr Ron Brunton heads the Environmental Policy Unit of the IPA, based in Canberra.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 59 DOWN To EAR PH
life after the expenditure of some $10 will continue to fight back. But at least the fears about the dangers of increased billion by the federal government and some of their credibility seems to have UV-B radiation, in many parts of the many times that amount in private been eroded. world this has declined since measure- funds." Greve also notes that one recent Yet even while this is occurring, ad- ments began in the 1970s. EPA regulation would require the ex- ditional impetus is being given to other penditure of around $5.7 trillion before panics. In the past few months there have a single life might be saved. been grave warnings that depletion of Biodiversity Environmental panics are stratospheric ozone by CFCs and other Another current major panic counter-productive in another way. The man-made chemicals is worse than focuses on the loss of biodiversity, main- economic and social transformations originally thought. Earlier this year there ly through human actions which are demanded to avert the promised dis- was a great panic over claims that a `hole directly transforming natural asters are often patently unrealistic and in the ozone layer could open over dense- landscapes, although we are promised unachievable. So they feed a growing ly settled regions of the northern hemi- that both the enhanced Greenhouse ef- fear and loathing that is the opposite of sphere, exposing people to greater fect and the ozone `hole will also play the sense of responsibility to others and their part. This panic is being fuelled by confidence in the future that form the figures for extinctions which seem to be basis of environmental stewardship. plucked from the air. Ros Kelly s When scientists and environmentalists This panic is being fuelled withdrawn environment kit, Give the tell us not to count on "making it very by figures for extinctions World a Hand, said that worldwide, one far into the 21st century," they are un- which seem to be species of plant or animal was becoming dermining — not strengthening -- the extinct each day. In a recent letter as- plucked from the air. forces working in favour of inter- king supporters for donations, Green- generational equity . peace claimed that the figure was 100 species a day, and it gave the impression Role of the Media that this was just for animals. In January, amounts of harmful ultraviolet B radia- John Seed, from the Rainforest Infor- The media s role in generating tion. (The `hole did not eventuate as mation Centre in Lismore, said that it and sustaining environmental panics is feared, but now it is promised for the was 250 species a day. And according to northern spring of next year.) complex. The milieux in which jour- Robert Whelan, the director of the nalists and their editors are operating, The `quality newspapers that gave Committee on Population and the their agendas (if any), their scientific great prominence to the `Ozone threat Economy in the UK, in 1990 the Rotary and technical competence and their going global story, reported the claims Club of Great Britain sent out a docu- capacity to recognise its limits; all have of NASA scientists that "the highest ment to its members saying that 500 an influence on the course of a panic. levels of ozone-destroying chemicals species a day were being lost. Although ostensibly plausible disasters ever measured have been found in the Certainly, it is legitimate to be backed by `science have considerable northern hemisphere s skies." Depress- concerned about possible extinctions news value in their developmental ing editorials soon followed. But Mt and their consequences. But it is also stages, while their various implications Pinatubo was not mentioned, even legitimate to suspect that the restrictive are teased out and additional though, beginning soon after its erup- legislation which greens demand in `evidence is presented in their support, tion last year, there had been warnings response to this concern is likely to be the scenarios become less newsworthy that it could result in greatly accelerated counter-productive. It is also worth as they mature. News is about change, damage to the ozone layer. remembering that, far from endanger- not stasis. Once a general consensus There are other important doubts ing human welfare, "landscape trans- about a particular threat seems to have and qualifications about CFC-induced formation over most of the temperate been established, the sceptics case may ozone depletion that should be brought regions of the northern hemisphere in become more interesting, and the one to public attention. But with a few the last 500 years has improved the likely to attract attention. In turn, this honorable exceptions the media are ig- human condition," as Otto Solbrig, a makes it easier for the less brave noring matters such as the role of brave biologist from Harvard Univer- amongst the doubters to go public with chlorine and bromine compounds from sity recently pointed out in the Journal their misgivings. To some extent this is various natural sources in ozone deple- of Biogeography. happening with the catastrophic ver- tion; the role of certain anthropogenic For those who seek to transform sions of the Greenhouse scenario. In gases in reducing the effects of CFCs; the world, environmentalism is the ul- recent months a number of major the natural variability of ozone depletion timate renewable resource. As one stories in both the electronic and print and restoration cycles and their relation panic threatens to wane, many others media have cast serious doubts about to cycles of solar activity, the hyperbole of can take its place. And we can be confi- key aspects of the enhanced Green- claims such as that 200,000 people will die dent that before environmentalism runs house effect. Clearly, those who have of skin cancer in the US alone as a conse- its course, new and fantastic panics, hitched a ride on this particular panic quence of ozone depletion. And for all quite unimagined today, will arise. •
60 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 Governor-General Opens New IPA Offices
N 20 JULY, the Governor-General, O the Hon. Bill Hayden, AC, accom- panied by Mrs Hayden, opened the new IPA offices in Jolimont Road, just east of McIbourne s Central Business Dis- trict. About 100 people attended the opening. Guests included leading figures in business, academia and politics, and other friends of the IPA. Sir Wilfred Brookes and Sir James Balderstone, both former Presidents of the IPA, attended. Mr and Mrs Hayden were formally welcomed by IPA Presi- dent, Mr Charles Goode, and the Ex- ecutive Director, Mr John Hyde, gave the vote of thanks following Mr Hayden s speech. The Governor- General s speech, which was greeted warmly by the audience, is reproduced below.
It is a pleasure for me to be with you today for the official opening of these new offices here in Jolimont for the In- stitute of Public Affairs. Next year will mark half a century since the IPA was founded under the directorship of Charles Kemp and a group of prominent businessmen who, Mr Keating, in IPA Review a few years mon. They both represented the Liberal if I may quote from your history, ago on `Labor s Commitment to Smaller Party. Both were farmers — wheat "believed that free enterprise would be Government. farmers, I believe. They were both what seriously threatened by socialism in the In any case, the friendships and the are now called economic rationalists. years immediately following the war." respect that one forms for colleagues in Certainly both criticized the system of I cannot deny that when I was political fife cross both sides of the high industry protection, and both elected to parliament more than 30 chamber. wanted a more competitive economic years ago, it was on a socialist platform. I remember many people from my environment. Incidentally, both were There have been many changes since parliamentary days, but two in par- regarded as rather eccentric for their then, both to the platform and to myself. ticular stand out: Bert Kelly, the pursuit of such way-out and unrealistic At least I hope nobody finds me serious- `modest member for Wakefield who I objectives. ly threatening. am delighted to see with us today, and Well, as we all know, times move on For one thing, in this job I am now John Hyde, then the Member for Moore and both the main political parties have above politics; though any slight qualms and now the Director of the IPA. now dedicated themselves to either totally I may have felt at what colleagues on my In fact when John wrote to me some removing, or almost totally removing, old side of the house might say at my months ago asking if I would perform protection by the end of the century. joining you today were immediately this small ceremony today, I was only I suspect that John Hyde and Bert eased when I recalled reading a fas- too delighted to accept. Kelly might feel a little uncomfortable cinating article written by the then- Anyway, in those days Bert Kelly to discover that they are now in the Treasurer and now Prime Minister, and John Hyde had many things in com- mainstream of economic thinking,
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 199261 rather than standing in isolation like and professional economists. people on the left is that it does not Jerenuahs lecturing the rest of the com- Through the articles published in matter who you are, or where you stand munity on its shortcomings. your journals — IPA Review, Facts, on the political spectrum, you cannot Oh, I forgot to mention Peter Education Monitor, as well as in the defy the economic equivalents to the Walsh, another wheat farmer from the separate refereed monographs — you laws of gravity. You cannot make water West. You know, something must hap- reach a far wider audience among the run up hill of its own momentum, or pen to them sitting all day lonely in their general public. More than 40,000 copies push rocks up mountain sides with little boxes on top of tractors going up of Facts, with its collection of economic pieces of soft string. and down the paddocks and looking out and social indicators are produced The central principle in our think- at the monotonous plains. In fact, Peter every two months. And with a circula- ing has to be real economic growth lead- once told me that compared to plough- tion of around 15,000 copies, I gather ing to real economic prosperity, ing, thinking about any other subject that IPA Review has among the larger creating real jobs and allowing an ap- could seem worthwhile. Even readerships of a `think tank magazine. propriate degree of redistribution in ac- economics, he said, which is generally In all of this, of course, your cordance with whatever principles are regarded as a sombre subject — the perspective is that which journalistic being, embraced by the government of "dismal science" as somebody called it labellers would call the `right of the the day and accepted by the general — even economics could become quite political spectrum. Your central aim, if community. entertaining and even funny when you I may draw again from your own publi- Although I must say that sometimes are sitting all day on a tractor. cations, is to contribute to the creation I have doubts. For instance, when I go It is also a serious subject, of course, of a productive culture — one based on to Mr Hyde s home state and visit Perth, and a fundamentally important one for smaller government, lower taxes, im- and look at the marvellous skyline and any society. That goes without saying. proved education standards and in- the brand new high rise buildings with And in that respect the activities and the dividual responsibility. their shimmering glass facades that influence of the Institute of Public Af- You will appreciate that I have to were built during the 1980s, I start to fairs and other similar `think-tanks select my words carefully in public these suspect that maybe social credit does have been of profound significance for days. But at least can I say that I always work. As I recall it, most of the the development of economic, political find the articles in IPA Review, which entrepreneurs of the West had nothing: and social thought in this country for you are kind enough to send me, to be they had no cash themselves. And yet close to 50 years. written at a very high level. Of course, inspired by grand visions, large amounts I mention, for -example, the very the approach is predicated on market of credit and not a bit of hide, they were high public profiles enjoyed by some of forces, but in all cases the articles make able to create these imposing monu- your members and supporters in the a substantial contribution to contem- ments. Now, I notice, the community is media as opinion-makers. Indeed, John porary discussion of political and starting to pay for the full board and Hyde, Leonie Kramer and John Stone economic issues. lodgings of some of them. — to name but three — have their own Can I go on to make the passing Well, this is to stray rather wide regular newspaper columns. There is observation that it is probably the total from the basic point I wanted to make: the contribution made by the research absence of any equivalent discussion on and that is to acknowledge the very sig- papers and commentaries produced by what might be called the `left of the nificant role the Institute of Public Af- your various Policy Units: the political spectrum these days, which fairs has played over the past half Economic Policy Unit established and leaves the left somewhat intellectually century in the continuing debate about run by Des Moore in Melbourne; the hampered in putting up alternatives. Of issues of the utmost importance to the States Policy Unit located in Perth; the course, that is something for the left to economic, political and social develop- Education Policy Unit in Sydney and sort out for itself. ment of this country. the Environmental Policy Unit in Can- `Market Forces did I say? That is The creative and sustaining force of berra. almost a profanity in certain circles. vigorous, even combative, public argu- It is not too much to say, I think, that I noticed in The Sydney Morning ment is the mainspring of liberal repre- on some contemporary issues — and I Herald the other day that Mr Barry sentative democracy — a democracy refer to deregulation of the labour Jones MP, champion of the Sale of the that is open to the power of new ideas; markets or the bulk-handling systems, Century-type shows of his period (Pick that not merely tolerates but welcomes for instance — the Institute was playing A Box) saying that the Labor Party dis- the challenge to established or- the part of advocate long before these covered market forces when Bill thodoxies wherever they may be held; topics became fashionable in Hayden was Treasurer, but kept it one that accepts the notion that human mainstream politics. secret for nearly a decade. I am glad that truths are not immutable, but rather Even then, I suspect, the IPA has the light I lit still helps to illuminate the that their validity constantly must be been fairly influential in determining way ahead, even if Barry would prefer tested against the rub of debate and the parameters of the public debate - an amble through the woods to some experience, as J.S. Mill so rightly and not just among the relatively small sort of picnic. pointed out. The great virtue of such a group of politicians, business leaders The only advice I would give to society lies in the dynamic process of
62 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 discussion, not in the perceived wisdom will be as successful as you might wish, Top Speakers at Pacific of any necessarily inconclusive result. and that the IPA continues to make its Security Conference In all of this, as I say, the IPA has contribution to public debate in this been critically important — to borrow a country with the same vigour and deter- Leading American and Australian phrase — in Australian public life for mination into the future as it has in the foreign policy analysts joined to ex- nearly 50 years. past half century. amine issues pertinent to the Asia- It is to acknowledge your achieve- So it is that I congratulate you, and Pacific region and US-Australian ment that I have been so glad to accept have much pleasure in offically declar- relations at a conference in July. John Hyde s invitation to join you today. ing open these offices for the Institute Can I express the hope that the of Public Affairs. move to these splendid new premises Thank you.
Gareth Evans John Hewson
The conference, held at the Australian National University, was jointly organized by the IPA s Pacific Security Research Institute and the US Heritage Foundation. It was attended by about 130 people. The American speakers included: Sir James Balderstone and Des Moore and SirArvi Parbo Franklin Lavin, Deputy Assistant Bill Hayden Secretary for Asia and the Pacific, and Richard Armitage, co-ordinator for Humanitarian Assistance to the CIS (ex-Soviet States) and US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs 1983-89. Mr Armitage argued that the United States should avoid isolationism; he hoped to see a strengthening of Australia s relation- ship with the US. Representing the Heritage Foundation were its Presi- dent, Dr Edwin J. Fuelner, and Richard Fisher of the Foundation s Asian Studies Center. Nick Renton and Jim Short John Ralph Sir Wilfred Brookes Giving an Australian perspective were Professors Paul Dibb and Ross Garnaut of the ANU, Professor Alan Rix of Queensland University, Opposi- tion Leader Dr John Hewson, and Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Gareth Evans. The full collection of conference papers will be published
l fill S^f 1. ^LT1 M . ,ll.Ilf ^ , ^^ ,^ w ^^ ^ j later in the year. Professor Dibb s speech is reproduced in this issue of M43i7: f;ivQra AC • IPA Review. Paul Dibb is also the author of the most recent (and final) in the
H Australia and Tomorrow s Pacific series entitled The Outlook for the Former USSR. The publication is available for $7 from the IPA, 128-136 Jolimont Gary Morgan John Hyde Road, Jolimont, 3002.
IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3, 1992 63 inefficiencies and potential savings, was opt for coal rather than gas to fuel the launched in June. The launch, held at planned new Collie Power Station. The Epworth East Melbourne Hospital, was Backgrounder was written by Dr Frank addressed by Ken Crompton, Chairman Harman, Senior Lecturer in Economics t) of Project Victoria; Des Moore, Direc- at Murdoch University and formerly David tor of the Project s Health Taskforce; Chairman of the State Government s Denis Hogg, President of the Australian Anderson Power Options Review Committee. The Private Hospitals Association; and John West Australian editorialized that the Retires Buntine, Chairman of the Australian findings of the report should "alarm all Association of Surgeons (Victorian West Australians. There is increasing Branch). evidence that WA people may have been sold a pup and that the coal AFTER three years as Director of the decision has the ability to seriously APacific Security Research In- harm the State s future." stitute, David Anderson is retiring. IPA The IPA Backgrounder, Gas, Coal Director John Hyde said that David and Politics: Making Decisions About Anderson had, byway of his own writing Power Stations, is available for $5 from and work he commissioned, enabled the IPA. IPA to make timely and considered contributions to the more important foreign policy debates of the day. IPA D President Charles Goode thanked David Anderson for his valuable work "The IPA has benefited greatly from David Anderson s considerable experience and expertise in foreign affairs." Prior to joining the IPA David Anderson had a distinguished career in I?Ken Crompton the diplomatic service, including as Australian Ambassador to France, the Project Victoria originated from a UN, and the European Communities. concern among business organizations The IPA wishes David well in his in Victoria to address the major retirement. There are no immediate economic and budgetary issues facing Anthony de Jasay plans to fill the position. the State, without increasing the burden of taxation. It is backed by 12 of Victoria s major business associations Answering the Protectionists Victoria could save $700 m and 12 leading corporations. On 25 June Anthony de Jasay, from its Public Health Bill Towards a Healthier State is avail- economist, political philosopher and able for $15 from IPA, 128-136 Jolimont former investment banker, spoke to an The IPA has identified savings of $700 Road, Jolimont, 3002. Ph (03) 654 7499. audience in Melbourne on arguments million which could be made if surrounding free trade. He emphasized Victoria s Public Health Services were that, because of the complexity of vari- run more efficiently. WA Government Criticized ables determining the success or failure The extensive analysis of Victoria s of an economy, it was unwise to general- health services was undertaken as part In July Premier Carmen Lawrence s ize from the experience of the few of Project Victoria Stage II. It was aided Budget came under attack from Mike countries which had achieved success by Cresap Management Consultants. Nahan, Director of the IPA States under protectionist regimes. Protec- The analysis found that excess staff- Policy Unit. Dr Nahan effectively chal- tionists, he said, point to Japan s ing and union work practices con- lenged the accounting system used to prosperity, but ignore the poverty of tributed greatly to the system s present the Budget, thus helping to dis- African countries which also have high inefficiency. Staffing per occupied bed credit the Premier s claim that she had trade barriers. They point to Germany s exceeded the average for other States by achieved a Budget surplus. Dr Nahan s success under the protectionist Bis- 15 per cent in acute care public hospi- analysis of the Budget was widely marck, but ignore the liberating effect tals and by 64 per cent in psychiatric reported in the media, including on of the elimination of internal trade bar- hospitals. page one of The West Australian. riers with the unification of Germany. The Report, Towards a Healthier A stir was also created by the The function at which Anthony de State: the Restructuring of Victoria s release of an IPA Backgrounder criticiz- Jasay spoke was jointly hosted by the Public Health Services, which details the ing the WA Government s decision to IPA and the Adam Smith Club.
64 IPA Review, Vol. 45 No. 3,1992 RECENT O PA AC^I GROUNDS S Two Policy Packages: Which One will the Voter Bless? by Des Moore, March 1992. Compares the Government s One Nation statement and the Coalition s Fightback! package which both include policies to improve international competitiveness. But the Coalition has over-stated the benefits from its tax proposals while the economic scenario used by the Government as the basis for promised tax cuts is implausible.
The New Zealand Employment Contracts Act by Doug Myers, May 1992. Leading NZ businessman Doug Myers examines how the legislation works in practice. The emphasis is on performance related pay deals and the elimination of inefficient work practices. Union membership has fallen rapidly; strikes are at an all-time low.
Gas, Coal and Politics: Making Decisions about Power Stations by Frank Harman, July 1992. An indictment of the WA Government s decision to choose coal rather than gas to fuel its planned new power station and an illustration of the need for greater accountability in public policy-making.
A Strategic Approach to Industry Policy: A New Form of Protection? by Des Moore, August 1992. A critical examination of the arguments put forward in favour of industry protection.
Honest Money: A New Zealand Lesson, 1989-92 by John Stone, September 1992. An account of New Zealand s successful efforts to institutionalize the control of inflation, in particular through the Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act 1989.
Environmental Backgrounders
The UNCED Conference and the External Affairs Power by Colin Howard, May 1992. One of the peculiarities of the Australian Constitution, as at present interpreted by the High Court, is the scope given to the Parliament to enact domestic laws in order to implement international obligations entered into by the government. The worldwide politicization of environmental concerns and the UNCED conference in Brazil highlight the dangers of this situation.
Global Warming: The Origin and Nature of Alleged Scientific Consensus by Richard S. Lindzen, June 1992. Contrary to claims that scientific consensus exists on this issue, there is in fact no scientific basis for predictions of damaging man-made global warming. The author is Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Rural Environmentalism and the Evolution of Knowledge by John Cary, June 1992. This paper examines misconceptions about land degradation and sustainable land use.
Chemophobia and the Molecular Level by Sev Sternhell, September 1992. A short corrective for those who, through either simple or wilful ignorance, fear `chemicals and/or the chemical industry. The paper examines the consequences of chemical knowledge at both the fundamental and applied levels.
IPA Backgrounders listed above are available individually for $5. 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. z
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