The John Hyde Archives

Historic archive of articles and newspaper columns written by former Australian politician John Hyde OAM.

On the Dry Side

"On The Dry Side" is John Hyde's short articles on current political and economic issues in Australia and worldwide, starting in 1982. These were published in The Australian, the Financial Review and the Australian Institute for Public Policy (which later became the Institute of Public Affairs).

Fraser's Budget error - not enough Thatcher

Economics 

  • During the 82/83 years, the treasury expects gross product to fall and likewise, real wage earnings should also fall. If not, unemployment will increase.
  • Only if a UK type strategy is adopted, which is a long-term strategy of growing real product demand faster than real wage increases.
Read more...

Retrospective taxation can be fair

Taxation  Law 

  • The argument against it is retrospective taxation is the imposition of an unforeseen retribution.
  • The party that is liable should have their liability limited to the Crown.
  • An individual's liability should be limited only up to the net benefit from the sale of the company.
Read more...

It's not just avoidance or evasion - just waste

Taxation  Welfare 

  • Tax revenue is almost universally understood as once collected, is wastefully spent.
  • Welfare payments are going to those who are neither in financial need or those who have caused their own financial plight.
Read more...

High price of nappies built into BHP costs

Cronyism  Trade  Regulation 

  • The Australian Government should not insulate the management of BHP from the wrath of the shareholders for making bad decisions lest they do not learn their lesson.
  • There is a need to understand the true relationship between unemployment to the tariff.
Read more...

Abuses of privilege cost MPs respect

Politics 

  • Is it necessary for an MP to raise the issue in Parliament?
  • Is it necessary to identify the guilty party?
  • Has the MP done no more than address the wrong done?
Read more...

Some heavy losses but the battle continues

Economics 

  • Dry politicians reflect the changing view of how an economy should be run.
Read more...

Labour's stand on sales tax should be queried

Taxation  Economics  Trade 

  • A Tariff tax falls most heavily on necessities of life versus a sales tax which falls most heavily on luxury goods.
Read more...

Ord River sugar sage leaves a sour taste

Cronyism  Subsidies  Taxation 

  • WA consumers subsidise the price of sugar for growers in QLD & NSW.
  • The cost of establishing a sugar industry is high and there is no reason why foreign capital be used instead of taxpayer dollars.
Read more...

Facing up to structural change

Trade  Economics 

  • The Australian government cannot do much to prevent the world trade patterns from changing.
  • Various interests need to be more balanced in a fair manner.
Read more...

An evaluation of OECD cures for economic ills

Economics  Currencies & Commodities  Economics 

  • General world economic downturn, poor world commodities markets and the drought have caused Australia to suffer a shock worse than Japan's oil shocks.
Read more...

Simple explanation for the unemployment crisis

Industrial Relations 

  • It is vital that those who demand and grant wage increases feel the consequences.
  • The failure of the labour market is better understood by the rank and file unionist and his or her family.
Read more...

Less Haste makes for better bills

Law  Politics 

  • The Parliament passes legislation too quickly.
  • Most members understood or even read any bills, which are unnecessarily complex.
  • Only in rare circumstances, should innovative legislation be passed in less than four months.
Read more...

A Christmas Carol

Welfare  Taxation  Politics 

  • In 72, Gough Whitlam committed Labour to abolish the means test to receive welfare payments.
  • It is more important for Governments to be correct than to be popular.
  • Governments using welfare payments to buy votes.
Read more...

A Christmas Carol Strikes Back

Welfare  Politics 

  • The Liberal Cabinet is hobbled by an early election.
  • Welfare should be for those who need it.
Read more...

Unknown

Protectionism  Trade  Economics 

  • Defensive protectionist policies make things worse.
  • Australian trade is much more restrained compared to similar sized economies.
  • Nations which have unilaterally reduced their trade barriers have achieved higher rates of economic growth.
Read more...

Wealth key to Economic Recovery

Competition  Leadership 

  • Australia's private wealth is our most important advantage.
  • Australia has many industries that are among the most efficient in the world due to sound management or natural advantages.
  • The role of leadership, be it political, union or business should be help Australians understand the cause of our problems is man-made and can be undone.
Read more...

The NFF and the Balderstone Report

Protectionism  Industrial Relations  Regulations  Trade 

  • The report states that Australia's comparatively efficient agriculture is burdened with unnecessary regulation.
  • It is in Australia's interest that the agricultural industry propers while remaining efficient.
  • Australian agriculture suffers a considerable burden placed upon it by protected industries and trade unions and is under the mercy of international prices.
Read more...

Australia Writ Small

Protectionism  Trade  Regulation 

  • Both Australia and New Zealand have high import barriers.
  • Min price arrangements and export incentives are poor means of re-allocation of the nation's (New Zealand) resources.
  • Both nations have adequate natural advantages that are blunted by government intervention.
Read more...

Closer Economic Relations

Protectionism  Trade 

  • To prevent trade is to penalise both buyers and sellers.
  • The Closer Economic Relations (CER) with New Zealand will benefit Australia more as New Zealand has to adjust its trade barriers as compared to Australia.
Read more...

When is a Wage Freeze not a Freeze?

Industrial Relations  Economics 

  • Wages must increase less than prices.
  • High wages decrease demand
Read more...

The 1983 Budget

Budget  Fiscal Policy 

  • How much of the damage done by the previous budget can be undone.
  • Displaying fiscal responsibility will enable the govt to be re-elected.
Read more...

No Title (unpublished)

Politics  Leadership 

  • The ebb and flow of political fortunes
Read more...

Where now

Politics 

  • Party allegiance should not be built upon hatred of one's opponents but rather allegiance to an ideal.
  • Liberalism offers the Liberal Party the only hope of moral and intellectual structure.
Read more...

The Inheritance

Monetary Policy  Economics 

  • Excess monetary supply causes inflation and varies in duration.
Read more...

Unknown

Budget  Fiscal Policy  Monetary Policy 

  • A budget deficit is an unsatisfactory way to increase money supply.
  • The prime role of a deficit is to conceal politicians' expenditures so that they can appear to be better managers than they actually are.
Read more...

Unknown

Politics  Economics 

  • Political restructuring is essential and part of the process.
  • In a commercial setting, people "vote" using their dollars. It is then wrong that their votes are confiscated by limiting their choices to certain anointed candidates in a political setting.
  • If Australia is unable to accept steady restructuring of our industries in accordance to market demands, then bloody restructuring becomes necessary when we become impoverished.
Read more...

Double Dipping and the ACTU

Welfare 

  • A double dipper is a person who cashes in their superannuation and draws the old age pension.
  • Inequitable to have two benefits and most beneficiaries are relatively well to do.
Read more...

Foreign Investment

Economics  Protectionism 

  • Investors are only interested in Australian investments that perform better than elsewhere.
  • No investment can take place without the foreign buyer and Australian seller gaining something.
  • As long as there are investments that Australians are unwilling to finance, foreign investments will provide jobs and additional incomes.
Read more...

Unknown

Economics  Protectionism 

  • The selfish use of privilege will destroy the free Australia that men fought for.
Read more...

The opposition and the Mini Budget

Politics  Economics 

  • If Labour does a better job of managing the economy, then the Liberal party will be in opposition for a long time.
Read more...

Grimes Summit Speech

Welfare  Taxation 

  • High taxation, universal welfare approach is not the best way of coping with poverty and cannot be financed long-term.
  • Expectations of a pension discourages saving and investment.
Read more...

Labels - an easy way to discredit but they count

Individual Rights  Cronyism 

  • A more relevant classification of politics should be whether you believe that choice should be exercised by individuals or to be exercised on their behalf.
  • Vested interests are only wrong when governments pander to them.
Read more...

Wage-fixing priesthood keeps its god alive

Industrial Relations  Economics 

  • Centralised wage-fixing is the creation of jobs for some who would otherwise be unemployed.
  • A minimum wage is often set so high that it comes the permanent wage of those in the group with employers unwilling to offer more to capable individuals.
  • Marginal employees such as the young, old, and unskilled are permanently shut out.
Read more...

Thatcher's Victory

Politics  Economics 

  • Two myths were: 1) society has a deep-seated prejudice against women & 2) elections are won by a party that espouses the middle ground.
  • People voted for hope that the economy would get better
  • A democratic government can earn the respect of its people by governing for the long term.
Read more...

BHP

Cronyism  Economics 

  • The bigger a company becomes with government intervention, the more damage to an economy it can do.
  • BHP is seeking a preference over smaller businesses when it comes to subsidies.
Read more...

Debt

Monetary Policy 

  • Debt adds to the sum of human wellbeing, benefit both borrowers and lenders.
  • Some governments borrow not to invest but to increase their life style.
Read more...

Another Premiers' Conference

Politics  Budget  Taxation 

  • Premiers can make a lot of political trouble for a Prime Minister especially those that are from the same party.
  • The Prime Minister has become a convenient whipping boy for state politicians that complain about Federal taxes while saying that the Federal Government's stinginess is not helping with their state's expenditures.
Read more...

The Long Term

Politics  Economics 

  • A nation whose economy stagnates will become hard to govern.
  • Poor growth also compounds political problems that are associated.
Read more...

Where will the ideas come from?

Politics 

  • Influential thinking is now done outside of universities in independent research foundations.
  • Each successful foundation has gradually won the support of politicians, media and the community-at-large.
  • The ideas that sustain a free society are more likely to come from organisations that do not have a vested interest.
Read more...

Choosing the right index

Economics  Industrial Relations 

  • For indexing wages, the right index must be chosen. Lest we get more unemployment.
  • If the CPI is used to index wages, then we should exclude the effects in terms of trade, taxes and devaluation from it.
Read more...

A great trading nation

Trade  Economics 

  • Countries with small economies must trade with foreigners while citizens of large economies have a range of specialist skills that enable them to trade with each other.
  • Australia's trade is getting worse over the years.
Read more...

The Budget

Politics  Budget  Taxation 

  • A good budget speech is one that discloses various interests at the first reading.
  • Liberals preach free enterprise but practice socialism.
  • Families should not be taxed additionally to provide free tertiary education where a student loan would suffice.
Read more...

Trade Policy Transparency

Protectionism  Trade 

  • Tariffs cause job losses and is a tax which few citizens are aware of due to lack of experiences in price comparisons.
Read more...

To Doug Everingham

Politics 

  • Lack of agreed upon lexicon makes political debate difficult.
  • An economic stagnant society is an intolerant one.
  • Economic freedom is intertwined with freedom of the human spirit.
Read more...

Interest Rates will fall by 2%

Interest Rates 

  • Overseas influences coupled with a need to fund the public deficit and an uncertainty about future inflation caused a small dip and a raise in interest rates.
Read more...

Drought Aid

Subsidies 

  • Farmers that know how to use the rules and that are in the right position, can benefit from government aid at the expense of the taxpayer and other farmers.
  • Subsidies creates weakness.
Read more...

Dumping

Trade  Competition 

  • Goods are said to be dumped when they are imported and sold in Australia below current price levels.
  • Predatory dumping should not be confused with price discrimination.
Read more...

Peacock's Deakin Lecture

Politics  Cronyism 

  • Without political leadership, vested interests will control the Liberal party.
  • The Deakin lecture lacks credibility as it did not confront the tough choices present.
Read more...

Who were the Monetarists?

Monetary Policy 

  • Tight monetary controls may not work anymore due to rational cynicism
  • Neither governments nor central banks are inclined to adopt monetarism
Read more...

Sex Discrimination

Law 

  • Society discriminates and would not function without doing so.
  • Legislation fails to distinguish between choice from prejudice
  • It is not possible to stop rational discrimination by passing laws.
  • There is an economic cost to discrimination and it is better to let the market dictate.
Read more...

The Liberal Federal Movement

Politics  Leadership 

  • A country's future is dependent on the goals that are chosen by Politicians
  • To give guarantee for future performance by a politician is like an alcoholic guaranteeing his or her sobriety.
  • To govern effectively one needs a long-term strategy.
Read more...

Statutory Marketing Authorities

Protectionism  Economics  Trade 

  • An industry that depends on world markets cannot avoid change. By delaying just long enough, many who have neither learnt to swim or moved to a higher ground will drown.
Read more...

Their Own Worst Enemies

Economics 

  • The capitalist economy has a better track record than the socialist economy and so there is no need to apologise for it.
Read more...

Airline Deregulation (11/11/83)

Regulation  Subsidies 

  • Deregulation has enabled sharp reductions in the level of subsidies.
  • The airline industry is no worse off while the consumer and taxpayer is better off.
Read more...

Westpac to the Martin Committee

Cronyism  Regulation  Competition 

  • Westpac is caught between asking for continuation of protection from competition but is fearful that the same protection is extended to others.
  • Labour ought to favour deregulation such as interest rates control as it makes the market more efficient.
Read more...

Statutory Marketing Authorities

Cronyism  Competition 

  • The question most asked is whether statutory marketing authorities are adequately accountable to the various state governments, but the more important question is whether they are competent to market rural Australian produce.
  • Only competition will make marketing authorities efficient.
Read more...

The TPC & the IATA Agreement

Monopoly  Industrial Relations 

  • The problem with the trade practices commission is that the most serious monopolies are out of its reach.
  • The International Air Transport Association (IATA) is a price maintenance agreement that allows for cabin crew to share in the monopoly margins through their union.
Read more...

Sir John Kerr

Politics 

  • Vilification of Sir John Kerr is irrational as he did the best he could and should be judged with more objectivity.
Read more...

Democracy & Property Rights

Individual Rights  Law  Politics 

  • Governments when they revoke property rights change the value of whatever underlying property the rights were attached to.
  • The right to trade one's efforts is as important as a right to free speech and is even more relevant in everyday life.
  • Many politicians don't understand the principles that they violate and the harm the arises.
Read more...

Chaney on resource industries

Taxation 

  • A resource rental tax is arbitrary as measuring it is impossible.
Read more...

Facing 1984

Economics 

  • Productivity may be improved by effort, improved practices or increased capital per worker
  • Our productivity gains are less than other countries and is not sustainable.
Read more...

Large Colour TV Sets

Protectionism  Competition  Cronyism 

  • The Australian TV production industry taxes buyers and have developed into an uncompetitive assembler of foreign produced parts.
Read more...

The Eternal Nanny

Regulations  Individual Rights 

  • Society gravitates towards the least regulated activities
  • Even our bodies have become the property of the state.
  • Governments offer us a security blanket that is useless and prevents us from developing survival skills.
Read more...

Entrepreneurs

Economics  Regulation  Cronyism  Business 

  • Entrepreneurs are first forwards looking decision makers, but often become crony business managers once estabilished.
Read more...

Thomas Sowell & Walter Williams

Individual Rights  Economics 

  • Sowell & Williams argue that racism, discrimination & poverty are minimised where markets are the freest and are worsened by government intervention.
  • Affirmative action has created an action not to hire groups.
  • Sowell has insisted that he has faith not in the market but rather the evidence about the market.
Read more...

Who's a liberal?

Individual Rights  Law 

  • Traditional young liberal concern for human rights, environment and discrimination is in good hands.
  • The spread of income level is narrowest in societies which are the freest and the disadvantaged the least oppressed where privilege is not maintained by law.
Read more...

Taxes and Economic Growth

Taxation  Economics 

  • High taxes are hostile to economic growth and hence to higher living standards.
  • Link between high taxes and lower productivity, lower private consumption and lower life expectancies.
Read more...

Measuring Education

Education 

  • Both labour and liberal party members send their children to private schools due to teachers moving to private schools. Government schools perform the worst compared to catholic and private schools.
Read more...

Hawke On Structural Adjustment

Protectionism  Politics 

  • There's a trade-off between today's protected industries and tomorrow's living standards.
  • Mr Hawke, "we need a longer-range vision".
Read more...

Uncooperative Federalism

Competition  Politics 

  • States that want more powers should be prepared to finance themselves.
  • Competition between states to offer the lowest taxes or the best services is a good thing.
Read more...

The Next Deficit

Politics  Fiscal Policy 

  • With each succeeding deficit, either interest rates or lost opportunities will be higher.
  • Easier for politicians to increase government spending rather than to decrease it.
Read more...

Greiner's Small Business Policy

Regulation  Industrial Relations 

  • The policy allows for an individual to negotiate employment conditions above the minimum requirements.
  • Allows for the NSW industry to gain a competitive edge over other states and foreign imports.
Read more...

The W.A. Sheep Meat Industry

Protectionism  Monopoly 

  • The Lamb Board shows the consequence of instituting a government-controlled monopoly versus a free market.
  • Both consumer and producers have been prejudiced.
Read more...

Aboriginal Land Rights

Property Rights  Politics 

  • Australian governments have granted special rights to various classes of peoples.
  • The nature of lands right in the NT has caused uncertainty and the government is probably harder to deal with than Indigenous Australians.
Read more...

The Problem with Big Government

Regulation  Politics 

  • Smaller government where the people have more discretion.
  • The problem with regulations is the enforcement and the more rules the less productive a society will be.
  • Government doesn't know the wants of the people and the market is better place to punish any "rule-breakers"
Read more...

Tax No 1

Taxation 

  • The enforcement of taxation is inefficient and has become a vehicle for political favours.
  • Consumption and capital gains taxes will fill the void if there is a reduction in personal income taxes.
Read more...

Tax No 2

Taxation 

  • A progressive tax should be a combination of company, income & sales taxes.
  • Majority of revenue is coming from income taxes, a tax threshold should be allowed for smaller incomes.
  • Too much reliance on any one category causes the marginal revenue to drop as there will be less persons or companies to tax.
Read more...

Tax No 3

Taxation 

  • A new capital gains tax where it taxes only real gains and allowing real losses would improve equity and economic neutrality but would be extremely difficult to administer
  • An improvement would be to have a broad-based consumption tax through taxation of an approximation of real capital gains and removing special privileges from the income tax act
Read more...

Of Bread and Eggs

Regulation  Business 

  • Regulation governing the production of eggs & bread in QLD is destroying the profitability of both products.
Read more...

Exporters Pay for Tariffs

Protectionism  Trade 

  • Tariffs raise prices in the import competing industries over and above the extent that the wages rise for the rest of the economy.
  • Protectionism impoverishes exporters rather than penalising foreign competitors.
Read more...

Labour's style

Politics  Industrial Relations  Economics  Business 

  • Bob Hawke ceded authority to those whom should not have authority.
  • He expected big business to follow the government's lead on when and where to invest.
  • His government is a corporatist consensus of government, big capital and big union.
Read more...

The Opposition Industrial Relations Policy

Industrial Relations  Business 

  • Few unionists understand that they are the prime cause of unemployment.
  • An opportunity should be given to both employees/employers to be able to opt out of an award.
Read more...

Changing Australia

Collectivism 

  • Collectivism preference installed in the Australian Christian Church with a removal of personal moral responsibility.
  • Governments should not be imposing their will on the distribution of wealth and getting the Church involved.
Read more...

The Grass Roots Against Deficits

Politics  Budget 

  • State Premiers demand increased Federal grants but called for smaller government & lower taxes
  • In the US, grass roots opinion is going towards the direction of limiting the growth of government and to impose a budget balance.
Read more...

Coastal Shipping

Protectionism  Trade 

  • Protection of the Shipping & Steel Industries have knock on effects on other industries.
  • A government decision to protect an industry destroys another/others.
Read more...

Occam's Razor

Taxation  Subsidies  Politics  Economics 

  • It is remarkable that socialists think that the free world's financial system to blame for third world poverty.
  • There is no obligation for a liberal society to tax itself to subsidise conversation & peace movements.
Read more...

Early Retirement from the Public Service

Subsidies  Welfare  Politics 

  • Basic economics where subsidies create more demand.
  • Abuse of provision of medical certificates for civil servants who retire on medical grounds.
Read more...

Handling the Vested Interests - The Dries

Politics 

  • Governments that are strong enough to deal with powerful vested interests are themselves dangerous.
  • Politicians are followers; people don't like those that prejudice the community interest.
  • Processes ought to be as transparent as possible.
Read more...

Means Tests

Taxation  Welfare 

  • 3 positions for welfare funded by tax levels
  • A pension reduces an incentive to save; high taxes reduced capacity to save
  • Irresponsible to discuss universal welfare before eliminating the budget deficit
Read more...

Tax Payers United

Taxation 

  • Narrow interest groups cost their demands by setting aside similar/identical claims made by other groups and ignore the flow on effect.
  • Conspiracy to perpetuate the myth of the budgetary free lunch.
  • Reduced tax and reduced expenditure must go hand in hand.
Read more...

Productivity & Living Standard

Economics 

  • Australian productivity has not kept up with living standards from 1969 in a 13-year period.
  • Consumption has outstripped production; investment per head has declined.
Read more...

International Comparisons

Economics 

  • Comparison of Australia's economic performance with other nations
  • Slower growth rate compared to the UK (Study of a group of developed nations)
  • Even with our resources (Aus. & NZ), our living standards have fallen behind resource poor countries of Western Europe
  • With our lower economic performance, there might be a labour and skill migration of Australian to other countries.
Read more...

Building Industry Superannuation

Superannuation  Industrial Relations 

  • Inelastic demand in the construction industry; ability to pass on increased costs to others.
  • Union Superannuation is a tax on union members as they get a percentage of their members contributions.
  • The revenue will give them the ability to further industrial or political action and further their careers.
Read more...

Of Paddington Bear and Medicare

Regulation  Law 

  • Regulation as a means of control
  • Uneven enforcement
  • Confusing legislation, that is, it is hard to adhere to the regulations.
Read more...

Colour TV

Protectionism  Regulation 

  • Import quotas for Colour TVs; prices should be allowed to signal the levels of supply and demand
  • Quantitative restrictions (QR) are licences to print money
Read more...

John Stone and all that

Competition  Trade 

  • Review of John Stone's lecture.
  • Weakening of Australia to face the world market.
  • Government gains monopoly of information.
Read more...

Dept of Trade's export strategy

Protectionism 

  • Argument against protectionism
Read more...

Grain Handling

Protectionism  Trade  Regulation 

  • Wheat board (Trade barriers).
  • Farmer are unable to price differentiate between higher quality of wheel produced (price takers not setters).
  • Cost of over regulation where both some producers and consumers are the biggest losers.
Read more...

Health Care 3: Medicare

Monopoly  Regulation  Competition 

  • Medical fraud by doctors in a statutory monopoly
  • Firing a doctor removes his/her service from the community
  • The best is no Medicare; the market decides
  • * But what about a naturally formed cartel?
Read more...

Youth Employment

Industrial Relations  Business 

  • Employers will choose employees that can provide the most for each dollar spent on them.
  • Sen Chaney was concerned about income inequality and alienation.
Read more...

Japan's Ministry (MITI)

Economics  Business  Industrial Relations 

  • Japanese Government assisted in economic growth by restraining itself from interfering with the economy.
  • Japan's industrial policies are the best because the government interference is the least.
Read more...

Rich Land, Poor Land

Economics 

  • Those that followed economic wisdom the closest increased their people's standard of living the most. (Ghana v Taiwan)
Read more...

MTIA, Wages & Protection

Industrial Relations 

  • MTIA has been significantly responsible for the 1981 wage hike which has caused the high wages that they are complaining about.
  • No monopoly is prefect. If the price of any commodity is raised, some other similar product will take its place.
  • Due to comparative wage flow-on, other industries are also facing pressures to increase employment costs when they would otherwise not have to.
Read more...

The MIN Report

Subsidies  Trade 

  • Exporters have difficulties of low international prices and high Australian costs.
  • The source of the troubles is bad government instead of bad markets.
  • Mining companies are being loaded with infrastructural costs which are not asked of other competing sectors of the economy.
Read more...

Advertising

Subsidies  Cronyism 

  • Tax funded advertising is the usage of taxes to subsidies one set of ideas against another.
  • John doesn't believe that the public supports making judgements on standards such as tobacco and alcohol advertising and homosexuality.
  • The Government's responsibility is to increase competition for claims about products and ideas.
Read more...

Brookings on Deficits

Budget  Monetary Policy  Fiscal Policy  Economics 

  • Aside from printing money, a govt deficit must be financed by bidding for the same funds that private investors seek.
  • Brookings' objection to a high budget deficit is that it will reduce economic growth by increasing consumption at the expense of investment.
  • Deficits allow govts to spend money that is not raised in taxes.
Read more...

The OECD & Youth Employment

Industrial Relations 

  • The Australian Bureau of Labour Market Research (BLMR) states that youth employment was adversely affected by increase in relative youth wages in the 1970s.
  • There is a substantial barrier to downward flexibility.
  • Any further employment gains by youths are the expense of adult employees.
Read more...

Whither the Liberals

Politics  Economics 

  • There are three philosophical positions: 1) The Dries (Free market advocates), 2) The Wets (Keynesian Big Govt advocates) and 3) The Uglies (preservers of status quo).
  • Due to the people seeing political corruption, a demagogue may just get enough support by posing as a Dry or Wet to turn the Opposition's philosophy away from a more open, free and personally responsible position.
Read more...

Kasper's Schumpeter Lecture

Economics 

  • He opposes Keynesian theory that productivity is unchanging. His theory is that capitalism improves productivity through entrepreneurs.
  • Every fifty years or so, the world goes through burst of innovation that is concentrated in certain areas.
Read more...

Future Cost of Superannuation

Superannuation  Budget 

  • The case against budget deficits has several arguments. One argument is that it is unfair that future debts are paid by our children.
  • Today's governments are making commitments to their employees which future governments are unable to fulfil without raising taxes. Future governments faced with this issue will find a way to welsh on their predecessors' promises.
Read more...

Peacock's Shadows

Politics 

  • Only when a politician is in power, can he or she stay true to an ideal.
Read more...

NSW Egg Corporation

Protectionism  Monopoly 

  • Even though the NSW Egg board has been mandated to be efficient, it can never be truly efficient as it is a monopoly.
Read more...

John Nurick

Industrial Relations 

  • Incomes can only be raised if the demand for workers is increased.
Read more...

Foreign Investment

Trade  Business 

  • When Governments meddle with commerce, it is to grant an unequal privilege over established vested interests.
Read more...

Of Statesmanship and Architecture

Politics 

  • When politicians do not accept that there are constraints to their art, the state they built will be plagued by unemployment, inflation, poor economic growth, petty government tyranny and small country status overseas.
Read more...

Universities

Education 

  • Intellectual capital, primarily benefits whoever owns it like physical capital. It should be purchased even though it is not transferrable.
  • "Free" education unfairly taxes the poor who rarely enjoy the benefits of it.
Read more...

Universities 2

Education 

  • Free education offers both students and academics wrong incentives.
Read more...

Restructuring the High Cost Industries

Industrial Relations  Economics 

  • Restructuring means releasing resources from high cost activities to invest in low cost activities.
Read more...

Keep the Czar far away from us.

Individual Rights  Law  Politics 

  • Liberty is freedom from the only legal organisation that is permitted to use force (The government)
Read more...

Privatising

Business 

  • Privatisation brings a greater portion of total capital stock under public control.
  • Managers can no longer expect the public to underwrite inefficiency.
Read more...

Missing out on devaluation

Currencies & Commodities 

  • Full indexation of the Australian dollar at this time of declining economic fortune would be disastrous.
Read more...

Asian Shipping

Business  Trade 

  • Australia's shipping industry is to be handmaiden to trade and the industry's over-tonnage will burden either the ship owners or shippers.
Read more...

On the right to strike

Industrial Relations  Monopoly  Law 

  • There is a misuse of legal power to create monopolies.
Read more...

Housing Policy

Taxation 

  • Housing policies favour owners against renters. There is a considerable tax advantage to owning a home versus renting one.
Read more...

Farm Costs

Protectionism  Taxation  Cronyism 

  • The National Farmers Federation (NFF) wants to the government to have relief for its members but it must be prepared to get the heavily protected dairy, tobacco and sugar industry off the backs of the taxpayers.
Read more...

How much for the Poor

Welfare 

  • A better case for subsidies for the poor is to rest on utility.
  • There is no solution for the issue of moral hazard.
Read more...

The Tax Summit

Taxation 

  • The current tax system is inequitable. The best tax mechanisms should mirror government expenses.
Read more...

Sir Joh's Industrial Laws

Industrial Relations  Individual Rights 

  • There should be a recognised freedom of employment in society.
Read more...

An International College

Education 

  • Australia has a comparative advantage in the field of education. Allowing for a private college to be setup in Perth will not take away anything from the students.
Read more...

Parliamentary Superannuation

Superannuation  Protectionism 

  • If the taxpayers want to get the best value for their money, the payments to government workers/politicians need to convey the right incentives.
Read more...

Victorian Milk Price Arbitration 1

Regulation  Competition 

  • Regulations place Victorian Milk Farmers in the worst competitive position in Australia.
Read more...

Milk Price Arbitration 2

Protectionism  Regulation 

  • If the Victorian Dairy Farmers do not deregulate fast enough, they will face competition from Dairy Farmers from other states.
Read more...

When Elephants Mate

Individual Rights  Law 

  • Consensus should never be used to replace a clear legal framework that protects the rights of the individual.
Read more...

The Underlying Economic Problem: John Brunner

Economics 

  • Either production must be increased substantially, or consumption must be decreased drastically.
Read more...

New Zealand and Sri Lanka

Regulation  Politics  Economics 

  • A democrat can, given the right circumstances, successfully implement long term economic goals.
Read more...

2Parliment

Politics 

  • Democracy's most fundamental problem is the domination of vested interests.
Read more...

Tax, Expenditure and the Summit

Taxation 

  • When there is a demand for a tax cut, there is a need to advocate for a specific expenditure cut.
Read more...

The Sage of a Pipe Line

Fiscal Policy  Taxation  Politics 

  • Taxpayers are slugged with the cost of infrastructure projects when the government decides to build a "monument". *Q
Read more...

Helping the Poor

Welfare  Individual Rights 

  • Private choices (i.e. Single Parenthood) must be subject to influences which encourage the acceptance of individual responsibility.
Read more...

The Ultimate Cost of Protection

Protectionism  Politics  Trade  Economics 

  • Australia is paying a heavy social price for a closed economy. Only by reducing border protection is there a possibility of turning things around.
Read more...

Farmer Militancy

Protectionism  Taxation 

  • Farmers should not be bought off by policies that might be regarded as income tax favouritism and that everyone keeps their sights on the objective of an efficient free society.
Read more...

The Crunch

Industrial Relations  Economics  Politics 

  • If Bob Hawke feels that he is too weak to defy vested interests, he will sow the seeds of economic decline for everybody.
Read more...

Junior Employees - Special Orders

Individual Rights  Industrial Relations 

  • Minimum wage prevents potential employees from negotiating with employers.
  • The right to determine one's own labour is a basic human right.
Read more...

Cutting the Deficit

Fiscal Policy  Budget 

  • Any increase of public sector spending above the current level 44% GDP is not sustainable.
Read more...

Maintaining Direction in Government

Politics 

  • The Liberal Party must work out what it stands for.
Read more...

Industrial Policy

Protectionism  Economics 

  • Only a free market economy with strong positive and negative incentives can stimulate productivity.
Read more...

Of Liberals, Conservatives and Dries

Politics 

  • The ideas are more important than which political party wins.
Read more...

Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation

Protectionism  Competition 

  • It is important to privatise markets and there be alternative competitors for any former state firms.
Read more...

On Maintaining Direction in Government

Politics 

  • The Liberal Party needs to be consistent in its ideas put forth.
Read more...

A Mandate to Govern

Politics 

  • Changes which benefit the entire economy rather than just the few will only work if the vested interests understand that they tend to gain more than they lose.
Read more...

The National Party and The Farmers

Politics  Protectionism  Trade  Taxation 

  • Australia's trade barriers is costing Australian farmers on average $12,000 annually and is more than fuel taxes, capital gain tax and all other areas of rural complaints.
Read more...

The Accord, Labour Market Regulation

Regulation  Industrial Relations  Individual Rights 

  • Only soft approaches that are based in individual liberty will work for labour deregulation.
Read more...

Going for Growth or For Broke

Economics 

  • Foreign capital used for growth is no cause for concern. Only if it is used to finance current consumption.
Read more...

Lange's Economy

Economics  Politics 

  • Mr David Lange is the man who steered the New Zealand economy to eventual recovery by using free market principles.
Read more...

Occupational Regulation **

Regulation  Competition 

  • A licence does not inform a buyer about who is the best service provider. The effect is to stop competition.
Read more...

Neither Left nor Right nor Half Way In Between

Politics 

  • Labels confusion and creates acrimony where none need exist.
Read more...

The WA TV Licences

Politics  Regulation 

  • The root cause of Australia's economic decline is the subtle corruption of political authority.
Read more...

Transparency II

Protectionism  Politics  Economics 

  • Industry specific councils are a menace which should not be given any standing when forming public policy.
Read more...

The Australian Dollar

Currencies & Commodities  Monetary Policy 

  • If the Australia dollar is unable to maintain stability internally (inflation) and externally (exchange rate), then Australians will demand payment in something else they can trust in.
Read more...

What Is Wrong with The Liberals?

Politics 

  • John Howard wants to remove privilege and the Liberal Party has upset some of the most powerful interests in the land. The only way is forward.
Read more...

The Wages Debate

Industrial Relations  Law 

  • Most people resent the abuse of union power and fear that the unions will bring the country to its knees before giving up power.
  • Legally binding awards and trade union monopoly powers which constraint people which they did not agree to are morally reprehensible.
Read more...

The New Year

Politics  Economics 

  • We are still the lucky country and could use 1986 to order our affairs.
Read more...

Superannuation

Taxation  Superannuation 

  • Compulsory superannuation is a tax pledged to investment.
Read more...

Taxis

Protectionism  Regulation  Cronyism 

  • Taxi deregulation is the same as any other product or service regulation. There will be winners and losers, but everyone should benefit in the long term.
Read more...

A New Political Party?

Politics  Leadership 

  • Good political leadership is not the practice of defying public opinion but the art of changing of it.
Read more...

Privatisation

Competition  Regulation 

  • The main purpose of privatisation is increased productivity not obtaining the highest selling price for the underlying asset.
Read more...

Privatisation II

Property Rights  Competition 

  • There no substitute for care of a private owner over public ownership.
Read more...

Dumping

Protectionism  Competition 

  • Any Australian produced good that is dumped on the Australian market benefits Australians.
Read more...

Written on Turning Fifty

Fiscal Policy 

  • The reliance on credit by the current generation will cause future generations to be in debt.
Read more...

John Burton

Regulation 

  • Relative economic decline should be reversed by deregulation and privatisation.
Read more...

Oil Revenues

Welfare  Taxation  Fiscal Policy 

  • Revenue from the Bass Strait oil fields should be shared as widely as possible instead of being concentrated in unemployment benefits.
Read more...

Parliamentary Reform

Politics 

  • Parliamentary privilege is being abused by politicians that slander each other instead of debating the merits of each bill.
Read more...

The Real IR Debate

Protectionism  Industrial Relations  Business  Individual Rights 

  • Being able to opt out of a wage award allows the parties to come to an agreement rather than having something forced upon them.
Read more...

Recovery Alone Was Not Enough

Industrial Relations  Business  Individual Rights 

  • To reduced unemployment, we need to free labour and capital from government and the unions.
Read more...

Sir Hal Colebatch

Politics  Fiscal Policy  Protectionism 

  • He stood against: 1) protectionism, 2) excessive borrowing and 3) legislation that compelled price controls.
Read more...

Housing Interest Rates

Regulation  Monetary Policy  Interest Rates 

  • Regulated interest rates cause those that are unable to obtain regulated money to resort to hire purchase and second mortgages. They also distort housing supply.
Read more...

The Trilogy

Fiscal Policy  Budget  Taxation 

  • The trilogy promises are: 1) reduction of the Federal budget, 2) no increase in tax revenue and 3) reduction of Federal budget outlays.
  • There is a need to increase investment to meet the trilogy.
Read more...

Fools or Knaves? The Reith Lectures

Politics  Economics  Regulation 

  • Our current politicians favour interventionism, the question is whether they are knaves or fools? *
Read more...

American Morality

Politics  Individual Rights 

  • The degree to which basic human rights are respected by a nation is the degree of its morality.
Read more...

The Future of Agriculture

Protectionism  Industrial Relations 

  • The two demands by the National Farmers Federation that industry protection by reduced and that real wages reflect the nation's economic circumstances are reasonable.
Read more...

Retrospectivity 3

Law 

  • When a law is interpreted in an unintended way, a new law confirming things are they are thought to be may enhance certainty and equity.
Read more...

The Opposition's I.R. Policy

Protectionism  Industrial Relations  Individual Rights 

  • The Liberal policy will give all employees the right not to join a union.
Read more...

EPAC And Gruen On Trade

Protectionism  Regulation  Business 

  • Professor Gruen says that selling below full cost in not regarded as an unfair trading practices within Australia. It smacks of double standards when it is labelled as unfair when done by foreigners.
Read more...

The Accord

Industrial Relations 

  • The accord between the Labour Party and the Trade Unions are about to be tested. A productivity award will cause unemployment to be higher than it should be.
Read more...

Grain Handling

Protectionism  Trade 

  • With all the barriers to trade, we are a banana republic.
Read more...

Lamb Board

Protectionism  Regulation 

  • The board's policies have not been helping Lamb producers.
Read more...

New Zealand

Regulation 

  • The Lange Labour government has deregulated New Zealand to great success.
Read more...

Fraser On Howard

Politics  Economics 

  • The question facing the next Prime Minister is whether they will tackle our economic crisis without deferring to vested interests.
Read more...

Howard's Economic Statement

Politics  Competition  Business 

  • Australia's chronic condition is how uncompetitive our industries are. The supply side of the Australian economy must become more flexible.
Read more...

Cheer Up Things Are Getting Worse

Industrial Relations  Regulation 

  • Deregulation will force unionist to bear the consequences of their own actions.
Read more...

Party Conferences

Politics 

  • Due to the loss of trust in the Liberal Party, the WA Liberals can put their house in order by electing a president and a team that is not tainted by the past.
Read more...

A Crisis of the Spirit

Economics  Politics 

  • If Australians are to accept that there must be uneven sacrifices, we must feel that we are going somewhere.
Read more...

The Evatt Foundation Conference

Regulation  Subsidies  Politics  Business  Competition 

  • Public sector monopolies give politicians opportunities to subsidise favoured voters.
  • The public benefits the most from competition not private ownership.
Read more...

Holmes, Rattigan & Chaney

Protectionism 

  • Vested interests are no longer stifle debate about protectionism.
Read more...

The Federal Budget

Politics  Business 

  • The government should adopt the same rigorous prudential standards as businesses
Read more...

Industrial Relations in The Pilbara

Industrial Relations  Trade 

  • Foreign buyers only care about the price of iron ore. It is hard to understand why employee insist on practices that reduce productivity.
Read more...

Trace

Protectionism  Competition 

  • High transport costs are crippling otherwise efficient industries.
Read more...

What's at stake at Robe River

Industrial Relations  Business 

  • The main issue is whether Robe will be allowed to increase productivity and to invest in further developing costlier ore bodies or will the unions force it out of business.
Read more...

Education and Guardianship

Education  Competition 

  • The best kind of education where a child can get is one where there is a lot of competition.
Read more...

What Is the New Right?

Politics  Industrial Relations  Individual Rights  Taxation  Fiscal Policy 

  • Our wishes are to reduce union power, unfair business privileges, balance the government budget, reduced public expenditure and taxes, stopping the middle class from being ripped off, restore competiveness and protection of the family.
Read more...

Textiles, Clothing & Footwear (not in print)

Protectionism  Trade 

  • Workers that are in a protected industry must be prepared to accept modest wages that arise as a result of protectionism, if not, the economy will suffer, and riots will occur.
Read more...

Of Taxes and Superannuation

Taxation  Superannuation  Industrial Relations 

  • Democracies can slash marginal tax rates if they want to;
  • Some people are unwilling or unable to provide for themselves.
  • It is the demands of the middle class that make tax reductions difficult.
  • Union organised superannuation can be a competitive and safe alternative to high welfare payments and taxes.
Read more...

The Premier's Plan

Politics  Fiscal Policy 

  • The premiers seem to be incurring disastrous debts in order to buy votes.
Read more...

Living with The Dole

Welfare 

  • In order to have full employment, wages must fall. However, low wages make the dole attractive; there should be a work requirement for the dole.
Read more...

Star Wars

Defence  Politics 

  • Ronald Reagan did not have the right to trade away the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). It is immoral to give away the ability to stop a nuclear attack in flight.
Read more...

Howard

Politics  Leadership 

  • John Howard has the perseverance to implement his view on governance.
Read more...

Jackey's Marsh

Environment  Individual Rights 

  • Where private ownership over resources is granted, there usually is loving care over the property.
  • The main question is whether the area in Jackey's Marsh is logged, maintained as it is or used in other ways.
Read more...

The Constitution and Human Rights

Law  Politics 

  • We are all underprivileged in something and none of us in everything. *
  • The most important role of any constitution should be the protection of citizens by limiting the power of the government.
Read more...

Not Published, Doing Business with Too Much Government

Regulation 

  • The primary cause of our economic troubles is our government.
  • Every privilege is someone's cost.
Read more...

The New Enlightenment

Politics 

  • To describe people who want less state authority as "right" is slander.
Read more...

What is Unemployment?

Economics 

  • Unemployment figures are no longer a good proxy for economic distress which must be identified more directly.
Read more...

The NFF Seeks Audience

Economics 

  • The National Farmers Federation (NFF)'s paper argues that the government's policies are unable to cope with changes.
Read more...

The Laffer Curve

Taxation  Fiscal Policy 

  • There should have been greater expenditure cuts to compensate for tax cuts on the low and middle-income taxpayers.
Read more...

Will Unemployment Ever Come Down

Industrial Relations  Welfare 

  • Reducing taxes on the lowest paid where anyone who was on unemployment benefits will be better off working is the most politically and morally right.
Read more...

A Speech John Howard Should Make

Politics 

  • Most of the moral failures in Australian politics are a result of big government.
  • Legislation used to buy votes creates unequal classes.
Read more...

Welfare, Targeting Need

Welfare 

  • In practice, the number who qualifies for unemployment benefits must be reduced by restricting eligibility.
Read more...

Of Bread and Circuses

Politics 

  • Governmental authority is not the equivalent of nationhood.
  • If our government gets the fundamentals of a free and prosperous society right, circuses (symbols) will look after themselves.
Read more...

Petersen et al

Politics  Economics 

  • Debt and inflation are now so serious they must be remedied with a strong and specific political mandate.
Read more...

Commerce and Government Don't Mix

Business  Politics  Regulation  Cronyism 

  • Government operates differently in that only it can legally force people to do it's bidding.
  • Market imperfections are most often caused by government interference on behalf of vested interests.
Read more...

Health Care

Healthcare 

  • Doctors and hospital bed must be rationed, and supply must be matched to demand by queuing.
Read more...

The Rocky Horror Show

Economics  Regulation  Taxation 

  • The deficit should be reduced by cutting government expenditure instead of raising taxes.
  • The proven way to economic success is through deregulation.
Read more...

David Heald Reports to the ACTU

Politics  Collectivism 

  • His main recommendation is that collectivists must do everything in their power to recapture the political agenda from the economic libertarians in the 'New Right' think tanks.
Read more...

Not Lazy (Published in the Weekend Australian as Monopolies corner the market in frustration)

Protectionism  Monopoly  Regulation  Business 

  • Australians are more often frustrated with government regulations than lazy.
  • Monopolies are the reason for Australia's lost competiveness than laziness.
Read more...

The Next Prime Minister

Politics  Taxation  Leadership 

  • A leader should be strong enough to make cuts to the deficit and also be strong enough to deregulate and privatise.
Read more...

Of Unions, Rights and Property

Industrial Relations  Taxation  Property Rights 

  • The poorest person has no property but their labour.
  • The government's first responsibility is the security of its citizens. Does taxation extend to the right of labour of its citizens?
Read more...

A Manifesto

Politics 

  • An attack on the new right stems from self-interest.
Read more...

A Manifesto

Politics 

  • Today's drive towards liberty and reason has been called the New Enlightenment and sounds better than New Right.
Read more...

Referendums

Politics 

  • In Australia, the public may wish to say no to a policy of the government without voting them out of office.
Read more...

The Fiscal Problem

Fiscal Policy 

  • Public sector borrowing requirement must be eliminated and the Commonwealth must move quickly to a modest surplus with the States coming close to fiscal balance.
Read more...

Howard III

Politics 

  • John Howard cannot stop reading differences from being aired nor should he try.
Read more...

The Deficit 1987

Economics  Taxation  Fiscal Policy 

  • When governments borrow rather than raise taxes, there are several consequences: 1) The young lose, 2) investments drop, 3) The country's credit rating suffers, 4) The police are required to force people to service the debt, 5) Foreign debt accumulates and 6) The government is tempted to inflate the currency.
Read more...

South Africa

Economics  Politics 

  • Political power is least important in a liberal free market society with a small government.
Read more...

Two Ways of Coping with Unions

Industrial Relations  Law 

  • Reducing the power of unions until they have to obey the law like everyone else.
  • Passing legislation to override the power of the unions.
Read more...

Transport and the Economy

Regulation 

  • Transport modes and service should compete on equal terms. The subsidies favouring LPG over petrol should be eliminated.
  • Competition between wharves, grain, sugar, container terminals and other port facilities could be greatly enhanced through implementing the Liner Shipping Report
Read more...

If the Liberals Should Do Badly

Politics 

  • If the Liberal and National Parties are defeated this time, the current in-evitable drop in living standards will cause power to be returned to them.
Read more...

The Campaign Issues

Politics  Regulation  Industrial Relations  Economics 

  • John Howard's policy stances are more like Margaret Thatcher than he is given credit for.
  • The important issue is to increase efficiency without which Australia is sunk. Tax cuts matter but not so much as deregulation and industrial relations reform.
Read more...

A Liberal Liberal Party

Politics 

  • Labour leadership is unashamedly elitist.
  • John Howard has turned the Liberal Party from the control of people whose approach to governance is mirrors the current Labour party. Like Margaret Thatcher, he has been slandered and abused by members of his political party.
Read more...

Investment: Where will it come from?

Economics 

  • If private savings and investments are to increase, then the people must reduce their consumption. However, there is a danger that households might maintain their current living standards and savings levels might decrease.
Read more...

When Elephants Mate

Politics  Economics 

  • Corporatism (consensus of elected elites) can produce good outcomes, Singapore, Austria and Sweden are often cited as good examples of successful corporatist governments. However, only fools expect elites to remain benevolent even if they started that way. It is in the human nature to use power to guard personal status.
Read more...

The Issues Today

Politics  Industrial Relations 

  • Labour's industrial relations policy is corporatist, Liberal's is individualist. The main issue is who will rid is to national debt.
Read more...

The Darwin Water Front

Industrial Relations 

  • Militant trade unionism is not the only reason for our declining living standards and the difficulties of balance of payments but there is no doubt that both would be improve without it.
Read more...

Airline Deregulation

Regulation  Industrial Relations 

  • The less the airlines are protected from consumer choice, the less that it will pay for employees to go on strike.
Read more...

The Rules of The Game

Politics  Economics 

  • Economic necessity is forcing the individual to accept change and in the long run good procedures in support of good principles should generate good outcomes.
Read more...

Testing the Heroes: Liberalism Under Fire

Politics  Economics 

  • The importance of Menzies, Locke & Co for our current problems whether their insights and actions will enable us to think more effective about solving our current situation.
Read more...

Senator Walsh

Politics  Monopoly 

  • Senator Walsh made a case that a private monopoly is superior to a public monopoly.
Read more...

Corporatism and the ACTU

Industrial Relations 

  • Corporatism with its concentration arbitrary power is an evil system and Italian Fascism is the best example of that.
Read more...

World Trade

Trade  Economics  Politics 

  • Everything in an economy relates to everything else. One industry's protection is always another's cost.
  • International trade is always governed by domestic politics.
Read more...

The Budget

Fiscal Policy  Taxation  Budget 

  • The government has already implemented all the tax cuts it can afford and avoiding the real issue of expenditure. A good budget that does not achieve surplus of a billion without new taxes is a bad budget
Read more...

Government and The Arts

Politics  Fiscal Policy 

  • Governments are more interested in social messages than in evaluation and revelation when it comes to funding the arts.
  • Another reason why the average man who isn't interested in the arts is forced to subsidise the arts is that civil servants and politicians fancy themselves to be part of the elite.
Read more...

Replying to the ACTU

Industrial Relations  Individual Rights 

  • In Australia, a small wage restraint was bought by offering more power to the ACTU and the unions.
  • In Australia, the only basic human right not respected is the right to sell one's labour.
Read more...

At the Bottom of Our Troubles Is Misinformation

Budget  Politics 

  • Informed evaluation of issues by a free and competent press is central to democracy.
  • There was no excuse for the media to not report the budget's weakness before it was pointed out by Senator Walsh.
Read more...

The Children's Services Program

Subsidies  Welfare 

  • Should child welfare payments be directly to single parents to be self-sufficient, most taxpayers would be happy for it to be so. However, the resources are being urged to be diverted by militant feminists to schemes that will increase the child care costs per child.
Read more...

That Political Pay Rise

Politics 

  • It is unclear that countries such America with expensive politicians are always the best governed.
  • Centralised wage fixing will not work effectively.
Read more...

The Stock Market and History

Politics  Economics  Monetary Policy 

  • The cause of the Great Depression was not the stock market collapse but the result of poor government policies. The politicians should allow the markets to adjust accordingly instead of intervening and making things worse.
Read more...

The Family

Welfare 

  • Today, most people believe that the state has prime responsibility for lesser familial services such as education, childcare and providing financially for the aged.
  • Most families that do meet the welfare needs of their members succeed far better than those that don't.
Read more...

Of Fiduciary Responsibility

Cronyism 

  • The state bails out those that are in financial difficulties and are close to the government.
  • Governmental authority should not be used to dole out favours for a selected few but for the public interest.
Read more...

Philip Ayres on Fraser

Politics  Regulation 

  • Malcolm Fraser was a regulator when he was in office while John Howard was a deregulator.
Read more...

Private Correspondence

Economics  Regulation  Budget 

  • By deregulating our economy, we will be able to pay our public debts.
Read more...

A Deregulation LED Recovery

Regulation  Economics 

  • Deregulating will do more for the economy than getting the people to reduce their living standards.
Read more...

Confessions of A Multiculturalist

Immigration 

  • The best thing that government can do for multiculturalism is to not interfere with people's lives.
  • Natural multiculturalism and cultural changes offers Australia the best hope of economic recovery.
Read more...

Senator John Stone

Politics 

  • Public debate is essential but if Senator Stone alienates his colleagues, they can make him irrelevant and the public won't listen to him.
  • If he does not want to be made irrelevant, then he must accept that no one can be a shadow minister or otherwise without making concessions to cabinet solidarity.
Read more...

The Eternal Nanny

Politics  Cronyism 

  • A nanny government needs a big stick and thick skin.
  • The behaviour of the nanny state benefits vested interests.
Read more...

What Happened to Charity?

Welfare 

  • The reason why welfare fails is that the middle class are taxed and its recipients. Welfare does not get to the poor.
  • Largesse that places no obligation on the recipient spoils them.
Read more...

The Bicentenary

Politics 

  • Too many Australians deplore a lack of political leadership, we need to tell our leaders to follow the best worldwide examples and accept that we will need to modify our behaviour accordingly.
Read more...

The Source of Union Power

Industrial Relations 

  • The power of the unions is both political and industrial.
  • A monopoly is only as effective as the barrier that holds out competitors.
Read more...

Wheat Marketing: A Case Study of Monopoly

Protectionism  Cronyism  Monopoly 

  • Monopolists argue that increasing size will allow for economies of scale but without competition that is no onus to pass on the benefits.
  • Wheat growers that keep silent about their lack of choice allow their impoverishment.
Read more...

Tax Avoidance & Civil Disobedience

Taxation 

  • Some level of tax is needed to preserve society and payments should be made to the needy.
  • When levels of taxation are high enough, the people will feel unfairly imposed upon and thus will avoid them.
Read more...

How We Talk About Aborigines

Property Rights 

  • Due to the cultural differences and even with land rights for Indigenous Australians, Indigenous Australians have not prospered in comparison with the rest of society.
  • We need stop denying the best of all our cultures.
Read more...

Micro Economic Reform

Economics 

  • Whenever there is an economic crisis, vested interests lose their hold over the government.
  • Unfortunately, some parties are prepared for the country to be destroyed rather than give up their interests.
Read more...

Spare Us from By-Elections

Politics 

  • The job of a statesman is to articulate good policies. However, politicians being elected make irresponsible promises.
Read more...

Amending the Constitution

Politics 

  • The public has shown that given the chance, it is more liberal, fiscally responsible, less likely to pander to vested interests.
Read more...

Partington

Education  Protectionism 

  • Education is predicated on objective standards and can only assessed using those standards.
Read more...

Labour Markets

Industrial Relations 

  • Restoration of personal liberties, increased productivity, low inflation and full employment should be the goals of any labour market reform.
  • However, any reform must take into account of the consideration power of the unions.
Read more...

Political Corruption

Politics  Law 

  • Legislators are above the law in that if they do not like a law they can amend it. However, they can never be above the principles of justice and equality.
  • A state that confers privileges that it cannot legitimately justify is corrupt.
Read more...

Academic Accountability

Education 

  • Any paid academic must be held accountable for the value of their salary and academic freedom is best protected by an absence of government funding and a large range of sponsors.
Read more...

On Bill Carmichael's Retirement

Protectionism 

  • For any major reform to be successful, a vested interest with a major stake in the reform must carry it.
Read more...

Greiner's: The First Dry Government

Politics 

  • Mr Greiner has shown that Dry Liberals can be elected; the question is whether he can resist the temptation of power and not favour vested interests.
Read more...

The WHO Conference

Protectionism  Politics 

  • The World Health Organisation is successful only in places where they have stayed out of politics.
Read more...

The National Party and Consumption Taxes

Taxation  Politics 

  • A consumption tax would encourage saving and investment, remove some distortions caused by the sales tax and reduce tax evasion.
Read more...

The Motor Car Decision

Taxation  Protectionism  Cronyism 

  • The purpose of any protection is to allow goods to be sold at a higher price and has the same purpose as a consumption tax.
  • The protectionism affects other industries as it makes them less competitive due to the other industries subsidising the particular industry.
Read more...

Robe River Iron and The Common Law

Industrial Relations 

  • The Robe River Iron Associates (RRIA) should not be demonised for using the law to recover their company property and their poor public relations should not be used as an excuse to bully them.
Read more...

Super Unions

Industrial Relations 

  • For any society to function, there must be near consensus about fundamental rules.
  • Competition with the established rules has a better record than the protectionism imposed by ministers and union officials.
Read more...

Player or Ring Keeper?

Protectionism  Cronyism 

  • When private players enlist the government in intervening in the economy, the "ring-bearer" may become corrupt.
Read more...

Criticism of Howard

Politics  Business 

  • Running the country is different from running a corporation and politicians that do not make the distinction are dangerous.
  • John Howard represents a policy change that certain businessmen resent.
Read more...

Dawkins Tertiary Funding Proposals

Taxation  Subsidies 

  • A graduate tax is not unfair to students as knowledge is a valuable private good.
  • The nature of subsidised education creates economic rents.
Read more...

The Perils of Regulation

Regulation 

  • Socialists must decide between their abhorrence of the markets and helping the poor. Only when wealth is created, that it can then be diverted to assist the under-privileged can be help.
Read more...

Nanny II

Individual Rights  Politics 

  • There may be nothing sinister in the Nanny state's actions, but she does not favour personal liberty, strong family ties or capitalism.
Read more...

Merrindie

Philosophy  Leadership 

  • Bert Kelly influenced the people into seeing that ideas should sometime prevail over interests.
Read more...

Wealth

Politics  Welfare 

  • We should be concentrating on elevating the living standards of the poor, instead of cutting the wealthy down to size.
  • A person's moral obligation to help the less fortunate is not removed by increasing taxes.
Read more...

The Liberals IR Policy

Industrial Relations  Monopoly  Competition  Regulation 

  • To protect the public from monopolies, the best alternative is to allow competition. Any reduction will reduce the pain of getting our economic house in order.
Read more...

The Misfortunes of The Gulf War

Politics 

  • Democracy, especially in America, means that all possible technical, tactical and political errors that contributed to a tragedy will be exhaustively discussed.
Read more...

Wheat Marketing: Too Much Politics

Monopoly 

  • When any vested interest creates a monopoly, the price of the product is then raised.
Read more...

The Politics of Deregulation

Regulation  Politics  Leadership 

  • Three things are needed for deregulation: 1) A convergence of elite opinion, 2) An issue must be ripe and 3) some leadership is needed.
Read more...

Time the Nats Delivered

Politics  Protectionism  Cronyism 

  • If the National Dries do not disown any plans to strengthen the Australian Wheat Board's control over the domestic market, the voter may not have much choice except to vote for the Labour party.
Read more...

Consumerism

Protectionism  Cronyism 

  • Organisations that should be advocating for more choices for consumers, use public money to pursue an agenda that is opposite of consumer choice.
Read more...

Values

Philosophy  Politics 

  • People must be responsible for the consequences of their actions. When the government intervenes, there is a cost and should therefore be limited.
Read more...

Immigration Hypocrisy

Immigration  Education 

  • Diversity is potentially a source of program but also of factionalism. Children of immigrants would seem to be integrating into Australia given their excellent exam results.
Read more...

A Tale of Two Nations

Regulation  Politics  Economics 

  • The message for Australia and Fiji is that we have a choice between raising our gross national product or lower our standards of living.
  • It is either deregulate or decay.
Read more...

The Coalition

Regulation  Monopoly  Cronyism  Politics 

  • It is in the national interest to avoid all unnatural monopolies.
  • If the National Party does not want a free wheat market, who will believe them when they call for deregulation.
Read more...

The Coalition II

Politics 

  • When the current political tensions are reduced, can compromises be made between Wet and Dry politicians? If not, there will be no loss.
Read more...

Reforming Education

Education  Regulation  Competition  Individual Rights 

  • The best option to education is to deregulate it and to allow the people the freedom to make their choices wisely.
Read more...

One Australia

Politics  Individual Rights  Law 

  • The state cannot give us complete legal equality. We also will not agree with the privileges afford to the different classes of Australians.
  • However, if Mr John Howard can get rid of unreasonable privileges, it will have the result of making the most of us equal legally.
Read more...

Public Sector Accountability

Politics  Economics 

  • The WA government should not have initiated public sector activity which displays the usual inefficiency.
  • The real problem is that that when Western Australian politicians introduce government into commerce, they often abuse the trust that is placed upon them.
Read more...

What Price the Accord?

Economics 

  • The accord has delivered wage restraint at a cost which is the higher levels of overseas debt and higher account deficit.
Read more...

The Family Conference

Politics  Welfare  Philosophy 

  • Welfare has freed both men and women from responsibilities.
  • A stable and prosperous society depends on stable monogamous families.
Read more...

A Heartbeat from The Prime Ministership

Politics  Leadership 

  • Without leadership, Australians will probably not stumble out of our well-established round of slow growth, poor investment and current account deficits.
  • A vengeful man should not be entrusted with the power of the Prime Minister.
Read more...

The IAC Report

Protectionism 

  • Protectionism reduces living standards.
  • The debate about the costs of protectionism has been won.
Read more...

Reagan

Politics 

  • Regan helped re-establish self-reliance and responsibility as virtues.
Read more...

Tax File Number

Taxation 

  • Tax laws are now so complex that no reasonable man may know his liability.
  • The Commissioner is using the threat of unknown penalties to frighten individuals into paying their liabilities.
Read more...

The Liberals Won't Tax Gold

Taxation  Economics 

  • The economic objection to an industry paying less than its share of taxation is that some other industry will have to pick up the slack and comparative advantage of each industry is ignored.
Read more...

On Re-reading 'The Road to Serfdom'

Politics  Philosophy 

  • The evil to be most feared is the power to force people into conformity. Concentration of power is dangerous.
  • The role of parliament is to check the power of government.
Read more...

Rimmer

Immigration 

  • When the government privileges some newly declared Australians over the rest of Australia, the government violates the implied authority given to it to treat all Australians equally.
Read more...

Future Directions

Politics  Leadership 

  • The 'Future Directions' statement implies an overdue recognition that ideas have inspirational authority and is an alternative to messianic leadership which the Liberals do not have.
Read more...

The 'right' that never existed

Industrial Relations  Individual Rights 

  • There is no inherent right to strike only to stop working. By preventing other people from taking their jobs, they are subtracting their rights.
Read more...

In Search of Better MPs

Politics 

  • Politicians have been promoted to their level of incompetence and the only way to cure that is they are only allowed to create general conditions for the people to better themselves.
Read more...

Tariffs: The Beam in Our Eyes

Politics  Economics 

  • Even though tariffs lower living standards, politicians use them to win over some voters.
Read more...

The OTC Sacking

Monopoly 

  • Monopolies do not go broke as they can pass on any unnecessary costs on to their customers.
Read more...

A Significant Blessing

Regulation 

  • The most important policy implemented by the Federal Cabinet has been the deregulation of financial markets.
Read more...

What's Political Important In 1989?

Politics  Economics 

  • Political corruption, foreign debt and declining living standards are the big issues in 1989.
Read more...

Civility

Politics 

  • Civility often pre-empts conflict and is in decline in Australia.
Read more...

Dowding Goes to The Polls

Politics 

  • The Burke government entered into joint ventures with WA's wealthiest citizens and so damaged the financial and legal integrity of the WA state.
Read more...

Dries Must Resist Giving Up Struggle as Going Gets Rough

Politics 

  • Society is a feedback machines in that, any misfortune creates behavioural changes and the trick is to change patterns of behaviour before misfortunes become too awful.
Read more...

Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth

Politics  Economics 

  • As Dry policies are being implemented, any lags between implementation and consequences must be explained as must any mistakes or unrelated causes.
Read more...

How to Generate Poverty Without Really Trying

Economics  Welfare 

  • To alleviate poverty, most of the poor will become rich only by given the opportunity to work, save and exchanging their goods and services.
Read more...

Lessons From WA

Politics 

  • Labour has been given the message that unaccountability method of governance is unacceptable. Two other issues were interest rates and competence of our political leaders.
Read more...

Giving Authority Back to Parliament

Politics 

  • For government accountability to be present, all political parties must honour the Westminster tradition and there must be an independent press.
Read more...

What Has Happened to Political Leadership?

Politics  Leadership 

  • Political leadership is about making the connections and explaining the trade-offs.
Read more...

The Lamb Marketing Corporation

Protectionism  Politics 

  • The average producer is unaware that they are being duped and politicians have no interest in informing them.
Read more...

The Government and The Wage Round

Protectionism  Industrial Relations 

  • The government should not be entrenching the unions. They should be doing what is right for the economy.
Read more...

The National Companies and Securities Commission

Protectionism 

  • The National Companies and Securities Commission (NCSC) should be dissolved if they are seen to be protecting certain interests.
Read more...

Policing the Media

Monopoly  Politics 

  • The limitations that government places on the media outlets are unnecessary.
  • One wonders if the government would like the media to feel obligated to them.
Read more...

Chile

Politics  Economics  Regulation 

  • Chile to become an economic success story. Reform included reducing tariffs to a flat 15% and substantially deregulating labour market.
Read more...

The Case Against the Tax File Number

Taxation 

  • Income tax is intrusive, penalises investment, uncertain and unfair. It should be replaced by a consumption tax.
Read more...

Not So New Federalism

Politics  Economics 

  • The Australian economy will not recover until the people who make the economic decisions face the consequences of their own decisions.
Read more...

David Kemp

Politics  Philosophy 

  • Professor Kemp is hopeful that authority is now seen to have limitations and liberal ideas flowing from government groups.
Read more...

The Winding Up of WA Inc

Politics  Cronyism 

  • The activities of WA Inc are wrong because they benefit private interests at the expense of the public.
Read more...

Of Wages and Wheat

Industrial Relations  Regulation  Politics 

  • The Liberals must establish the few important principles now. Continual deregulation is one of them.
Read more...

The Politics of Hope

Politics 

  • It is now the time to again make the case for social reform in terms of opportunities instead of costs.
Read more...

Citizen-Initiated Referendums v Corruption

Politics  Cronyism  Protectionism 

  • If effective sovereignty were returned to the people, politicians would no longer be protecting vested interests.
Read more...

The Potential Cost of PICL

Cronyism  Politics 

  • The greatest danger for the Western Australian citizen is that Petrochemical Industries Company Limited (PICL) is that the state government purchasing a large amount of PICL shares and any inefficiencies in the way that the company is run is then covered up by subsidies.
Read more...

Macphee

Politics  Economics 

  • Since 1974, both the Labour and Liberal parties have adopted freer market policies, but Mr Macphee has not changed his positions.
Read more...

Reforming GATT

Trade  Protectionism 

  • The solution to trade barriers is to measure the cost to the national economy and report to the public the cost.
Read more...

Corporate Taxation

Taxation  Business 

  • Australian investment is poor due to rules discouraging investment. The tax system should be changed to remove the penalties from investment.
Read more...

A Report Card for School

Education  Competition 

  • Teachers must be given the incentives to perform well and be disciplined by the market if they do not perform.
Read more...

Of Honour and Politics

Politics 

  • Friction is in the nature of politics, there is a need to conduct the party's affairs well.
Read more...

The Dropping of The Pilot

Politics 

  • John Howard's greatest achievement was to develop a party that would not be in bed with special interests.
Read more...

Housing Interest Rates

Interest Rates 

  • High interest rates reduce consumption by the same amount that savings would have increased.
Read more...

One Australia *

Philosophy  Individual Rights 

  • Society cannot function without some shared values and some values are so central to our society that they are non-negotiable.
  • Those aspects of our culture that protects civil rights must be accepted by all and it would be unfair to everyone by pretending otherwise.
Read more...

Whither Florence Nightingale?

Protectionism  Industrial Relations 

  • If individual nurses could be rewarded for their productivity, union protectionism would not work, and patients and taxpayers would not be bled.
Read more...

Trade Policy

Trade  Economics 

  • The problem is that Australians are consuming more than they produce. Until that is fixed, there is no reduction of the trade deficit.
Read more...

Howard III: Return of The Drover's Dog

Politics 

  • Is question facing Australians is that how will we regain access to John Howard's talents?
Read more...

What Are EFIC And the Wheat Board Up To?

Protectionism  Politics 

  • When a statutory authority is created that does not act in the public interest, it becomes almost impossible to dismiss the organisation.
Read more...

Retirement Income

Superannuation  Welfare 

  • By the year 2030, we will need to allow people to work longer and have to raise the age from which people can claim government pensions.
Read more...

Foreign Debt Does Matter

Regulation 

  • Foreign debt servicing can only be possible through deregulations, only then can investments flow into Australia and the level of foreign debt reduced.
Read more...

Applying the Fitzgerald Principles

Politics 

  • The Fitzgerald report recommended that systematic corruption is set in place conditions that will prevent future corruption.
Read more...

Parliament Is Not A Waste of Time?

Politics 

  • As long as parliament continues to rubber stamp cabinet and caucus decisions, there will not be rational debate.
Read more...

Greenhouse and All That

Environment  Politics 

  • Before we give governments that power to do damage to the world economy, we need to be reasonable sure that there is a crisis in the world ecosystem and that any action proposed as net benefits.
Read more...

Foreign Aid

Foreign Aid 

  • Foreign aid props up governments that might otherwise fall, it leads to inevitable politicisation of life and degradation of life there.
Read more...

Ian McLachlan

Economics  Leadership 

  • Mr McLachlan's H.R Nichols Society address was significant in that it addressed waterfront work practices and he is a future Liberal MP with leadership potential.
Read more...

Of Ethics and The Economy

Economics  Politics 

  • In this current climate, our government places electoral interests ahead of policies that will benefit society overall.
Read more...

The Pilots and The Libs IR Policy

Industrial Relations  Politics 

  • The whole point of the Liberal policy was the salary of pilots should be market driven but the leader of the Liberal party missed the opportunity to educate the Australian people on the least painful way to bring the current account into balance.
Read more...

On Not Subsidising Ansett

Protectionism  Industrial Relations 

  • Since the Prime Minister cannot subsidise every everyone that has been disadvantaged by a strike, he should not subsidise the wealthy that have the ear of the government.
Read more...

Senator Walsh

Politics  Economics  Regulation 

  • Until we deregulate and privatise, our economic growth remains modest.
Read more...

Youth Employment

Industrial Relations 

  • Many government programs subsidise employers to hire apprentices. This is admitting that young, unskilled employees are overpriced due to the minimum wage.
Read more...

The Rake's Progress

Industrial Relations  Competition 

  • The rhetoric against the Australian Federation of Air Pilots is unfair. They are not the enemy, they should be left to be dealt with by market forces.
Read more...

WorkCare And the RSI Epidemic

Subsidies  Politics 

  • Any illness, where the treatment is free or subsidised, tends to record a higher level of occurrence.
Read more...

Interest Rates Are Not Doing the Job

Interest Rates  Economics  Business 

  • When there is not a need to rely on interest rates to kill demand, the inflow of foreign investment will fall.
Read more...

Principle of Limits

Politics 

  • Politicians that do not accept limits to their power, tend to be corrupted as they turn public authority to benefit themselves.
  • Power tripping has done immense damage to our economy and to the standing of our political institutions.
Read more...

Des Moore

Economics  Monetary Policy 

  • Des Moore of the IPA had two recommendations: 1) debt does matter 2) monetary policy must be tightened.
Read more...

Coronation Hill and Conservation

Environment 

  • Miners are ordinary people who for the most part, love nature. By demonising them, environmentalists gave up the chance for BHP to use its resources for their cause.
Read more...

The Liberal's Tax and Spending Policy

Taxation  Fiscal Policy  Politics 

  • The overall thrust of the policy is pro-employment but falls well short of solutions for the problems outlined. Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction.
Read more...

The Annual Convention of The Industrial Relations Society of WA (Inc)

Industrial Relations 

  • The fundamental reason why the labour market deregulation has not proceeded was indicated by a trade union official belief that most of society cannot get along. Unfortunately, he did not believe that most of society would appreciate directing their own affairs.
Read more...

Political Corruption

Politics  Cronyism 

  • If there had been proper parliamentary disclosure, there would not have been case of political corruption such as WA Inc.
Read more...

Those Vietnamese Refugees

Immigration  Economics 

  • The immigration of any group that is willing to integrate into Australian society is good as the group will enrich the economy and society.
Read more...

Howard Back

Politics  Leadership 

  • The Liberal Party's trouble is that it has bad faith not a lack of talent.
Read more...

Joining East Asia

Economics  Trade 

  • The most important lesson that we can learn is the export orientation for the most successful countries is high and even going to the extent of subsidising exports.
Read more...

Victory Without Blood

Politics 

  • With the collapse of communism, millions of people gained a measure of freedom without bloodshed.
Read more...

Healthcare, Unions, Solidarity and Conflict

Industrial Relations  Healthcare 

  • One characteristic of a protected industry is that few of the decision makers have to bear the consequence of their decisions.
  • Another characteristic is that authority is used to set prices instead of demand and supply determining prices.
Read more...

What Right to Strike?

Industrial Relations 

  • Any strike is a collusion by employees to raise the price of their labour and there is no inherent human right to do so.
  • Sanctions that clearly subtract from other people's rights should be illegal.
Read more...

Roger Douglas' Way

Politics 

  • Mr Roger Douglas, the New Zealand Finance Minister has implemented radical market reforms to make a prosperous New Zealand a distinct possibility.
Read more...

Roger Douglas II

Politics  Economics 

  • To fix the economy, our political leaders may look to New Zealand's former Finance Minister who has led market reforms to their economy.
Read more...

Wheat Market Deregulation

Regulation  Politics 

  • Wheat market reform was due to the persistence and courage of a Labour Party Minister, Mr John Kerin.
Read more...

The Dries 10 Years On

Politics 

  • Most dries hoped that difficult questions went away so that they stopped costing the Liberal Party votes.
Read more...

Business Ethics

Business  Competition 

  • We tend to think the bankruptcy causes unemployment and loss of assets, by bailing out bankrupt companies, we subvert the ethics of the free market in redistributing over-valued assets under new management.
Read more...

Wool Stocks

Protectionism  Regulation 

  • Minimum prices reduce the volume consumed; a more radical reform will be the abolishment of the wool reserve price.
Read more...

The Good Fight

Economics  Politics 

  • Austin Stewart Holmes was one of Australia's finest civil servants and a true servant to democracy.
  • Mr Holmes was an honest true servant to democracy.
Read more...

Competitive Federalism

Politics  Taxation 

  • The public suffers a bigger government than it would had the States be willing to raise their own tax revenue as the Federal government is able to raise more taxes than the individual States.
Read more...

The Greens Crying Wolf

Environment  Regulation 

  • Even with land degradation being a serious issue, most cases can be avoided by individuals managing their own affairs in an orderly manner. We do not need a totalitarian organisation telling farmers what to do with their land.
Read more...

Shack

Politics 

  • Peter Shack was the fall guy for the Liberal Party leadership and in his dealings with the Liberal Party was honourable.
Read more...

The Tortoise and The Hare

Economics  Politics  Leadership 

  • The fundamental fact of democratic politics is that any support for change must be generated by the leadership explaining the changes to the people.
Read more...

Hospitals

Healthcare 

  • The reform of healthcare insurance is difficult because people are afraid of big medical bills and a lack of knowledge about their options.
Read more...

Carmen Gets Supply

Politics 

  • For Dr Carmen Lawrence, the new premier to restore trust she has to:
  • Ensure that her party members understand the real nature of past indiscretions.
  • Publicise an accurate accounting of the current state of affairs.
  • Restore the professionalism of the civil service and be frank with parliament.
Read more...

Trade Policy: The Litmus Test

Industrial Relations  Trade 

  • Free trade has always been in Australia's best interests. The Liberal's trade policy has called for Australia economy to be integrated internationally by the year 2000.
Read more...

The Worst Possible Election Result

Politics  Cronyism 

  • The general thrust of the Democrats policy is extremely irresponsible. Anyone considering voting for the democrats should study their policies, which pander to vested interests.
Read more...

Dick Klugman

Politics  Leadership 

  • Dick Klugman, a Labour MP is retiring this election, he has been a voice of sanity and his greatest success according to him has been influencing his colleagues to look more critically at commonly accepted propositions.
Read more...

The Election and The Debt

Economics 

  • The incoming government must deal with the problem of excessive foreign debt. Increased productivity is the only way to go.
Read more...

Some Budget Cuts

Budget  Economics 

  • We might have more confidence in the political parties if they would face up to economic problems instead of just promises to spend more.
Read more...

The Small Business Lobby

Economics  Politics  Business 

  • The corporatist style of government has failed, and the best thing of small business owners is to have a level playing field.
Read more...

For Whom Do We Vote?

Politics 

  • While it is unfortunate that our votes cannot change the balance of power within the political parties but that does not absolve us from choosing wisely.
Read more...

The Dreadful Campaign

Politics 

  • It is ironic that some communist countries are enthusiastically embracing democracy while we are making of a mess of it.
Read more...

Where Do the Liberals Go from Here?

Politics  Philosophy 

  • The underlying issue in the Liberal Party is that it's members do not believe in anything.
Read more...

What Was the Green Vote Worth to Labour?

Politics 

  • It is unlikely that the Greens gave the victory to the Labour Party, we need to wait for the party professionals to report.
Read more...

Protection: The Politics of Privilege

Politics 

  • The essence of a Banana Republic is privilege and poverty is the symptom of that disease.
Read more...

The WA Auditor General

Politics  Cronyism 

  • There needs to be an extra-parliamentary inquiry so that the real lessons of WA Inc will be taught to future administrators so that future governments will know how to conduct themselves.
Read more...

By the Year 2000

Politics  Economics  Philosophy 

  • The most significant changes will be our own attitudes and the sort of society we have in the 2000s will be of our own making.
Read more...

Mr Greiner's Environment

Environment 

  • Mr Greiner's 'Earth Day' speech outlined an approach to environmental management that doesn't prevent the achievement of other values which most people hold dear.
Read more...

Wool Again

Protectionism 

  • Buffer stock for any protected industry fails and it gets strong nations into trouble.
Read more...

The Governor General's Speech and The OECD Report

Politics 

  • The Governor General's speech committed the government to economic reform but did not give the impression that the Government had policies to deal with urgent issues.
Read more...

Immigration and The Environment (requested by David Armstrong)

Environment  Immigration  Collectivism  Property Rights 

  • The average collectivist greens person does not want to increase immigration either because of greed or prejudice. However, a larger population will preserve the environment if a system of private property rights is maintained.
Read more...

Responsible Government

Politics 

  • Ministers ought to be removed for breaking policy, lying to Parliament and if they fail in area of competence.
Read more...

Tiananmen Square

Politics 

  • Democracy is not concerned about political succession compared to totalitarianism. As a nation's citizen become wealthier, they tend to demand democracy.
Read more...

Wool Yet Again

Protectionism  Politics 

  • The people responsible for raising the floor price are now blaming everyone else but themselves for the injury done to the woolgrowers.
Read more...

Sharabhron Ardeshiran v Robe River Iron Associates

Industrial Relations  Business 

  • The legislation enshrines anti-business prejudice even though it was intended to address prejudice.
Read more...

Our Sort of Culture

Immigration 

  • The ultimate purpose of the immigration/refugee policy should be to permit as many people as possible to enjoy liberty and prosperity as Australian can offer them.
  • The selection criteria can be improved by making it as objective as possible.
Read more...

Education: An Outsider's View

Education 

  • Schooling fails to educate because it is often banal. Most students and teachers are bored by the syllabus.
Read more...

Supply

Politics 

  • Parliament's most vital task is the election of the principle minister and to withhold or grant the supply of government funds.
Read more...

The Defeat of Political Power

Politics 

  • The more we embrace the trend towards openness, the more we become free from constrains by the government.
Read more...

Inflation

Economics  Currencies & Commodities 

  • To prevent inflation, people must be given reason to expect that prices of things they buy will stop rising.
  • Currency management should be done independently from the government by the Reserve Bank and the board of the Reserve Bank held to account.
Read more...

Telecom

Monopoly 

  • Telecom is Australia's biggest state-backed monopoly. It should be broken up and privatised. However, the biggest opposition to such a plan is political not economic with 85,000 employees.
Read more...

Dr Bruce Ames

Environment 

  • Dr Bruce Ames is a scientist that has specialised in carcinogens and he has indicated that we consume trace amounts of deadly chemicals and we should vary our diet to ensure the exposure is remains small.
Read more...

Ad Hominem Attack and Politics

Politics 

  • Ad Hominem politics has it place, we should seek to establish that place and have rules that will keep it within the bounds of decency.
Read more...

The Underclass

Politics  Welfare 

  • It is necessary to distinguish between the battlers and those that do not want to work hard and change their environment.
Read more...

Strong Government

Politics  Philosophy  Law 

  • We should not slavishly follow any other country, but we can learn from some. The legal and moral restrains that support a free-market economy should be reformed to make them better.
Read more...

Donald Trump Must Be an Australian*

Politics  Law 

  • One possible consequence of current corporate troubles is new laws that constrains the honest, enables the dishonest and raises inefficiencies. Donald Trump might consider emigrating to Australia.
Read more...

Colebatch's Return of The Heroes

Leadership  Philosophy 

  • The average Australian will still defend freedom.
Read more...

The Liberals Show Some Guts

Politics 

  • One test of an Opposition party's relevance is the degree to which the Government adopts its policies.
Read more...

Privatisation

Politics  Competition 

  • As New Zealand and New South Wales have shown, it is possible to make enormous public section efficiency gains by rigorous accounting and management practices and by allowing private firms to compete with the public sector.
Read more...

Oh! Where Have All the Industries Gone?

Taxation  Politics 

  • The lesson is blatantly obvious. Businesses and skilled labour are mobile and are increasingly becoming more so. Governments that do not offer a commercial environment that are attractive as any other state stands to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Read more...

What Do We Want from Privatisation?

Protectionism  Regulation  Subsidies  Business 

  • The reason why Government privatise public companies is to make them more efficient. The reason why they don't is that they fear the wrath of employees and the subsidised consumers.
Read more...

Modest Members

Politics 

  • Ideas are not caught, they are given. Political Ideas can have powerful consequences and a club-like activity is one effective means of propagating ideas.
Read more...

Risk

Currencies & Commodities  Business 

  • Although new technologies bring risks, they also confer benefits and the two cannot be separated. Nuclear power generation is the cheapest form of power generation and would elevate the pressure on coal and oil supplies.
Read more...

Wool Again

Protectionism  Economics 

  • The demand for wool is elastic due to substitutes, there is no reason why the wool industry should have price controls in place.
Read more...

The Uruguay Round: A Fool's Dialogue?

Protectionism 

  • Policies that increase living standards are called "sacrifices". Fortunately, not every country does so all the time.
Read more...

SGIC

Politics  Law 

  • Civil authority relies on trust and the true cost to WA society is the potential damage to legislative authority.
Read more...

Privilege

Politics 

  • The attacks on liberal policy are dishonest; those that are unable to discredit the ideas often obfuscate and misrepresent the ideas and confusing even Liberal Party members themselves.
Read more...

Australia's New Protectionism

Protectionism  Competition 

  • Control over exports is reserved to the Federal Government. There is much it can do to improve competitiveness without creating more privileges.
Read more...

Doomsaying

Economics 

  • Markets provide feedback for us to correct past mistakes and embrace new opportunities. By taking what doomsayers at their own value, if we implement policies that restrict opportunities, we place our society in real danger.
Read more...

The Wrigley Report

Budget  Defence 

  • The Wrigley Report questions the way that Australia spends on its defence forces. It raises questions that no one has the answers to.
Read more...

Rural Inconsistency

Protectionism  Economics 

  • It is hypocritical for Liberals to advocate for a free-market approach yet refuse to abolish the reserve price for wool.
Read more...

The Family in The Welfare State

Welfare 

  • We should not be discriminating between separated and divorced families the same as intact families.
Read more...

The New-Right Think-Tank

Politics 

  • Think-tanks are able to advocate for policies which politicians cannot. Think-tanks exist because of a weakness inherent in politics.
Read more...

What Sort of Immigrants?

Immigration 

  • If we do not improve our immigration policy, we will become more worried about emigration than immigration.
Read more...

Compassion

Welfare 

  • The meaning of Compassion has been corrupted to mean the sort of blame assignment instead of helping others without expectation of reward.
Read more...

Income Tax

Taxation 

  • Although a consumption tax is a better tax base than income tax, it is difficult to administer. The best solution would be to minimise government spending.
Read more...

The Green's Vote

Politics  Environment 

  • The Coalition lost the chance to win the votes of ordinary sensible environmentalists, it could have announced the best possible combination of environmentalism and jobs.
Read more...

The Education Problem

Education 

  • The issue with education is that it is a monopoly which is compulsory for children to attend and which parents have limited power.
Read more...

The Welfare Monopoly

Welfare 

  • Governments find it hard to advocate welfare reform without being accused of abandoning the welfare system itself.
Read more...

Appeasement Does Not Work

Defence 

  • War should not be avoided at all costs, had Hitler been stopped early, we might have avoided a world war.
Read more...

Of Debt and Protection

Economics  Trade  Competition 

  • If Australia is to become internationally competitive, we need to reduce tariffs as well as our debt levels.
Read more...

Anti-Competitive Behaviour in The Health-Care Industry

Protectionism  Healthcare  Competition  Welfare 

  • Politicians must face the political problem posed by wealthy, high-risk users of Medicare who would be worse off should the system be made more competitive and fairer. Politicians cannot compensate all and will have to decide who cannot afford to lose Medicare benefits.
Read more...

Re-regulating The Banks

Regulation 

  • The market should help investors distinguish between high-risk investments masquerading as low-risk investments, however, regulations and public ownership is not the answer.
Read more...

Of Uranium and Wool

Protectionism  Currencies & Commodities 

  • Australians have learnt that we cannot control the behaviour of the rest of the world and we would be better off selling uranium that we produce to parties that are strictly vetted.
Read more...

Building Owners and Managers Association of Australia Limited (BOMA)

This section contains all of John's 15 articles published in "The Property Economist" where he had a monthly column for his economic overview. The column was published between September 1986 and February 1988.

A Voice from The Wilderness

Economics  Regulation 

  • The failure to understand opportunity cost has resulted in needlessly expensive environmental protection.
  • It is not possible to regulate demand and when bureaucrats fail to control human behaviour, they blame economists for the mess.
Read more...

How Did We Get into This Mess?

Protectionism  Politics 

  • Voters defend privileges. The only way to prevent a slide into to Banana Republicanism is for voters to recognise that it is improper to have privileges.
Read more...

The Coming Year

Economics 

  • Australia has more artificial barriers to high productivity than almost any other nation, in order for the economy to recover with minimal pain we need to have wholesale improvement in productivity and abolish the barriers.
Read more...

Interest Rates

Interest Rates  Politics  Monetary Policy 

  • It is impossible for the control the supply and price of money, by trying to control the price, the government lost control of the quantity.
  • Paul Keating has been a stricter adherent of monetary policy than Malcolm Fraser.
Read more...

The Wage Case

Industrial Relations  Economics 

  • High minimum wages kill off jobs and increase foreign debt. In order for Australia to have a trade surplus, Australians must improve competitiveness sustainably. Unit costs must be lower than other countries.
Read more...

Housing

Regulation  Property Rights  Economics 

  • Legislation that reduces a landlord's right to raise rent or to evict tenants reduce supply and drives up rents anyway. Paul Keating deregulates the cost of home purchases while the Minster for Housing regulates rents. It will not work.
Read more...

Getting to The Centenary

Politics  Protectionism 

  • Both side of politics are responsible for industry protectionism. Instead of facing reality, Australians are taking economically unsound popular policies seriously.
Read more...

What Should We Expect of The Rest Of 1987?

Economics 

  • Australians have been becoming wealthier but at a slower rate compared to other nations.
Read more...

Cut the Deficit and The Crap

Budget  Taxation  Fiscal Policy 

  • Tax cuts are highly desirable but only if a budget deficit is eliminated and government expenditure is reduced. A reduced deficit is a future tax cut.
Read more...

US Trade Deficit

Budget  Fiscal Policy  Business 

  • With a deficit, the best thing that our government can do is to get out of the way of entrepreneurs that can take advantage of chances to produce goods and services.
Read more...

Beyond Keynesianism And Monetarism

Monopoly 

  • Monopolies produce less at higher prices and will not maximise the community's welfare.
Read more...

Why Privatise

Regulation  Business  Taxation 

  • Only when public companies are sold that taxes are paid in meaningful amounts.
Read more...

High Buildings to Jump Off

Regulations 

  • Regulations should be minimal, simple and certain.
Read more...

Town Planning

Regulations 

  • Town planning reform offers many opportunities to improve economic efficiency and increase living standards as a result.
Read more...

The 1930s, The 1980s And Beyond

Economics 

  • Recessions cannot be permanently avoided and due to our industries being unproductive is exacerbating the problems that we are facing due to our borrowing and a world depression.
Read more...

The Rural Times

This section contains all 27 of John Hyde's articles published in the Rural Times.

Of Rural Industry and The Economy

Economics 

  • The reason for our relative economic decline is the failure to seek out areas where we have comparative advantage.
  • For the moment, primary industry such as farming, and mining is where we are efficient.
Read more...

The Real Exchange Rate

Currencies & Commodities  Monetary Policy  Economics 

  • The solution to our problems is to raise productivity by deregulating and privatising and encouraging saving.
  • The coming devaluation of our currency will increase inflation can be prevented by increasing wages and other costs as long as necessary.
Read more...

Tripartitism Examined

Politics  Industrial Relations 

  • Tripartitism is used to describe arrangements between government, trade unions and employer councils. Tripartitism uses committees as an alternative to deregulation and privatisation.
Read more...

The Wool Corporation's Stocks

Protectionism 

  • By allowing the Australian Wool Council to build up buffer stocks and to control prices, we are allowing them to ride a boom into a recession as managers of such schemes cannot be trusted.
Read more...

Wheat Market Deregulation

Regulation 

  • Deregulating the wheat market has brought many benefits such as the freedom for the producer to set prices and cheaper prices and better products for consumers.
Read more...

Environment in The Bush

Environment  Property Rights 

  • Private property is best for the environment where owners safeguard the value of the property by taking care of their land.
Read more...

Making Full Employment Legal

Industrial Relations  Individual Rights 

  • The Coalition promise to de-criminalising individuals selling their labour will improve our living standards and pay off our foreign debts.
Read more...

What We Should Expect of The New Government?

Politics  Economics 

  • There is a rough consensus about what needs to be done to restore dynamism to the economy, what is lacking is the political will.
Read more...

Taxing Investment

Taxation 

  • To reduce our foreign debt, we need to increase our savings. However, the government subsidises those that don't save by providing pension and penalises those that do by increasing the tax rates.
Read more...

The NFF

Politics  Trade 

  • The National Farmers Federation (NFF) has made intellectual integrity a source of political power and has done much to improve the trading environment for Australia's exports.
Read more...

Cutting Government

Budget  Fiscal Policy 

  • Any expenditure cuts should be done in a timely manner by people who are familiar with budget outlays.
Read more...

What Right to Strike?

Industrial Relations  Competition  Individual Rights 

  • A competitive labour market works only if both employers and employees are competitive. Union sanctions affect the rights of individuals.
Read more...

Technology in Government Committee

Politics  Business 

  • Appropriate technology is technology that produces at the least cost to the common environment. Technology should to produce a more productive and profitable Australia.
Read more...

Social Trends

Philosophy  Politics 

  • The tendencies of our social environment should have the same amount of attention as our physical environment.
Read more...

Waste in NSW

Politics  Economics  Regulation 

  • The NSW government run on the platform of deregulation and privatisation.
  • Micro-economic reform is eliminating waste and failure and is always opposed by people who lose their benefits and seldom praised enough by those who gain from the new efficiencies.
Read more...

Education

Education  Taxation  Competition 

  • Education is a private benefit which the government subsidises by using taxpayer's monies. It is time we allowed all schools to compete on equal financial terms and allow parents to select their child's education.
Read more...

Local Government

Politics 

  • There is a strong case for giving local government more authority at the expense of the State government. It would be easier to move between local government districts than between States.
Read more...

Every Galah in The Country Is Parroting Micro-Economic Reform

Economics 

  • The relevance of micro-economic reform is that reduction in foreign debt leads to a more productive economy and an increase in living standards. However, it tends to be resisted by those that need it the most.
Read more...

How to Create an Oil Crisis

Economics  Business  Currencies & Commodities 

  • If you stop oil companies from making profits, they will stop delivering fuel to our vehicles, the situation would be made worse.
Read more...

Wool III

Protectionism 

  • The reserve price scheme is preventing consumption from increasing, reduction of production and the costs of storage of the wool stockpile.
Read more...

Farmers' Woes

Protectionism 

  • Wool is the industry where unwise government intervention has exacerbated the farmers' problems.
Read more...

Greenhouse

Environment  Politics 

  • There has not been enough evidence that justifies public policies with huge economic costs.
Read more...

The Davis Report

Protectionism  Regulation  Taxation 

  • Statutory Marketing Authorities (SMA) has the power to tax producers. If the minister intends to regulate the market to make it efficient and just, individuals must be able to opt out of SMAs and SMAs also be subject to the Trade Practices Act.
Read more...

But for The Government's Help

Fiscal Policy  Currencies & Commodities 

  • The McCoil Report estimates a saving of at least $10 per tonne of wheat if there was no government intervention.
Read more...

Defence

Fiscal Policy  Defence 

  • Defence is an area where government activity cannot be privatised. Defence can be made more efficient by privatising some support services.
Read more...

Property Rights and The Environment

Environment  Property Rights 

  • There is an exchange of rights between environmental goods such as clean air and water and between non-environmental goods such as food and medicines.
  • Owners of private property have the ability to choose between the both and are the first line of defence for the environment.
Read more...

Families and The Welfare State

Welfare 

  • We cannot turn away from the needy. However, the growth of the modern welfare state has increase poverty.
Read more...

Some Wool Industry History

Protectionism 

  • There has been a previous referendum in December 1965 a reserve price scheme for wool but was rejected by the growers. The politicians still implemented the scheme without taking their views into consideration.
Read more...

How They Will Govern

Politics  Economics  Business 

  • There is a trend of deregulation and privatisation where the skills of a producer are rewarded over that of a lobbyist. This is Australia's only hope.
Read more...

Australia Fritters Away Its Wealth

Regulation  Industrial Relations 

  • Deregulators have had the most success in the financial markets due to the former treasurer's championing financial deregulation and neither the banks nor the bank employees union opposing deregulation.
Read more...

The Environment

Environment  Law  Regulation  Politics 

  • Governments thinking of using regulations to protect the environment should take into account any externalities them proceed with caution and having respect for the rule-of-law and democracy.
Read more...

Sunday Independent

The Sunday Independent (also known as The Independent) was a Perth, Western Australia based weekly newspaper owned by mining entrepreneurs Lang Hancock and Peter Wright. It was published between 1969 and 1986. John had a weekly column in the Sunday Independent, writing about current economic and political issues. This section contains 42 articles published between May 22nd 1983 and 31st December 1984.

Democratic Imperatives

Politics  Business  Philosophy 

  • Free enterprise values will only adopted by Australian politics if the public wants the values implemented.
Read more...

Hayden's Pearls

Politics  Fiscal Policy  Monetary Policy 

  • Lax fiscal policies lead to tough monetary policies. There should be a balance between sufficient profit and employment. OECD countries need to exercise caution in subsiding trade and trade credits with Eastern European countries.
Read more...

A Basic Right to Work

Industrial Relations  Politics  Individual Rights 

  • Trade Unionists, Industrial Judges and Politicians are being unfair to our weakest citizens by denying them their basic human right to sell their own labour.
Read more...

Budget Headaches - Burke and Hawke

Budget  Industrial Relations  Politics 

  • The best thing that can be done for the unemployed due to the recession is to reduce the wages of those that are closest to unemployment.
Read more...

OECD Approach to Unemployment

Industrial Relations  Business  Politics 

  • Unemployment levels are kept artificially higher than which an employer can hire a potential employee.
Read more...

17% Holiday Loading

Politics  Industrial Relations 

  • Abolition of holiday loading could have been the greatest job creation scheme of it was not set aside due to misguided notions of equity.
Read more...

Who Is the Most Socialist?

Politics  Economics 

  • The ranking correlates with capital payments to the States by the Federal Government. The States have spent the payments increasing the size of state governments instead of compensating the private sector.
Read more...

A Lesson from Argentina

Economics  Politics 

  • Australia and Argentina are similar in many ways. We have not made major mistakes in handling our economy but have been careless about long term growth.
  • If we mismanage our economy, we will not be able to escape problems similar to what Argentina faced.
Read more...

The Politics of Hatred

Politics 

  • We need more good-natured reasoned disagreements from our public figures. Disagreements should be made with civil discourse.
Read more...

A Quiet Revolution

Politics  Individual Rights 

  • The fastest way to a freer society in Australia is through the many little things done by the State and Local government, when the people have a taste of freedom, they will demand more.
Read more...

Hi - Tech Industries

Subsidies 

  • Subsidising some industries at the expense of other isn't ideal but is better than standing in the way of new technology.
Read more...

Tax, Slender and Privilege

Taxation 

  • Tax avoidance is inequitable other than intended by parliament but isn't illegal. Politicians who use parliamentary privilege to slander the character of those who practice tax avoidance are cowardly.
Read more...

Interest Rates

Interest Rates  Monetary Policy 

  • Any attempt to regulate interest rates down, would be a recessive transfer of wealth from the low-income people to the middle income.
Read more...

The Legislative Council

Politics  Individual Rights 

  • The traditional role of parliament is the protection of the citizen from the government and seems to be often forgotten in these days of disciplined party politics.
Read more...

Sex Discrimination Legislation

Politics  Individual Rights 

  • Senator Susan Ryan's Sex Discrimination Bill makes the fundamental error of not distinguishing between free choice and prejudice.
  • Employees will be more reluctant to employ women if they fear a third party such as the Human Right Commission stepping into a private employment arrangement.
Read more...

Floating the Dollar

Monetary Policy 

  • By floating the Australian dollar, Both Paul Keating and John Howard supported this move as it places Australia in a winning position.
Read more...

Their Own Worst Enemies

Economics  Property Rights 

  • Private ownership is where the citizen gains protection from the state and it not only an economic question but also moral and ethical questions. It should not get into bed with government.
Read more...

The Incomes Accord

Industrial Relations 

  • The Labour Party's policies have caused an inflexible labour market and have prevented workers from negotiating a job. This has caused a drop-in employment for a long time to come.
Read more...

Football

Industrial Relations  Subsidies 

  • The defence of subsidising the rich is everybody get their share and therefore the process is fare. It is both futile and unfair.
Read more...

Wheat Marketing

Protectionism 

  • Our wheat handling and marketing system does not allow for diversity and hides the true cost of wheat production.
Read more...

Nanny's Security Blanket

Regulation  Taxation 

  • The government uses our taxes to "educate" us with the government subsidising certain groups to tax payers for their mistake and imposing their will on what we can and cannot do.
Read more...

The ACER Findings

Education 

  • Comparing present practices in private and public schools is the best way to inform parents on the effectiveness of sending their children to the school of their choice.
Read more...

Entrepreneurs

Economics  Protectionism  Business 

  • The switching of commercial to political entrepreneurship, established interests have encourage governments to protect their interests as well as causing the economies to stagnate.
Read more...

The Lamb Board

Protectionism 

  • The Lamb Board prefers its own interest to that of the farmers. In fact, since 1980, the board has prejudiced both growers and consumers.
Read more...

Sources of Inflation

Monetary Policy  Business 

  • When one sector has the capacity to expand its prices faster than an average determined by money supply, the other sectors are squeezed.
Read more...

Axing the Quangos

Regulation 

  • Every regulation develops vested interests who defend it against any attempts to eliminate or reduce it. For example, if the state government were to deregulate the taxi industry, consumers would benefit from cheaper and more convenient travel.
Read more...

Taxation

Taxation 

  • Income tax law reflects government extravagance and years of successful lobbying by vested interests. If the Labour government were serious about tax avoidance, it would start by cleaning up the income tax act which favours the more powerful vested interests and best organised voters.
Read more...

Exporters Pay for Tariffs

Protectionism 

  • Protectionism is the act of taking money from one party to pay another and rarely punishes foreign competition and punishes any local party involves in the export sector.
Read more...

The X-Rating and Victimless Crimes

Individual Rights 

  • The most illogical reason for banning X-rated videotapes that is it presumed that the actors are being exploited. To treat women as though they could not give consent is the ultimate sexual discrimination.
Read more...

Coastal Shipping

Protectionism 

  • Costal shipping has been protected for longer than any other major Australian industry but has never been the subject of an inquiry. As a result, costal shipping is affecting industries that have to ship locally.
Read more...

Civil Service Retirement

Healthcare 

  • To control costs, the government will be forced to increase wait times for medical treatment. The best treatment will either be for those that can pay for it or those that can pull strings.
Read more...

The Argyle Diamond Float

Taxation  Subsidies 

  • The government did not make a profit when it sold its shares in the Argyle Diamond venture. The taxpayers were the ones that subsidised the purchase of shares and enabled tax avoidance by guaranteeing investors a fixed return.
Read more...

Greenies, Peaceniks and All That

Politics 

  • We should never attempt to silence views that are different from ours. A liberal society however, is under no obligation to tax itself to subsidise peace and conservation movements.
Read more...

Of Paddington Bear and Medicare

Healthcare  Regulation  Law 

  • By using the law without any overview to punish doctors for procedural errors that are hard to get correct, it causes the principle of certainty before the law.
Read more...

John Stone and All That

Politics 

  • John Stone's Lecture, 1929 and All That outlined his outrage against effects of vested interests and protectionism on Australia.
Read more...

Grain Handling

Protectionism  Competition 

  • Australian wheat farmers used to be among the world's efficient. However, through establishing collective arrangements market and control the wheat market, it has ensured that foreign growers having an advantage over them.
Read more...

Youth Employment

Industrial Relations  Competition 

  • By preventing youths from competing with adults through laws that deny them gain experience that will assist them in future.
Read more...

The State Budget

Budget  Fiscal Policy 

  • When government use taxpayers' money, they get future generations of taxpayers into debt and they seldom use the monies as efficiently as the private sector. The government's issue is that it seldom a lack of specialist knowledge and a disregard for the public's opinion.
Read more...

MITI

Business  Regulation 

  • The lesson from the Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Development (MITI) is that where government interference is the least, the industries have done the best.
Read more...

MIM Annual Report

Business  Competition  Regulation  Taxation 

  • The mining industry is loaded with infrastructure costs which are not asked of other competing sectors of the Australian economy. In order for MIM share price to increase, there will be a need to reduce high levels of industry protection and reducing state taxes.
Read more...

Australian And United States Deficit

Budget  Economics  Fiscal Policy 

  • Both the US and Australia have penalised investing by spending consuming more and will cause a reduction in productivity and hamper long-term economic growth.
Read more...

The Election Result

Politics  Budget  Taxation  Economics  Fiscal Policy 

  • The election campaign extracted three promises from Bob Hawke: 1) no tax increases, 2) no increase in government expenditure without economic growth and 3) reduction in the budget deficit.
Read more...

Speeches

Contains two speeches John Hyde gave in 1991. The first speech "After WA Inc" was for the Perth Rotary Club presented on the 21st and 22nd of February at the Parmelia Hilton. The second speech "Who Will Govern Us?" was presented to CEDA (Committee for Economic Development of Australia).

After WA Inc.

Politics  Cronyism 

  • WA Inc affected Western Australia in four ways: It cost a lot of money; it set in place a lot of structures and practices; it seriously injured the public service; it cost our good reputation in important places such London, Tokyo and New York. The most basic error was ethical in nature, our political and business leaders had a problem recognising that the circumstance and actions were not truthful and fair to all parties.
Read more...

Who Will Govern Us?

Politics  Philosophy  Regulation 

  • Why concentrated vested interests will prevail over general interests is due to public choice theory. However, Australia is moving towards a liberal direction and it will depend on how fast we can liberalise our economy compared to other countries.
Read more...