Page 2665 - Week 10 - Thursday, 15 October 1992
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An important distinguishing mark of the coercive utopian is his preference for regulation as against education. The preference of the true liberal is for education (not indoctrination) and public debate which can bring about change.
I think that is well put. Many people do not understand the coercive utopian changes, the gradualism that is a mark of some politicians in Australia. People do not understand that the horrendous situation we have in Australia - unemployment, the rural industry largely being destroyed, with a farm going down every 15 minutes, the business sector under tremendous attack - is a result of the actions of government.
When these things are mentioned, some people simply have a bit of a smirk on their faces. They know what they are on about. They do not care what is happening. They blithely state, decade after decade, "We have in place these programs that are going to solve this problem, this recession we are having, these crises we are having. We are going to do this, that and the other. We are going to take more taxpayers' money, this never-ending pool of money, and we are going to spend it on correcting the problem". This is what you get from people who know better, who understand that they know what should be done. They know that it is not a matter of gaining agreement from the community; it is not a matter of education; it is simply a matter of creating laws backed up by very stiff penalties and more and more police-type power towards government.
When a person leaves a job, the owner of the business has to keep that job open. He has no choice; he has to. We well understand that many parents who leave to look after children, particularly mothers, do not come back into the workplace, certainly not before 12 months; they may change their minds. What happens then? We may have a situation where an employee has been hired part time, if one is available - although one would not think that would be so difficult, looking at the level of unemployment created by government actions. The employee has finally got a reprieve from the injustice of working with the sack hanging over his head.
Fancy an organisation that says that it supports workers saying, "We are going to have a situation where they are going to be sacked after a period of time". What do the parental groups say about these things? What about the Australian Family Association, the Australian Federation for the Family? Do these organisations ever get consulted by these coercive utopians? This leaves the ball game totally in the hands of the employee. The employer gets no say in the matter. It places a great hardship on the employers, the people who create jobs, the people who make the world go round, as it were. It may be a surprise to people in government; but it is not they who make the world go round, it is people who create production and productive employment. There may be a situation where the business owner is sick or overseas, where there is a downturn in business or even an upturn in business. It may be something that places tremendous hardship on the business owner. We heard yesterday that many business owners already have not been able to take these imposts by government - the various taxes and so on that are required, the time spent on regulations, the worry about all these things as they are created.
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