Think Right

By Viv Forbes, October 1990. First published in Business Queensland, 1990.

Those who drive forever on the road to hell must surely get there.

For over two decades, governments from both sides and at all levels have kept the housing industry on the road to homelessness. More people can now see the park benches at the end of this road. Changing speed on the same road will not help – what is needed is a swift U-turn in housing policies.

Few industries have had more interference from politicians than housing. Local, state and federal governments have enlisted expensive mercenary armies of bureaucrats, clerks, planners, officials, consultants, experts, committees and task forces whose mission is to plan, zone, regulate, investigate, inspect, prohibit, condemn, tax, subsidise, licence, register, encourage and discourage the housing industry.
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By Viv Forbes, October 1990. First published in Business Queensland, 1990.

The last major item on Bob Hawke’s secret agenda of unfinished business is to arrange for the funeral of federalism. He has already chosen the dirge – it is called “The New Federalism”.

In a world which daily reveals the political depravity and economic bankruptcy that follows the centralised command of society, too many in the ALP still cling to the out-dated vision of “Wagon-wheel Australia” where everyone prostrates daily facing the billion dollar Parliamentary Palace in Canberra.

Australians have inherited two destructive dogmas from our convict and colonial past.

The first is that governments should enforce equality, irrespective of considerations of liberty, justice, or property.

The second is a fear of markets and of non-conformists and a naive belief that centralised regulation by politicians will achieve a better result than decentralised decisions by diverse market operators.
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