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    The Consequences of Rent Control

    By
    Meaghan Whyte
    -
    1

    As Australia faces a rental crisis, the Greens are agitating for rent control. Chief among their voices is Adam Bandt, whose clarion call is: “Unlimited rent increases should be illegal.”

    The Greens and their cheer squad claim rent control protects tenants from excessive rent increases and provides affordable housing options. Such policies would be implemented in response to affordability concerns, shortages, and displacement risks in gentrifying areas. Advocates assert rent control maintains community diversity, prevents homelessness, promotes tenant stability, and offers security against sudden and drastic rent hikes.

    Introducing rent control scores politicians quick points. However, the policies are vociferously opposed by the majority of economists.

    Mr Assar Lindbeck was a Swedish professor of economics, a contributor to a Nobel Prize for Economics, and a socialist. Sweden also has the most restrictive rent controls of all OECD countries. Lindbeck wrote:

    Assar Lindbeck

    “In many cases rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city — except for bombing.”

    Lindbeck’s quip on rent control highlights a rare consensus among economists. Across all persuasions (neo-classicals, Keynesians, Austrians and socialists), economists agree that rent control is a proven failure.

    This is shown by the “Rent Control Survey” 2012 conducted by IGM (Initiative on Global Markets) Forum. To the question: “Local ordinances that limit rent increases for some rental housing units, such as in New York and San Francisco, have had a positive impact over the past three decades on the amount and quality of broadly affordable rental housing in cities that have used them” – 81% of economists decisively answered ‘Disagree’.

    Rent control manipulates supply and demand dynamics, corrupting markets and causing inefficiencies.

    It has a blighted history of unintended, negative consequences and can permanently affect rental housing markets. Contrary to the intended purpose as an anti-poverty strategy, poor families suffer worst of all.

    As housing quality and availability declines, the middle class can often find alternatives. Poor families cannot. Higher-income households can also benefit under rent control, by receiving greater subsidies. In 2018, San Francisco city staff presented their first ‘Housing Needs and Trends Report’ and ‘Housing Affordability Strategy’ to a meeting of the city’s Planning Commission. A few notable admissions included:

    • Households that moved into rent controlled units are much more likely to be higher income than in the past.
    • Housing cost burdens worsened for all but the highest income households.
    • The city struggled to substantially improve housing affordability for low and moderate‐income households, and does not have a comprehensive picture of how various policies and resources work together to achieve affordability outcomes.

    Decreased profit margins incentivise landlords to prejudice tenant selection based on income and credit history. This disadvantages young, low-income families, especially single-parent households. It also impedes racial and economic integration by discouraging tenant mobility. In his study ‘Rent Control, Rental Housing Supply, and the Distribution of Tenant Benefits’ 2002, Dirk Early states “If landlords believe that larger households headed by young persons lead to quicker depreciation of their units, the rationing of units by landlords would lower the probability of larger and younger households finding rent regulated units.”

    Rent control unfairly burdens housing providers, by forcing below-market rates of return. This effectively transfers income from property owners to occupants of rentals. Understandably, landlords and investors are reluctant to accept this. In his study “Rent Control Effects through the Lens of Empirical Research” 2022, Konstantin A. Kholodilin reviewed 60 studies from 18 countries. Over 50% demonstrate rent control’s negative effects on new residential construction. All the studies confirm rent control policies adversely affect quality of housing as decreasing rent revenue diminishes funds for maintenance and refurbishment.

    Such proven, unintended consequences of rent control policies highlight the need for communities to explore alternative solutions for poor and middle-class housing. The libertarian solution to housing affordability and availability is elegant in its simplicity. Enable the free market to increase housing supply.

    In 2011, councils across Perth, Western Australia were given individual infill development targets by the state government. By 2016, 94% failed to achieve their targets. More than half had not reached 50% of their goal.

    Belmont, ‘City of Opportunity’, was one of the success stories. The city was proactively open and receptive to the market for over a decade. This encouraged robust investment. Belmont has maintained its infill development and continues to attract a wide range of families and businesses to live, work and invest in the city.

    When considering rent control, it is worth reflecting on the adage attributed to Mark Twain “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes”. Government enforced rent control predictably delivers negative outcomes.

    The free market is the only proven means by which to solve Australia’s rental crisis.

    The Immorality of Medicare

    By
    Lionel Orellana
    -
    0

    In May of 1973, a year before the first incarnation of Medicare became law, the Australian Medical Association sent a letter to its members warning about the dangers of socialised medicine. They were concerned about the “interference by governments in the relationship between doctor and patient“[1] and highlighted key freedoms that they said should be protected:

    • No barrier separating the patient from free choice of specialist or hospital.
    • Minimum intrusion between doctor and patient by governments.
    • Freedom and opportunity to practise on a fee-for service basis without threat of coercion or compulsion.
    • Freedom to provide a personal service based on personal responsibility within a system based on quality rather than quantity.

    They were concerned about the
    “interference by governments in the relationship between doctor and patient“

    The AMA abandoned these goals long ago and now merely lobbies Governments for favours. But 50 years later, their worst fears have become a reality: an impossible melee of item numbers, rules and coercion stands between Australians and their doctors.

    Consider the case of Dr. Andre Leong in WA. Dr. Leong was harassed for billing a series of item numbers more frequently than other GPs. His training and experience (including leading a medical team in Indonesia after the 2004 tsunami) prepared him for performing operations that most GPs do not. Other doctors frequently referred patients to him to perform these procedures. He stood out and was subjected to lengthy audits and investigations until ultimately forced to stop billing these items. He retired altogether shortly after. There is overwhelming community support for him online.

    Dr Andrew Leong. Audited and then forced to stop practising particular medicine in which he had expertise.

    47% of GPs report they either avoid providing certain services or claiming certain rebates due to Medicare compliance fears, while 61% report that the complexity of Medicare is something that worries them outside their workday. [2] Many choose to under-bill, fearful of compliance action, claiming 20-minute consultations despite spending up to 45 minutes with a patient. This pressure on doctors to quickly finalise a consultation is a common experience for patients.   

    Some doctors are fed up: ‘We have had enough of the coercive control, of the abusive relationship that is Medicare’[3], they protest. To add insult to injury, doctors are constantly accused of rorting The System. It is no surprise there is a shortage of GPs.

    The situation with mental health is even more depressing. The number of hoops you have to jump through, and the fight you have to put up, can make anyone give up and surrender to their daemons. In a way it is reassuring when you realise that GPs, psychologists, psychiatrists, and nutritionists are all as confused and perplexed by The System as you are. I once spent 3 hours on the phone with Medicare, explaining to them the difference between related mental health items, the corresponding mental health plans, and the review process of these plans. All to convince them to pay me the refunds they were supposed to. It is absurd, demoralising and abusive.

    It ought to be so simple. You go to a doctor (of which there would be many more), you pay, you receive the care that is right for you, and you form lasting relationships with your healthcare providers. No man in the middle setting arbitrary barriers and obstacles.

    If we really are an egalitarian society that genuinely cares for the less fortunate, why would anyone think that without the Government we would just leave people to die on the streets? Despite losing half their income to the different levels of Government[4], Australians still donate generously to charity.

    Not-for-profit organisations like the Little Company of Mary, which run the Calvary Hospitals, demonstrate society’s responsible concern. But like all monopolistic predators, Governments react to competition by trying to shut it down. That is the case with the Calvary Hospital in Canberra, now subject to a hostile takeover by the ACT Government. What then is the opportunity cost of this socialised experiment? How many foundations have not been created, how many research labs, how many hospitals?

    And yet, calls to protect “our health system” are made repeatedly with a quasi-religious fervour. Protecting The System takes precedence over any individual’s best interest. It is the main reason why, for example, bringing your parents from overseas to live in Australia can cost up to $70k. Their old age is too big a threat to The System. The (involuntary) contributions you have made to fund it matter very little.

    The overriding of your individual best interest by a collective abstraction which the Government claims to represent was in full display during the pandemic years.

    It is clear that protecting The System is more important than going to see your dying mother, your job, your business, your wedding, your graduation, your first big gig; anything meaningful in your life can and will be sacrificed on the altar of the collective good.

    Medicare, the crown jewel of Australia’s universal healthcare system, is an immoral, ruthless, conniving partner that manipulates Australians into paying for and celebrating their own abuse.    

    Please support the Calvary Hospital at www.savecalvary.com.au.

    [1] https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/110709423?browse=ndp%3Abrowse%2Ftitle%2FC%2Ftitle%2F11%2F1973%2F05%2F14%2Fpage%2F12209327%2Farticle%2F110709423

    [2] https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/racgp/health-of-the-nation-investment-needed-to-secure-t

    [3] https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/professional/a-kick-in-the-guts-frontline-gps-respond-to-medica

    [4] https://www.taxpayers.org.au/submissions/the-cost-of-tax-finding-the-total-tax-burden-for-a-resident-of-victoria-australia

    Remembering Bert Kelly

    By
    Bob Day
    -
    0
    fd

    In my last piece, Remembering Frederick Douglass, I discussed the evils and folly of centralised wage-fixing which, amongst other things, prevented people – young people in particular – from getting a start in the workforce; a foot on that first rung of the employment ladder.

    Today, we look at centralized wage-fixing’s partner-in-crime – tariff protection. The other side of the micro-economic coin, if you like.

    It was Bert Kelly (1912–1997) who once said, ‘The really bad ideas never go away’.

    Bert Kelly. Member for Wakefield (Lib, SA). Leading advocate for free markets.

    Along with centralised wage-fixing, protectionism is another of those really bad ideas.

    The Australian settlement of 1900 was based on five key principles – two were economic, two were social and one was the imperial benevolence of the mother country.

    The two social principles were the White Australia Policy and State Paternalism.

    The two economic principles were regulated labour markets and tariff protection. These two went hand in hand. As centralised wage-fixing delivered arbitrary pay increases, thus increasing the cost of production, the price of the goods rose commensurately. As a result, imported goods became more competitive. In response, an import tax – a tariff – was placed on these imported goods to ‘protect’ Australian jobs from competition.

    By the late 19th century, NSW had prospered under its free trade regime and had overtaken protectionist Victoria, becoming the continent’s leading colony. Following the collapse of the gold-rush, and to sustain its economy, Victoria borrowed heavily in the British capital markets but soon found itself impoverished and losing population – the consequences of 30 years of protectionism. NSW political leaders such as George Reid speculated that Victoria was desperate for federation so that its economic problems could be shared with the other colonies!

    By the early 1920s, the newly-formed Country Party under Earle Page – influenced by the rural export industries of wool, meat and wheat – was officially opposed to protection, yet supported the Scullin Government’s belief that tariffs on imports would help restore employment during the Great Depression (1929–1932) by handing out tariffs virtually on demand. It didn’t work.

    In 1930, Australian historian Keith Hancock had published his book Australia which contains this memorable reference to protectionism in Australia:

    ‘Protection in Australia is more than a policy: it is a faith and a dogma. Its critics, during the second decade of the twentieth century, dwindled into a despised and detected sect suspected of nursing an anti-national heresy. Protection is interwoven with almost every strand of Australia’s democratic nationalism. It professes to be a policy of plenty, but it is a policy of power.’

    Bert Kelly arrived in Federal Parliament in 1958 as the Member for the South Australian seat of Wakefield and from then until he left the Parliament in 1977 fought a long and often bitter campaign against protectionism – first against a very powerful Deputy Prime Minister and Country Party Leader in John ‘Black Jack’ McEwen, and then against the strongly-defended populism of ‘protecting Australian jobs’.

    Bert Kelly was opposed to protectionism because, like centralised wage-fixing, it was not only economically foolish, it was also morally wrong. It was wrong, he said, because it created a situation in which governments granted favours to some, who became greatly enriched, at the expense of others, who were at best impoverished and at worst, ruined.

    On a parliamentary delegation to India, Bert visited a factory making bed sheets which wanted to sell in Australia but was unable to do so due to the high tariff (import tax) placed on imported bed linen. It was the same at an Indian shirt factory.

    For example, a shirt made in Australia cost $50 to buy. An imported shirt $20. By imposing a $30 tariff on the imported shirt, consumers were told they had to pay $50 for a shirt to ‘protect Australian jobs’. If there were no tariff, however, and consumers were able to buy a shirt for $20 instead of $50, that would give them Bert argued, $30 to spend on something else. And it is that something else that is the catalyst for emerging industries.

    Tariffs support declining industries, free trade supports emerging industries.

    Bert also learned that Indians were desperate to buy Australian milk powder for their children but did not have the foreign exchange – Australian or US dollars – due to the insurmountable tariff on their textile goods entering Australia.

    Thus, both India and Australia suffered. To quote Bert Kelly:

    ‘Australian dairy farmers can’t sell their skim milk powder, Australian families have to buy expensive ‘Australian-made’ sheets and shirts, Indian children don’t get milk and Indian factories can’t make textiles. A lose-lose situation if ever there was one. All this brought to you by our good and wise government’.

    At the same time, Australia was giving aid money to India.

    Bert spoke frequently in favour of Community Aid Abroad but against aid being given with no strings attached. ‘Trading with poor countries is a far better way to help them than giving them aid,” he argued.

    With the union movement’s new friends in Canberra, expect to see more on the wages/tariff front.

    Eye-Opening Dispatches From Vietnam

    By
    Kenelm Tonkin
    -
    0

    After three long years of covid lockdown-induced solitary confinement, a loyal Liberty Itch subscriber cut loose, left Australia for South-East Asia and found herself in Vietnam.

    Animated by what she saw, I started to receive her much-welcomed dispatches about daily life there.

    Now, if you read any 1960s and 1970s history, you know Vietnam is communist. But what my friend’s streetscape dispatches reveal is that daily life is anything but centrally-controlled. In fact, what she witnessed felt more like the hustle and bustle of enterprise or, as our intrepid adventurer pithily described …

    “official communism, sure,
    yet with a je ne sais quoi libertarian, freewheeling spirit,
    small-scale capitalist at every turn.”

    I’ll step out of the way. These are her words …

    There are no rules, Kenelm. It’s fend for yourself. Even these communists realise capitalism is the way to go. Free markets and small business. It feels like what I imagine 1880s London or 1980s Hong Kong to be. Free. Laissez faire. Taxes are low. 5%+ for residents. 20% flat tax for foreigners. The communists simply don’t have the money for bureaucrats. They’ve taken themselves out of the game and let people live their own lives.

    There’s genuine economic development here. It’s booming.

    There is little of government here to save you. You save yourself or drown, which isn’t an option.

    So, family is very important. Your family takes care of you in your old age, not the government. You know, like we used to do in Australia.

    Prices are so low.

    Petrol is a mere 37 cents a litre. No fuel excise. Can you imagine?

    Food is cheap.

    At the end of a long, hard day, cocktails are $2.50.

    Road rules? The only rule here appears to be there are no rules, almost anarchy. Yet it works. A loose framework exists where thousands stop on a red light. But only when it suits them. Lanes on the road? Only use those if you absolutely must.  It’s better to weave right, left, and even preferrable to pit your life against a semi-trailer coming from the opposite direction, because you absolutely must overtake the vehicle in front of you.

    Pedestrian crossings? A mere piffle, an abstract idea where someone thought stripes of white paint were to beautify the road. The pedestrian who stands at one end expecting the traffic to stop for her, hah! She is the pedestrian who never returns home alive. As one local said to our observer, “If you don’t move, you’ll die. You need to move. Not too fast. Not too slow” … to which I replied, “Oh, you mean the Goldilocks effect”. The harrowed local muttered “Who is Goldilocks?” under his breath. Big tip! It’s best to wait for a small gap in the traffic. Walk whilst praying to God the entire time that He will see you safely to the other side.  

    Footpaths? You know, for human feet? A figment of an idea, I tell you. They are just another lane for bikes to scoot down in the gridlocked peak hour traffic. Footpaths are places to park, to open your front gate, to wheel your dolly-trolly, to sell your wares for the day. All day and every day.  The pedestrians are after-thoughts.

    Did I mention $3 Singapore Slings?

    There aren’t suffocating regulations about, say, straws. Yes, you can get a decent plastic straw in Vietnam!

    Communism, lurking in the background somewhere, OK. But the streetscape looks what I imagine laissez faire to be. It’s a rambunctious, rollicking, throbbing freedom, not that poor imitation back home. It’s every man for himself. As the saying goes, “It’s the quick or the dead” around here. Maybe that’s because the communists simply can’t make central planning work to feed people. Maybe they gave up that aspiration long ago. Everyday people her feed themselves and their families through good old-fashioned free trade.

    This is what Australia is competing with! Enterprising, self-reliant people. Low prices. There’s a lot of manufacturing being exported. They value add. It’s not a big quarry like other economies we’re familiar with!

    The West is on the precipice of losing something incredibly precious. 

    In comparison to Vietnam,
    we need to wrap society in cotton wool
    and legislate for every possible scenario that might make us sick, kill or injure us.

    We’ve left the realm of common sense, we’re stifled and soft-pruned by a socialist bubble bath. Individuals can no longer assess risk with any degree of rationality. Individuals are increasingly absolved of all self-responsibility and that power is being placed into the hands of faceless bureaucrats and legislators who make decisions on our behalf. It’s not needed. It’s not in our best interests. Vietnam proves it.

    Remind my fellow Liberty Itch subscribers, as I often remind my friends, none of us are getting off this planet alive! We need to take back our autonomy, before it’s too late.

    To all of which, I can only say to my friend, hear hear!

    FREE! The Kerry Packer Classical Liberal Masterclass

    By
    Dimitri Burshtein
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    0

    Some thirty plus years ago, a fellow by the name of Kerry Packer appeared before a House of Representatives Inquiry into Print Media. 

    Kerry Packer. Appeared in the House of Reps Inquiry into Print Media in 1991.

    The context of the inquiry was that the owner of the main metropolitan newspapers and classifieds, Fairfax, had gone broke.  And with Fairfax having gone broke, Packer was trying to buy into the re-floated business. 

    This was a time before the Internet, when newspapers actually made money and lots if it from their classifieds business.  Fairfax’s classifieds business was referred to as the ‘rivers of gold’.

    There is a tale to tell here around Malcolm Turnbull who was previously Packer’s in-house lawyer and who, by this stage, had moved on and was representing the junk bond holders of the broke Fairfax.  But that is for another time.

    Businessman Kerry Packer with future Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull.

    For his masterclass in its entirety, see the video at the end of this article.

    There are some much younger looking folk in it, including one Peter Costello.  However, this is not to delve into the issues of media, but rather the diversion that took place late in the piece when Packer spoke about the risk to Australia from the constant meddling of Australian parliaments and the risk to investments into Australia.  It was a Packer masterclass and should be shown in every school and every parliamentarian induction session. 

    The more things change the more they stay the same.

    Highlight 1 – when Packer says to ALP curmudgeon John Langmore:

    “You seem to be completely unaware of the Constitution of Australia.”

    https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/82W6RgYwQS4?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

    Highlight 2 – when Packer points out that in his lifetime, tens of thousands of laws had been passed but that Australia was not a better place for all those new laws.  He also suggested that for every law passed, another law be repealed.  Packer said:

    Every time you pass a law, you take someone’s privileges away from them.

    https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/k9wZk_0n18k?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

    Highlight 3 – again when Langmore accuses Packer of minimising his tax.  To which Packer replied:

    I don’t know anyone who does not minimise their tax.
    If anyone in this country doesn’t minimise their tax, they want their heads read,
    because as a government, I can tell you that
    you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra!

    https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Dae_lPippGU?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

    Which brings me to superannuation wars 2023 when Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones flagged yet more changes to superannuation taxes. 

    The proposal is couched in fairness, but the truth is that like drug addicts, the government is in desperate need of more money.

    Let’s be honest here.  There are some serious issues with the taxation treatment of superannuation.  As John Kehoe pointed out in the AFR:

    A retiree earning $100,000 a year in super fund investment returns typically pays no income tax, whereas a wage earner receiving the same amount pays $23,000 tax

    This is neither fair nor just.  But the Government’s problem, as with the same problem for the Coalition, is that they have no credibility when it comes to tax changes and tax reforms. This because they won’t do the work of demonstrating that what is currently being spent is being spent efficiently and effectively.

    Within the last six months, it was reported that some $6 billion per annum is lost to fraud in the NDIS and $8 billion per annum is lost to fraud in Medicare.  That’s $14 billion per annum, and not a word has been said or done about this.  No inquiry.  No policy changes.  No ministerial speeches.  No campaign from the opposition.  No major response from government.  Just business as usual. 

    Instead, piles of money and political capital are being expended to generate what will likely be less than $1 billion per annum of additional taxes.

    Talk about perverted priorities.

    There is much wrong and distortionary with the Australian tax system.  It is a train crash.  But until government does the fundamental and hard work of spending reform, tax reform will be seen for what it is.  Just an attempt to pump more water into a leaky bucket.

    According to the ABS, for the 12 months to June 2021, the 3 tiers of Australian government managed to generate $810 billion of revenue.  But they spent $970 billion or near half of GDP generating a combined deficit of $160 billion.

    Our governments don’t have revenue problem.  They have a spending problem.  Message to Labor, Liberal, National and Greens governments, as Kerry Packer said quite well and clearly:

    “you’re not spending it that well that we should be donating extra!”

    Here’s the Packer masterclass in its entirety.

    https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/xOLbbkC1qq0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

    ANSWER: The Carlson-Shapiro Question

    By
    Kenelm Tonkin
    -
    0
    tonkin

    I admit it.

    There I was on 27 February 2023, making a little mischief with my article:

    VOTE NOW! Tucker Carlson or Ben Shapiro?

    Well, it was mischief-making in the sense that I like to sharply define the line between liberal and conservative and then, with all the goodwill in the world, provoke people to think and explore these differences.

    There is a difference, you see.

    So I posted a video clip between American commentators Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro. They had opposing views of how to handle inevitable job losses caused by driverless trucks. It illustrated the difference eloquently.

    If you haven’t watched the exchange, click here.

    Then I challenged you to vote whether you agreed with Tucker Carlson or, by inference from his question, Ben Shapiro.

    The results are in:

    • 37% Tucker Carlson; and
    • 63% Ben Shapiro.

    If you agreed with Tucker Carlson, you are a conservative.

    If you agreed with Ben Shapiro, you are a liberal.

    As I repeat ad nauseum, conservatives wish to conserve. Here, Mr. Carlson would be happy to conserve current industry development rather than advance it. He’d be happy to keep truck drivers in jobs for which technology has a more efficient solution, the driverless truck.

    By inference from his question, Mr Shapiro would prefer to let the free market take its course, permit the technology and have truck drivers migrate into related freight work or even redeploy into other industries.

    There’s a big difference in approach.

    Liberals and conservatives are not the same.

    You’re an optimist if you’re a liberal (or if you must, a classical liberal or libertarian, they all mean the same thing!) You believe in people, in their ability to innovate and in their ability to adapt to change. In the case of driverless trucks, you fully embrace this new technology and you want to encourage the creators of that innovation by allowing it to be unleashed on the market. No restrictions. And you have faith truck drivers, given appropriate notice, are more than capable of finding new work. You are confident they aren’t simply going to sit and bemoan the loss of one type of occupation. Rather, you know they’ll have to find other work to feed their families, as we all do.

    You’re a pessimist if you’re a conservative. You believe, as Mr Carlson even said, that you don’t want high school educated men let loose on society without a job. He assumes that high school educated men would suddenly become helpless and even dangerous. That’s the inference.

    Blimey!

    Talk about loss of faith in our fellow citizens. It’s a nanny state attitude. What evidence is there for this? None that I can find. On the contrary, there is plenty of evidence high school educated men are adaptable.

    Take 1980s Newcastle. A city bustling with blue collar men busily working the steelworks. Now look at 2020s Newcastle, a lifestyle, health and university town. What happened to these steelworkers? Was Newcastle ravaged by idle high school educated men wreaking havoc across the city? No. Some of these men were due to retire, some moved to the Wollongong works, some stayed in Newcastle moving into value-add niche industrial enterprises, some stayed in the large industrial companies but worked from home as the companies left, some started their own businesses using their skills in new ways, some simply moved into new industries altogether, some retrained, some took early retirement to enjoy life.

    Take my grandfather. He grew up and apprenticed as a wheelwright at the tale-end of the old wooden spoke and hub horse-drawn carts. Then as his career developed, wood gave way to steel spoke and hub wheels. Then steel plates came in. What a transition!

    Further, when a conservative says ‘let’s restrict technology’, what does that signal? It’s the same as saying to every inventor and innovator, every scientist and engineer, to every entrepreneur and free thinker that their fresh, new ways of solving old problems are unwelcome.

    Do we really want that?

    If we took that view, we wouldn’t have made these advances outlined in There Is Hope. Check This Out!

    Further ….

    We’d have no smartphones.

    No Internet.

    No wireless.

    No medical imaging.

    No open heart surgery.

    No computers.

    No electricity.

    No refrigeration.

    No cars.

    No flush toilets.

    No immunisation.

    No fresh, high-quality food.

    No sewerage works.

    No social mobility.

    No flowing, pure water to the bathroom sink.

    No glass.

    No books.

    No steel.

    No iron.

    No bronze.

    No wheel!

    As I say, conservatism’s tendency to oppose change can be helpful. However, if that’s all we on the Right do is oppose and conserve, we end up sliding to the Left. Opposition and conservation are insufficient to fight the Left.

    We must treat our innovators with respect and let them advance society. We must not be conservative and stand in the way.

    We must treat our fellow citizens with respect, have confidence in them that they can cope with change. We should not mollycoddle them.

    Don’t be a conservative like Mr. Carlson.

    Be a classical liberal like Mr. Shapiro in this debate.

    This is the way forward.

    VOTE NOW! Tucker Carlson or Ben Shapiro?

    By
    Kenelm Tonkin
    -
    0
    lol

    Let’s do something different today, yes?

    I’m normally beavering away, sharing my opinions with you.

    Today, though, you’re in the driver’s seat. I’d like to hear from you.

    Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro exploring their philosophical differences.

    So this is what we’re going to do together …

    1. I’ll give you a short video to watch. It’s only 1:54 minutes long;
    2. You watch it. It’s a discussion between Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro. They talk about the impact of technology on jobs, taking two very different approaches;
    3. I’ll ask you a question about it;
    4. You then answer that question in the poll below; and
    5. Next week, I’ll let you know what your answer says about your political philosophy.

    Here’s the short video … watch now.

    Should government restrict technology to protect jobs? #auspol

    Right. Did you watch it?

    Good.

    So here’s the question and the poll …

    Thanks for playing.

    Next Monday, I’ll interpret your answer for you and reveal what political philosophy you’re expressing.

    Don’t forget to leave your comments below. I’ll respond to those too.

    Like, share, subscribe.

    FREEDOM! The Daughter of Davos Resigns.

    By
    Kenelm Tonkin
    -
    0

    Two extraordinary things happened yesterday.

    First, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced her resignation effective, at the latest, early in February 2023. (Yes, New Zealanders need to endure her for a few weeks more!)

    Second, I put out this short tweet yesterday together with a video of the Prime Minister, and it went viral. In a mere 180 minutes, it was seen by 67,400 people and was still swishing around the globe as I wrote this. After 8 hours, 165,000+!

    You have to ask ‘WHY?’

    https://twitter.com/KenelmTonkin/status/1615875921638219778?s=20

    Jacinda Ardern set a couple of records. She was the youngest female prime minister ever in 2017. Further, she gave birth whilst in office.

    Of course, neither of these have anything to do with political achievement.

    To be fair, we can probably agree that Jacinda Ardern is expressive.

    Some went so far as to say she showed great empathy.

    I think it more accurate to say any apparent empathy was self-consciously dispensed and exclusively to beneficiaries of her bias.

    Any praise for expressiveness and empathy needs much closer scrutiny. It’s what she expresses that so confounds civil libertarians like you and me. And, if you don’t mind me expressing myself here dear reader, she showed a distinct lack of empathy for many during covid lockdowns, victims of which are generations not yet born as you’ll see. So read on.

    Instead, what we observed was a smiling socialist, a Daughter of Davos, instinct over intellect, all feeling and no financial finesse. In short, she was a classical liberal’s nightmare.

    Just look at the legacy she leaves after six reckless years in office:

    • Frequent meddling with the free market. The results: distortions in housing prices and a generation of first home buyers shut-out of their ownership aspirations;
    • A backlash against over-zealous covid restrictions and loss of personal freedoms, including creating a medical-apartheid defined by vaccination-status. See the video tweet above;
    • Conscientious objectors and the vaccine-hesitant were shunned socially, denied mobility, prevented from earning a living and targeted by government in ways the Stasi would have relished in Soviet-era East Germany;
    • Consequential increasing crime rates in the island nation;
    • Inflation sitting at 7.2%;
    • Food prices spiking 8.3% compared with the same time a year earlier;
    • Successive interest rate increases from New Zealand’s central bank;
    • A monstrous public debt! When she took office, the public debt was approximately $60 billion USD. Projections are that, based on all data currently available reflecting the decisions of her government, that the national debt will balloon to $151 billion USD by 2027. If the figure proves higher or lower than that, it will be the result of her successor’s policies, but you can see the economic vandalism on her watch. Put it this way, she led a government which racked-up triple the debt of all previous New Zealand governments combined. She went way over the credit card limit and left someone else to pick up the bill. Funny, right?;
    • For a country with a population the size of Boston, it will take three generations at least to bring that debt to heel. We are talking inter-generational theft which will crush Zoomer Kiwis’ standard of living, their children and their grandchildren. That is to say, on the day after you, I and Jacinda Ardern meet our Lord and Maker, New Zealanders will be dealing with the Ardern Economic Catastrophe for another two generations thereafter;
    • Many of them will flee New Zealand and hollow this beautiful jewel of the South Pacific. They have been emigrating anyway, mainly to Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States;
    • A strategic flirtation with the Chinese Communist Party. Her Labour Party has long shunned our liberal democratic ally, America. It was a natural progression from that to openly calling for greater integration with the communists, a weak-kneed strategy in favour of firebrand authoritarianism with a chequebook over the cleansing-balm of liberty;
    • Consistent with that predisposition towards authoritarianism, civil liberties in New Zealand were shattered under her Governments. Emergency powers poised to be invoked again at any time are left in place;
    • Chinese Communist Party infiltration of New Zealand consulates and banks;
    • She openly lied about the efficacy of covid vaccines. “If you take the vaccine, you’ll still get covid but you won’t get sick and you won’t die” was a claim she made during the height of an hysteria of her own making, and contradicted by the science and the manufacturer. Don’t believe me? Watch this …

      https://twitter.com/KenelmTonkin/status/1616211090882592768?s=20


    • More government restrictions on the access and use of water;
    • Crushing regulations on agricultural emissions;
    • Further shifting of the goal posts with hate speech laws without any safeguards as to who adjudicates what ‘hate speech’ actually is.

    The adulation and applause had faded about a year ago. The shadowy World Economic Forum’s simping seemed impossibly distant now. Jacinda Ardern had to face the people of New Zealand imminently and the prospects weren’t promising.

    With polling numbers in decline and the sparkle now tarnished, the Prime Minister did what all faithful authoritarians and central-planners do when their number is up. She spoke sweetly, smiled nervously, then scurried to the nearest exit hoping that the rule of law she undermined holds firm for her.

    I was shocked my tweet went viral. I shouldn’t have been. Countless everyday people across the West, people like you and I, have had a gutful.

    The Daughter of Davos was a symbol of all that has gone wrong over the last 3 years. So of course you cheered her departure.

    I don’t think we’ll have to wait long before she re-emerges with an ostentatious job title and global brief somewhere in the world. “Poverty Ambassador-At-Large, World Economic Forum”, on $820,000 per annum, Davos chalet and chauffeur the obligatory perks on top sounds about right.

    And when that happens, you and I can both smile knowingly that at least here she won’t have harmed anyone further. On her departure from the Land of the Long White Cloud, she will increase the average IQ of New Zealand, and not decrease that of the World Economic Forum.

    Pardon me if I shed not a solitary tear.

    Mr. Adams and his ‘RWNJ’ Slur against an Icon

    By
    Kenelm Tonkin
    -
    0

    Federation University’s Verity Archer discovered a letter written in 1975 by Sir Donald Bradman, the greatest cricket batsman ever to play with an unparalleled average of 99.94, to newly elected Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.

    The 1975 federal election was undoubtedly a fiercely contested battle. Emotions were high. As any citizen was and is entitled to do, Bradman took a side and wrote:

    “A marvellous victory in which your personal conduct and dignity stood out against the background of arrogance and propaganda indulged in by your opponents.”

    Bradman next makes a prediction, which you would have to say history shows to be prescient:

    “Now you may have to travel a long and difficult road along which your enemies will seek to destroy you.”

    Cricket was a sport for amateurs in The Don’s day. Big money had not yet influenced the sport. Players therefore had to develop a career independent their sporting masters. They were tough men on long, self-funded tours, most unlike some knee-bending virtue-signalers and sandpaper betting-agency grubs you are more familiar with from more recent periods. In Sir Donald’s case, he was an accomplished and successful stockbroker in his own right with an advanced understanding of the regulatory framework of his time. Writing about regulations on capital, Bradman consequently wrote:

    “What the people need are clearly defined rules which they can read and understand so that they can get on with their affairs.”

    Seems fair enough. Sounds like Financial Disclosure Statement (FDS) rules decades later. He then adds:

    “The public must be re-educated to believe that private enterprise is entitled to rewards as long as it obeys fair and reasonable rules laid down by government. Maybe you can influence leaders of the press to a better understanding of this necessity of presentation.”

    There are four points in that paragraph:

    1. Belief in private enterprise. This is straightforward enough of an idea. It’s the basis of our Western, capitalist liberal democracy;
    2. Gaining the rewards of its initiative. Yes. Private enterprise offers goods and services to the public in return for a profit. This is basic economics. Got it;
    3. Some fair and reasonable rules. Well, let’s not have any rules if possible but, if we must, light-touch and easy-the-understand, sure;
    4. Explain this to the media. Not a bad idea for a government to share with the press the direction it would like to take the country. All good.

    What’s to disagree with here?

    Yet, out come the socialists and 1975 ancient historians with an axe to grind:

    Broadcaster Phillip Adams wrote, “Sad. Lost letter from Bradman to Fraser after Whitlam’s dismissal reveals ‘the Don’ to be a RWNJ.”

    Phillip Adams @PhillipAdams_1

    Sad. Lost letter from Bradman to Fraser after Whitlam’s dismissal reveals ‘the Don’ to be a RWNJ9:59 PM ∙ Dec 25, 20222,112Likes259Retweets

    Unaccustomed to shorthand slurs from journalists, I had to find what RWNJ meant: right-wing nut-job, apparently.

    To some boomer-era, battle-axe activists-come-journalists, supporting free-enterprise, light-touch regulation and transparency with the media is radical. Apparently these positions are extreme, wild enough to be branded a right-wing nut-job!

    At what point in Australian progress did free enterprise become a dirty word?

    Or can we say Mr. Adams is the radical one for slandering a long-deceased Australian sporting icon because he believed in free enterprise.

    Or …

    … maybe, just maybe, Mr. Adams has another axe to grind. Perhaps he just hates supporters of Malcolm Fraser over the Political Crisis of 1975.

    All Liberty Itch says in response is:

    • Mr. Fraser won in a record landslide still not bettered today. Mr. Adams is surely not saying the vast majority of Australians including Sir Donald were RWNJs, is he?
    • Mr. Fraser’s successor, Bob Hawke, thought highly enough of Mr. Fraser to appoint him to the Eminent Persons Group to tackle racism in Apartheid-era South Africa. Mr. Adams is surely not saying Bob Hawke was a right-wing nut-job as well for supporting Mr. Fraser, is he?

    Like you, dear reader, I was taught never to speak ill of the dead.

    It seems Mr. Adams wasn’t.

    Long after Mr. Adams meets the Lord, free enterprise and Western liberal democracy will prevail.

    I do hope though that the practice of throwing mud at men long dead and unable to defend their reputations will cease, for Mr. Adams’ sake you understand, dear reader.

    For Mr. Adams’ sake.

    Stunning Early Victorian Election Prediction

    By
    Kenelm Tonkin
    -
    0
    Matthew Guy

    To be clear, I don’t know who’s going to win the Victorian election later tonight, 26 November 2022.

    How can I or any of us?

    However, I’m going to make a prediction as I write this at 3:20pm ACDT 26 November 2022, and have the prediction published just minutes before the polls have closed so you know I’ve not had any input from the counting of the votes. There’s my accountability, dear reader, to you.

    Labor will win!

    If my prediction is wrong, take all future predictions from me with a grain of salt. Throw tomatoes and rotten eggs at me. I’ll deserve it.

    Right now, I’m quietly confident in making this prediction, however ghastly it may be.

    And here is my reasoning. Hear it through …

    Heavens know, Dan Andrews and the Labor Government he leads in Victoria has been revolting.

    Who can forget the litany of failures …

    Rubber bullets in the back, pregnant woman arrested in her pyjamas for a Facebook post, the world’s longest lockdown, businesses crushed, women and children manhandled for not wearing masks, family nest-eggs shattered, MPs arrested and denied access to their democratically elected seat in Parliament House itself, elderly citizens having their pelvis fractured as they are slammed to the ground by overzealous police, churches ordered to close at the point of police intrusion into sacred spaces, and a once vibrant city – the envy of the world – hollowed of its sparkle.

    There will be a long-tail to this shocking overreach. Early figures are indicating that the rates of men aged 18 to 44 presenting with myocarditis, a long-term heart condition, have doubled. Yes, 2X. Men in their prime, cut low.

    Most devastating to the soul was the sight of a young man, hitherto mentally healthy, taking his own life on a Melbourne street by setting himself ablaze whilst in the grip of a lockdown-induced depression. The depravity of this Government’s policies is chilling.

    Free people have a right to be free. Free people have a God-given right to practise their religion. It’s part of our Christian-informed civil libertarian culture. And our Faith gives us Grace. It’s who we are. It’s how we cope with a world of sin.

    And Dan Andrews failed as a standard bearer of those freedoms.

    Why then do I predict this tyrant will be returned to office?

    Why do I put my predictive reputation on the line and call the election for Labor even before the polls have closed?

    The answer is that people don’t vote for “anyone would be better than” candidate X.

    Our good citizens require an informed choice, a differentiation upon which they can decide.

    And I’m afraid to say it but the Liberal Party’s leader, Matthew Guy, has failed to differentiate his Party.

    How could he?

    He’s limp, insipid, hardly the embodiment of inspiration and action!

    Beyond the personal characteristics of the leader, the seeds of the Liberal Party’s failure in this election were planted in 2020. Throughout the entirety of the covid pandemic, if that’s what it was and is, the Liberal Party played a small target, Labor-lite game.

    The Liberal Party could have weighed multiple harms to the community of Labor’s draconian covid measures, things like job loss, depression and endless racking-up the State debt for future generations to absorb, instead of robotically following bureaucratic health advice to the exclusion of all other considerations.

    Liberal MPs didn’t. That would take differentiation, a knowledge of John Stuart Mill, the fortitude to use the minds our Lord gave them, and the courage to avoid groupthink.

    The Liberal Party could have heeded the warnings of the worst civil liberty abuses in 100 years, passionately articulated in the Victorian Bar Association’s extraordinary and unprecedented open letter from sixty-four Queens Counsel.

    Liberal MPs didn’t. That would take differentiation through a bedrock of principles.

    The Liberal Party could have rallied the churches, giving cover and much needed support to pastors and priests throughout the State, stunned that worshipers were to have doors slammed in their faces.

    Liberal MPs didn’t. They aren’t Christians, most of them. That would take differentiation through Faith.

    At every opportunity, the Liberal Party Opposition Leader has looked politically anemic. You don’t win by hedging. You don’t win by staying small. You don’t win by cloning yourself using a tyrant as the mould.

    You win by standing for something. You win by inspiring people for a better tomorrow. You win by giving people hope. You win by serving others in practical, helpful ways. You win by differentiating yourself from the tyrant.

    None of this was done by Matthew Guy and his Liberal Party in Victoria.

    I therefore don’t need to watch the election coverage tonight.

    Labor will be returned.

    Lack of differentiation and beliefs will be the reason.

    Pray for the people of Victoria.

    And if my prediction is wrong, pray for the people of Victoria anyway.

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