Publisher's Guest
The Hon. David Clarke is a member of the NSW Parliament's Upper House. Prior to his election in 2003 he practiced as a lawyer. A member of the Liberal Party for many years he has held a variety of positions in its NSW Division including as a member of its State Executive and as Chairman of its Foreign Affairs and Trade Policy Committee. Currently he is Deputy Chairman of the Parliament's All Party Committee on Law and Justice and is the Opposition's Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney-General and Minister for Justice.
He is married with four children.
DG: You are known as an advocate of socially conservative views and family values and for your support of free enterprise. What underlines you support for those views, particularly on economic issues?
DC: Well yes I do support 'family values' because they reflect the natural social condition of mankind and constitute a pivotal cornerstone for the well being of society.
Likewise, free enterprise reflects the natural economic condition of mankind and provides a further pivotal cornerstone for our society's well being.
In fact way back in ancient times as soon as people had mastered agriculture they spontaneously began trading good and services, thereby laying the foundations of the free enterprise system.
Archaeological discoveries of vast road networks criss-crossing continents far back into pre-history testify that even when mankind was still primitive, sophisticated commerce existed.
Free enterprise was so inherently natural to the Ancient World that no one stopped to think about their economic system. When Adam Smith, in the 18th Century, described the "invisible hand" of the free market he wasn't proposing a new economic theory, he was just explaining what was happening all around him in booming Britain. Then in the 19th Century Karl Marx proposed a new economic system, Communism, which was the inverse of the natural order. Marx said that mankind would advance faster if an all-powerful central government made economic decisions on behalf of the individual. But Karl Marx was wrong. Communism was a disaster and was trumped by Capitalism. Germany is but one of many testaments to that fact.
At the end of World War II that country's industry and infrastructure had been obliterated. West and East Germany started from an identical position - ground zero. West Germany embraced US - style commerce and within one generation was the third largest economy in the world. East Germany embraced Communism and was a disaster. Yet, they were the same people, with the same history and language sharing the same geography and natural resources. When the two Germany's united it was, in reality, the West rescuing a bankrupted East.
Worldwide, the failure of Communism has been total - economic chaos, deprivation of human rights and responsibility for the death of 100 million of its own subjects. Yet despite the unfolding of these tragic events many Western intellectuals remained mesmerized by the allure of Communism as the dawn of a new Golden Age. The mainstream political left in the West didn't go that far but they did embrace Socialism. Yet whenever a Western nation has had a pro-Socialist Government it has stagnated and when it has been pro free market, there invariably has been a boom.
The United States went down a government intervention semi-socialist path in the 1930's and 1960's and both were periods of low growth. In Britain various Labour Governments between 1945 and 1979 were nationalising industry, empowering socialist trade unions and raising taxes as high as 98%. Prior to 1979, Conservative Governments did little to reverse these disastrous policies and Britain seemed to be locked in a downward spiral. That was until Margaret Thatcher arrived on the political scene.
DG: You speak of mainstream Western intellectuals embracing socialism with disastrous results for Western Nations. What effect do you think they have had on events in Australia?
DC: Well, Australia has certainly had more than its fair share of intellectual elitists who think they know how to spend taxpayers' wealth better than the taxpayers who created the wealth in the first place.
Their response to any economic problem is further massive doses of government intervention. Australia has paid a heavy price for ever allowing these cliques to have gained such a stranglehold on Australian Government economic policy.
To them, the Whitlam Years was their El Dorado. It was the high water mark of their influence although it proved to be a low water mark for Australian economic growth and prosperity. It would be fair to say that the Whitlam Government period from 1972-1975 was the closest Australia came to socialism, although the Rudd Government is certainly making a solid claim for that dubious distinction.
Symbolically, one of the first actions of Gough Whitlam was to send gifts to the Communist leaders of North Korea. He raised taxes, borrowed heavily, splurged money on grandiose projects, expanded welfare and regulated industry. As a result the Whitlam Government plunged Australia into economic and political chaos, yet Odes of Glorification to the Whitlam Era continue to gush forth from our Nation's media and cultural leftist elites.
Hardly a month goes by without yet another Whitlam Testimonial Dinner where the faithful come to bestow further awards and decorations at the feet of the Great Man himself. How often it is that we read of such events always amply attended by dragooned and frog-marched businessmen fearful of incurring Labor's wrath if they fail to attend with open cheque books.
The Left's Intellectual Elites are masters at re-writing history, but the truth is that when in 1975 the people had an opportunity to declare judgement on Whitlam and his socialist policies, he lost the election badly. In 1977 he ran again but lost just as badly. No amount of spin, hype and gloss from the Left's media and academic pals can alter that fact.
Yet there were some Labor figures who learned from the mistakes of the Whitlam Era and one of them was Bob Hawke. In his memoires he tells of his determination to avoid the economic mistakes of Whitlam. As President of the ACTU in the 1970's he was openly socialist but his ambition to be a long term Prime Minister saw a major shift to economic rationality. Hawke embraced the free market policies of his political opponents, John Howard, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
In essence he was declaring "the Labor Party has been wrong all along on economic policy and the Liberal Party has been right". In fact, Hawke's economic success influenced the future left of centre governments of both President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair who told their own political parties to "come in out of the cold" and that they had been wrong on economic policy all along. They allowed their economies to continue to build on the boom years of Reagan and Thatcher.
The message of the 20th Century is clear: Capitalism and the free market is good, and the more you have, the more good you have.
DG: It would be fair to say that just as Hawke moderated his socialist instincts to win government so also did Kevin Rudd in order to win the election against John Howard. He effectively set out to minimise their economic differences in such areas as taxation reform and government intervention.
DC: I think Dmitry that you've hit the nail on the head. When Kevin Rudd campaigned in 2007 as a 'social conservative', 'economic conservative' and a 'free marketeer' many believed that he meant it. They figured that he had 'joined the dots' and had rationalised that Labor would do better if it built on John Howard's pro-free market policies which had delivered such solid growth for Australia. He even adopted, in it's entirety, Howard's taxation reduction policy.
But those who put their trust in Rudd as a free-enterprise reformer have been proved wrong. Rudd couldn't help himself. At the first sight of an economic road-bump, he threw up his hands in fright and retreated back to true Labor principles, and that means big spending, high debt and socialist intervention. Rudd is Gough without the grandeur.
In fact, Rudd's denunciations of free enterprise go further than Gough would have ever dared. Whenever he lambasts free enterprise and the free market economy he does so with relish. Whilst it is true that he is a chameleon, ever-ready to put on a different mask to suit changing circumstances, the true face of Rudd is that of a Fabian Socialist. He is exploiting the global financial crisis to fulfil his own deeply held socialist convictions: it gives him the power to throw billions of dollars on his pet projects with the flimsiest scrutiny. He is on a power trip.
When Rudd dishes out his grants, he is doing it with money that didn't come out of thin air. Someone else's productivity created that wealth. Rudd takes it away and gives it to a cause that he deigns more worthy. The productive person who created the wealth in the first place could have used that money to invest in something that multiplied the wealth many times over with a flow on benefit to the entire community. Once in the hands of a government programme, however, that wealth will evaporate.
Where Howard left Australia free of Commonwealth Government debt Rudd has now burdened it with hundreds of billions of new debt. The Liberal Party must never give an inch when in comes to defending free enterprise.
DG: In March 2011 the people of NSW go to the polls to cast their verdict on Labor's record. Is the election the Government's to lose or is it the Opposition's to win?
DC: Well, quite frankly, I think it is both of those propositions. Clearly the State Labor Government is on the nose. Kevin Rudd tries to avoid it, former Premier Bob Carr publicly repudiates it, ex-Treasurer Michael Costa dumps on it in the media whenever given half-a-chance and its current Ministers spend their time denigrating each other to any journalist who is prepared to listen.
It's an open secret that in a vain attempt to salvage their own seats Labor's backbenchers are out and about trying to distance themselves from a Government that has the smell of death about it.
As the next election approaches, the conga line of ex-Ministers grows longer as more of them are sacked for incompetence, resign in disgrace or simply walk away because they know that Labor has reached the point of no return.
NSW Labor will lose the next election because it no longer governs but is a rabble, feebly led, incapable of providing a vision for NSW and resting on foundations of bribery, corruption and sleaze.
The Coalition will win the election because it will bring intelligent leadership in Barry O'Farrell and cohesive policies to rectify 14 years of neglect in health, transport and law and order. It will provide a vision for a better NSW where infrastructure rebuilding will be a top priority. Above all it will bring integrity, decency and honesty back into Government. That's what the people of NSW want and that's what the Coalition will deliver to them.
The Hon David Clarke, Member of the NSW Legislative Council
with Dmitry Greku, Publisher/Editor, GWP Magazines.
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