KEY POINTS:
Phill Rennie from the Australian Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) warned Kiwi readers the other day not to choke on their cornflakes by the fact that Aussies were earning at least 30 per cent more than their Kiwi cousins. His solution for Kiwis left me choking.
In 1996 I was settling into a new job in a civil and commercial litigation practice and editing a conservative youth magazine. I attended a weekend junket organised by the free market ayatollahs at the CIS.
It was basically a crash course designed to convince us that the neo-liberal capitalism of the Friedmans and Hayeks of this world would save us all from oblivion. In practice, it meant turning our faces toward Wellington, the new Mecca of prosperity where Sheik Roger Douglas was rolling out his Kiwi Kapitalist Kaliphate.
Now, 12 years on, the CIS free market muftis have reversed their fatwa. Mr Rennie effectively suggested Kiwis should adopt some of the same policies Aussie voters rejected in the last federal election. As if we expect our transtasman cousins to drink the dregs of beer we coughed up and spat out.
Among these policies was an industrial relations revolution taken to the fullest extent in 2005 in the form of Work Choices. That policy made former conservative Prime Minister John Howard so unpopular that he not only led his Liberal Party to a massive defeat but even made Howard the first post-War Australian Prime Minister to lose his own seat in a general election.
Work Choices involved effectively removing any unfair dismissal remedy for at least 80 per cent of all Australian workers. Imagine a situation where 80 per cent of the work force feels like they have no job security and can be sacked at any time.
Who'd be stupid enough to take out a mortgage? Who would want to take on any other major long-term financial commitment? And what kind of commitment will workers give to their employers, knowing their jobs are forever on the line?
Of course, free market fundamentalists will tell you that Work Choices increased real wages in Australia and led to record lows in unemployment. But how much of that is caused by policies which effectively remove basic employment safety nets?
Interestingly, now what is left of the allegedly Liberal Party in Federal Parliament is at loggerheads over whether to scrap the old Work Choices policy. It seems some conservatives are still living in denial.
Rennie also says that Australians are better off on a range of social indicators including life expectancy, infant mortality, income inequality and even suicide rates. That may be the case for White Australia and for later migrants. But the average life expectancy of indigenous Australians is at least 15 years lower than that of other Australians.
Howard's so-called Northern Territory Intervention has had less to do with fighting child sexual abuse and more to do with removing long-held indigenous property rights and dismantling successful indigenous job-creation projects.
Indeed, the intervention (which the CIS and sadly the new Rudd government largely support) could only be implemented by removing it from the reaches of Federal Racial Discrimination Law. In other words, the entire program is built upon institutionalised racism.
So why are Australians (at least white fellas) earning more than Kiwis? Why do we have a booming economy? Rennie is spot-on about tax rates, business regulation and government spending.
At last year's 30th anniversary dinner of the CIS, Executive Director Greg Lindsay gave Howard a good ear-bashing over the volume of public sector spending, particularly on middle-class welfare.
Howard ignored that lecture, and went into the election with billion dollar promises, even offering to subsidise private school fees!
And so we had a situation where Australians who wanted to vote for a fiscally responsible Liberal government had little option but to support the Australian Labor Party.
If the Clark Labour government is to improve the prosperity of Kiwis, it might follow the lead of Kevin Rudd's Labor.
But Helen Clark would be well advised to avoid the discredited excesses of the Howard era. Unless, of course, she wishes to lose not just the election but also her own Beehive seat.
* Irfan Yusuf is a Sydney lawyer and former Federal Liberal Party candidate.
