Amanda Vanstone, former Howard government minister, writes on the 40th anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s government.
For a surprisingly long period there was no effective cabinet, then unsatisfactory cabinet process. It was nothing short of economic chaos, a disaster. It was a reminder to everyone that you can have all the great ideas you want about a better world, but if you do not keep the economy on track your government will fall apart.
And we are still paying the price for this bunch of total incompetents. Courtesy of arbitrary tariff cuts which effectively said to Australians that it was ok to buy the products of low cost labour and close down our industry as a result (an almost irreversible situation politically) and the infernal Button plan which is about to lose us our last major manufacturing industry, car making, we are now paying in spades for these so called “friends of the working class”.
Whether low cost labor or an artificial exchange rate the result is the same — destruction of manufacturing jobs.