Address by The Hon Lindsay Tanner MP
Minister for Finance and Deregulation
Address to The Australian/Melbourne Institute 'New Agenda for Prosperity'
Conference Melbourne University
28 March 2008
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What do the Common Agricultural Policy, the license Raj, the Australian Wheat Board monopoly and the Japanese construction industry have in common?
They all reflect a philosophy of regulation and economic management which was dominant for much of the twentieth century but is now slowly succumbing to technological change, global economic integration and the growing complexity of twenty first century market economies. Some would call this approach mercantilism. Others wrongly regard it as a core component of socialism. I see it as a distinct phenomenon in its own right, that can best be described as producerism.
Producerism exists wherever the state implements regulatory and ownership arrangements which favour or protect particular producer groups at the expense of society as a whole. Tariffs, monopolies and other distorting regulatory regimes are the most obvious examples of the producerist philosophy at work.
But producerism is about more than just economic protectionism. Producerism is a hallmark of a closed society. It is strongest in societies where corruption is high, social mobility is low and economic nationalism is strong. It is weakest in societies where diversity is high, competition is encouraged and the barriers to trade and global engagement are minimised.
Producerism tends to intensify in response to major structural economic change. From the Physiocrats in eighteenth century France to the defenders of the Corn Laws in 1840s Britain, the Industrial Revolution was marked by established economic interests seeking to define the interests of wider society through a producerist prism.
Producerism is a philosophy which takes no one set form. It occurs across a variety of industries and economic contexts. Its adherents are drawn from across the ideological divide, joined together in their common support of hand outs, favours, mandates and barriers to competition. It dominated Australian economic policy in the 1960s under the ‘protection all round’ banner of McEwenism.
Producerism is not just an Australian phenomenon. It exists in every mixed economy at different levels of intensity. Even the caste system in India, which restricts access to certain occupations to particular groups of people, is a form of producerism.
Producerism was a major contributing factor to the demise of Eastern European state socialism in the 1980s. In the relatively basic economic conditions in which Eastern European states operated in the middle of the twentieth century, highly producerist arrangements more or less kept pace with their western counterparts. But in a post-industrial economy dominated by service provision highly producerist states could not compete with the more sophisticated economic signalling provided by market economies.
Countries which have persisted with producerist policies are now paying a high price. The Common Agricultural Policy diverts enormous amounts of otherwise productive investment capital into unproductive subsidisation of agriculture. European growth rates are lower as a result.
Producerist government policies in Japan led to over-investment in the construction industry and an asset price bubble that retarded its economic growth throughout the 1990s. Japan is still struggling to recover the economic dynamism it enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s. Commentators who joke about Japan as the world’s only remaining communist country are actually making a point about producerism.
By contrast, Deng Xiaoping’s assault on China’s producerist command culture in the 1980s ushered in a process of economic liberalisation that lifted China onto its current high growth trajectory.
In the post-industrial era, modern economies have simply become too complex, too dynamic and too diverse to be run by tight centralised control without enormous costs in efficiency and individual freedom.
Growing affluence is undermining the efficacy of producerism. It’s an understandable impulse in a world where starvation is a real threat and the lines of government command are obvious. It is impossible to justify in a modern nation like Australia.
The struggle against producerism does not fall neatly on either side of old divides between state and market, public and private, and regulation and freedom.
New cleavages have emerged in policy debates which cross the old left-right divide. Policymakers are now much more concerned with balancing central against local, open against closed, market culture against community culture and material gain against stability and traditional values.
The objectives of progressive governments around the world have not changed. Labor’s basic concern remains securing the economic and social wellbeing of working people, both now and into the future. The components of this endeavour have not changed much either: eradicating poverty, reducing inequality, enhancing education, and creating healthy, sustainable and harmonious communities.
The contours of this progressive vision are now global, technological and environmental in shape. For instance, climate change is now central to questions of economic justice.
The electoral success of progressive governments in recent years is in part attributable to the inability of conservative forces to adapt to this new political environment. For progressives, industry policy is now about innovation, technology and skills, not tariffs, quotas and monopolies. The right has had less success in shedding its producerist baggage. It is still mired in the world of bailouts, barriers and special deals. It took the left wing Prodi Government to finally tackle the antiquated regulatory architecture weighing down the Italian economy.
Globalisation has radically altered debates about how markets and society should be regulated. As old economic mechanisms crumble, new methods of regulating market activity to achieve social objectives have emerged.
In Australia and abroad, progressives have championed agile, facilitative and multilateral regulatory methods as providing the right market settings for twenty first century social democracy. The deadweight burden of the producerist command state is well understood.
This shift in the progressive approach towards regulation is often poorly understood and poorly explained. Labor has built a strong narrative around why and how we regulate for our social objectives in the modern economy. There is little corresponding discussion of why deregulation is equally important to achieving our social objectives. The Rudd Government is not pursuing deregulation just to please the business community. Our deregulation agenda is central to our efforts to building a better Australia.
By carving up markets to favour sectional interests rather than consumers, producerism enriches select constituencies at the expense of greater prosperity for all. By instituting economic inefficiencies, restrictions and distortions, producerism undermines the overall productive capacity of the economy.
Producerism is anti-consumer. It blunts society’s ability to ensure economic and social opportunity for working people. Every dollar spent on a narrow producer interest is a dollar that can’t be spent fighting poverty, improving education and building infrastructure. Every regulation needlessly protecting businesses from competition is a regulation driving up prices and hitting those with the least capacity to pay.
While parties of the left have often been supporters of producer interests, they also have a strong record of economic reform. The Hawke and Keating Governments tore down Australia’s tariff wall, deregulated the financial system, opened up the aviation and telecommunications markets and introduced national competition policy.
What did the Howard Government do to tackle producer interests in its eleven years in office? Can anyone cite a single serious reform?
Ten years after national competition policy was introduced by the Keating Government, the National Competition Council's final report card on the Howard Government placed it well and truly at the back of the class. Less than 78 per cent of all Commonwealth legislation had been reviewed and reformed to NCP standards. The result for priority legislation was even worse at 64 per cent.
The Rudd Government is committed to upholding the tradition of reform established in the Hawke-Keating era. We have already taken some important steps in the same direction. We’ve committed to abolishing AWB monopoly control over wheat exports. We’re increasing competition in the Australia-US aviation market. We’ve resisted the temptation to bail out Mitsubishi. We’ve restored Australia’s paramount commitment to multilateral free trade negotiations. And we’ve made it clear that our broadband strategy will be driven by the interests of consumers.
The Government has already begun reforming existing burdensome regulation. We are committed to ensuring that there is no net increase in the regulatory burden arising from new Commonwealth regulation. And we have committed to implementing a continuous process of regulatory improvement and reform.
We are hard at work in the Council of Australian Governments, harmonising and reforming regulatory regimes across the States and Territories. We are committed to reducing the regulatory burden on business and continuing the reform process initiated more than twenty years ago by a previous Labor government.
The COAG Reform Council reported that in key areas, such as transport reforms and access to key infrastructure assets, the implementation of previously agreed reforms is already slipping. COAG has tasked the Business Regulation and Competition Working Group, that I co-chair with Minister Craig Emerson, to reinvigorate the competition reform program.
All of these measures will help to tackle the producerist influences that remain in the Australian economy.
This doesn’t mean that specialised regulatory regimes will be scrapped. You can’t regulate aviation safety through the business visa regime.
And it doesn’t change the need for direct government involvement in particular markets. In some cases governments intervene to increase consumption of particular products, like health services and education. In others they try to restrict consumption, like alcohol, drugs and gambling. Governments impose a public monopoly in law and order services. All of these interventions are designed to improve the lives of citizens, not protect the interests of producers.
It just means that consumer interests will come first. The Government will assist industry where it is appropriate to do so, to enhance its competitiveness or to facilitate structural adjustment. We won’t be increasing tariffs or introducing regulatory arrangements that stifle competition. Industries facing serious structural adjustment will be assisted to change, not shielded from competition. And the transition to digital broadcasting will be implemented according to a clear timetable.
The battle against producerism is not just about deregulation or microeconomic reform for the sake of it. It’s about economic reform that serves progressive rather than conservative objectives. It’s about changing a balance of risk distribution in society that unfairly lines the pockets of producers at the expense of consumers. It’s about making government’s role in the economy facilitative, supporting intervention only when it is warranted, and supporting open competitive markets when it is not.
Excessive regulation tends to have a regressive effect. Excessive disclosure requirements in financial services have increased financial planners’ fees, making them less affordable for lower income earners. The Government has already commenced a comprehensive reform of this disclosure regime.
Modern social democracy is about managing risk. Producerism is an inappropriate mechanism of social risk management. Regulation and redistribution are still central to the role of government, but it is no longer appropriate for these mechanisms to be deployed to advantage one sector of the economy at the expense of others. Traditional Labor constituencies have largely lost the producerist protections they once enjoyed. Many of Australia’s enduring producerist arrangements benefit well paid professionals, at the expense of ordinary working people.
The fundamental question facing Australia in the twenty first century is whether we choose to be an open or a closed society. Producerism is the pathway to a more closed society.
The first battle against producerism set up Australia for the longest economic boom in our history. Tackling entrenched interests in the 1980s and 1990s delivered greater choice and lower prices for consumers. Securing an open and competitive economy through deregulation is crucial to achieving Labor’s objectives in areas like health, education and social inclusion. In this respect, deregulation is just as important as regulation for achieving a fair and progressive society.
The next battle against producerism won’t be easy, and the outcomes may not be perfect, but after eleven years of complacency and inertia the Australian economy desperately needs further reform. Exercising deregulatory discipline across the length and breadth of government is central to that task.
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