Point number seven calls for:
The elimination of the disastrous National Competition Policy at a Federal level, and the immediate non-compliance with such policy at a state level.
It would be hard to find another single policy that has caused as much destruction in Australia as National Competition Policy. Under this policy, agreed to by the states and the Labor Party federal government in 1991, whatever the High Priests of "competition"—the mantra of the free market—deemed to be uncompetitive, is summarily condemned to "deregulation". Newsagents, dairies, utilities, the postal system—nothing has been spared. In most cases, it can be shown that this "competitive deregulation" decreased competition, because many small competitors have been driven out of business, to the benefit of big business. This is lawful, since the NCP was written by Professor Fred Hilmer, a board member of two of our biggest companies, Westfield and Fairfax. Recently, Channel 9's Sunday Program exposed how Hilmer's own Westfield financed fake community campaigns to stop rival companies setting up shopping centres in their areas. Like most economic rationalist reforms, National Competition Policy is a corrupt attempt by big business and their political servants to grab a bigger chunk of the economic pie, at the expense of normal Australians. It must be scrapped immediately.
