Maintain the free trade rage, like Whitlam did 50 years ago
The economy has changed in half a century. But not the logic that prompted the 25 per cent reduction in tariffs that began the dismantling of Australia’s protectionist regime.
Fifty years ago this week, the Whitlam government announced a historic 25 per cent reduction in all Australian tariffs.
Prime minister Gough Whitlam said the cut was “designed to restrain price increases by increased competition and by stimulating in the short run a sufficiently large inflow of additional imports to help meet pressing demands”.
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Alex Robson is deputy chairman of the Productivity Commission
