Tony Shepherd: ‘Leyonhjelm a breath of fresh air’

Senator David Leyonhjelm in the Senate Chamber at Parliament House in Canberra. Picture: Kym Smith

Speech given at the launch of David Leyonhjelm’s book Freedom Salesman

David Leyonhjelm is like a compass for those who genuinely believe in economic and social freedom.

You may not agree with everything he says or believes but the underlying philosophy is always heading in the right direction.

He has been a welcome addition to the cross bench in the Senate. He is a breath of fresh air in a cloistered political environment with its constant attacks on freedom and its tax and spend phobia. He is in the fortunate position of being a crossbencher and does not have to worry about how to get it done. However he uses this luxury far better than most.

He is a true libertarian who is focussed on reducing the role of government in a country with three levels of government many of them besotted with regulation. He is a wonderful foil for the left which wants Government to control our economic lives but not our social lives and for the right which wants the direct opposite.

He believes in the philosophy of John Stuart Mill and John Locke that government should be restricted to protecting life, liberty and private property.

Reading through David’s book I realised we have had similar journeys. I started life as a federal public servant with a strong belief in big government tinged with a bit of socialism. David started out in Young Labor and was a fervent member of the anti conscription campaign during the Vietnam War. In his customary contrary manner he subsequently joined the Army Reserve.

One major point of difference is that David has some Swedish royal blood in his background! It is also hard to believe his family originally comes from the poster child of social democracy.

Speaking of conversions I met my fellow speaker Mark Latham as a young MP from Western Sydney. He was definitely left but extremely bright and irreverent. He was also very entertaining. He is the same character today but he has clearly moved from the left. Mark further demonstrates his intelligence by being a supporter of the GWS Giants.

My first real contact with David was after he entered the Senate in July 2014. Unfortunately he was not there to lend his support for the National Commission of Audit when it was released just before the budget. However, David was one of the few Senate cross benchers with a strong and logical commitment to expenditure reduction. “Balancing the Budget” and “Spending Addicts” are two of the best chapters in this book.

Then I started reading his other stuff and I found his views on renewable energy, free trade, minimum wage, penalty rates, genetically modified crops, child care etc all eminently sensible.

At the core, my attraction was to David’s philosophy and the way he identifies Australia’s slide from a free country to one which loves more and more regulation, tax and spend, the nanny state, political correctness and helicopter parenting.

We have turned a nation of rugged individualists and innovators with an irreverent sense of humour into some of the biggest whingers in the world. A country where people expect the government or the taxpayer to cover them for every conceivable risk in their life.

Of course it is this decline which is the cause of most of our current political and economic challenges. Whether it be energy cost or availability, poor productivity, low wage growth, job security, the cost of child care, housing affordability and availability, education and training you need to go no further than government.

We have three levels of government in Australia, often in a bicameral arrangement, in competition to see how many laws and regulations they can pass. In fact they see their main KPI as how many regulations they have passed. A law degree seems to be a prerequisite for a seat in an Australian Parliament.

We learnt from the great reforms of the eighties, nineties and noughties that the less government is directly involved in our lives and the freer the markets the better we are off. These reforms have given us 26 years of continuous growth and our current high level of prosperity. Unbelievably the reforms are under attack from both the left and the right. Thank heavens for leaders like David Leyonhjelm who are calling this.

For example free trade is vital to a small country of 24 million with only two industries left which are globally competitive - the demonised resources sector and agriculture. We were also good at minerals processing but governments made sure they killed that off through their crazy short sighted energy policies.

We survived the GFC and prospered not because of pink batts and new school halls at swanky schools. We survived and in fact prospered from the massive and unprecedented investment in the commodity boom. Now coal, iron ore and gas exporters are the devil incarnate despite the obvious fact that through taxes, royalties, jobs and huge investment in infrastructure they are keeping us afloat.

Governments at the behest of the community and often supported by a compliant media are sucking the life blood out of our country. David Leyonhjelm is calling it.

I commend Freedom Salesman to all of you. It should be on the curriculum for high school and first year economics, philosophy and political science at university. (It would probably be a waste of time in the law faculty). At least that way we may have some chance of stopping the rot and protecting the future.

Tony Shepherd is a respected Australian businessman and a Director of the Menzies Research Centre.