Lauchlan McIntosh has seen in the workings of the Federal Government from near and far. And he sees too much regulation, duplication and ministerial lack of training.
“”Who trains the Minister?’ he asks.
“”Why do we need a Federal Department of Industry, or Education?”
“”How can we learn to trust ourselves not to be regulated?”
Mr McIntosh leaves the Mining Industry Council later this month to take up the chief executive’s position at the Australian Automobile Association. He has been with AMIC for eight years and before that managed mines in many parts of Australia: several years at Mount Newman, five years at Groote Island, two years at Yampi Sound and Southern Cross and several years in Melbourne.
“”There is a view in Australia, which is different in other countries, that if you can’t provide for yourself government will provide it. People believe government creates wealth. It doesn’t; it just redistributes wealth created by business.
He recognised that governments were trying to reform, citing the Council of Australian Governments embracing the Hilmer report. However, that amounted only to a reform of what government was doing; there was no recognition that in some things governments needed to stop doing the activity altogether.
“”There is still no real recognition that government has got to get out of the way,” he said. “”There is more and more regulation wherever you go. No matter what you do there is some group of people putting more regulating in the way.
“”Governments had been removing some regulations in recent years, but just when you appear to be getting somewhere, more regulations are being made. There are so many people involved in the regulation business, that they come back on from the other side again. It’s like a big play. The regulators leave one side of the stage only to reappear later on the other side.
“”Trying to find how to trust ourselves with less regulation is the biggest difficulty. People are so used to regulation, business included. We have become so used to regulation that business itself can’t see where regulation is unnecessary.”
There was now an attitude problem. People expect regulation in every facet of life, so rather than just behave reasonable, the interpret the regulation as narrowly and finely as possible to see what they could get away with. This then resulted in further regulation.”
The cycle had to be broken if Australian was to become more internationally competitive.
“”If look at Federal Government departments involved in wealth creation, there are very few,” he said. “”DITAC and DPIE all the result are either regulators or distributors — the handers out of someone else’s money.”
And they were probably not efficient handers out of other people’s money because there was no competition. The sports rorts was classic example of that.
“”Why do you need so many thing duplicated at federal and state level?” he asked.
It would be nice in the long term to have just federal and regional government, but realistically that would never happen.
“”We are unlikely to ever get rid of the states, but you can cut some federal portfolios,” he said. “”Education: is it federal, state or local. It is clearly not all three. Why is there a Federal Department of Industry. Isn’t that a state activity?
“”But in the political game everyone wants to be a minister and everyone’s mate has to be given a ministerial job.”
He is concerned about the ability of some ministers to do the job.
“”Who teaches the minister?” he asks. The Government requires a 1 per cent spending on training, but it did not seem to apply to ministers.
“”When do they do a course on accountability or how to read a balance sheet or how to manage the people who work for them?” he said. “”You can be appointed one day and accountable the same day. You can be Education Minister one day; Treasurer the next.”
Government was getting more reluctant to ask industry about things. Meetings with Treasury and the Department of Environment top people were less frequent.
Politicians were not able to be strategic, to sit back and gather some wisdom. “”They’re not trained for it, they’re not encouraged to have that sort of longer term view and we all suffer as a result,”” he said.
The government had a problem in getting a keeping good people to work for it. Mr McIntosh said he had seen a brain drain to private enterprise in the years he had been in Canberra. He rattled off half a dozen recent ones, including Roger Sims, David Charles and Vince Fitzgerald.
“”There is a risk that you can be branded as a doomsayer when what you are looking at is the development of new knowledge and better potential and be more forward looking,” he said.
“”There’s a whole lot of unknown stuff under the surface to the continent and we have to keep walking over it, flying over it or scratching it to see what is underneath. There must be great potential left in Australia. Another 50 Mount Newmans. The Government doesn’t get itself interested in that. it plays around on esoteric things. It does some assessment of tourist potential and it does a little bit through BMR on mineral potential, but not enough.”
On land use, Mr McIntosh thought the evironment process had been handled better than Mabo.
“”On the environment we did better because the Government made an effort to sit everyone down in one place and that worked. . . . We got somewhere on sustainable development. . . . Hawke was good at drawing together disparate people. . . It’s not something governments like doing because it reduces the division, reduces the room for clear political division.”
It was a pity Mabo did not go the same way, but last year at no time did the government t call everyone together in Mabo. It is difficult for politicians because if don’t get a result everyone says it was a waste of time, but if you manage the talkfest well and only achieve a little every time, you get somewhere in long run.
It was important for industry associations and other groups to show everyone what they are doing.
“”If you show people what you are doing it is unlikely that you will be disadvantaged,”’ he said “”If you don’t know hat you are doing they will make decisions that will have a serious impact on you.”
Industry associations had to be cost-effective for their members. It was not good concentrating on “”the sexy issues” only. You needed issues management. You had to weigh up the cost of pursuing an issue with the likelihood of success and the value to your members of achieving it.
“”Then you can say to your members: we achieved this cut in regulation and these tax changes which saved industry X dollars and you spent Y dollars doing it,” he said.
The mining industry had taken a more active role in education, employing a teacher in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne and setting up a course in geology for teachers at the CIT.
“”Unless you open the door and show them they will never know,” he said. “”People can maintain a view 20 to 30 years out of date.”
Teachers were not just conduit to kids.
“”We find teachers are very interested in the industry and want to be helped,” he said.
As to his new job at the AAA, Mr McIntosh said he was going in at a time of great change. The motorist organisations were broadening their base to more general services. Technology was likely to drive a lot of change. Satellite navigation systems were likely to be installed in every new car. These might have a button to summon the NRMA, RAC or whatever, without the motorist having to use a phone.