"May I suggest instead of looking at countries behind us.."

Heh, nice try at re-framing the discussion - maybe if you ignore the fact that some of the fastest growing industrial powers have grown exponetially while using such practices (and continue to grow), maybe if you just ignore the facts they'll go away right?

Wrong.

Rising stars such as China and Brazil shoot your theory out of the water. Surely such restrictive practices should have prevented any modernization and expansion - but quite the contrary, their modernization and expansion has been little short of phenomonal.

And what is this constant reference to Denmark? As a member state of the European Union - one of the world's most powerfull trading blocs - Denmark enjoys privellaged access to markets in ways that we could never have. It exports quite a lot of manufactured goods, last I heard around 70% of it's exports went back into the EU. To portray Denmark as having made a roaring success out of little more than wind and sand is rather inaccurate, it is part of a kind of trade collective and a rather powerfull one at that. Unlike us.

"Look at the bulk of our country that is now operating without tariffs"................but then you said....... "We are now no.30 in the world. How far do we have to sag in the country stakes....."

Now there's a contradiction I'd like to hear an answer to. We've been following your prescribed course of action yet somehow we've fallen to 30th place. Are you seriously going to argue that a few protected industries have dragged us to the wrong end of the field?

Everything in it's proper place at the proper time. True flexibility is not about applying a rigid, one-size-fits-all ideaology (ie all tariffs must go), it's about working in the national interest - loosening controls when necessary, tightening others when necessary, playing your full hand.

Fozz says: “……it's about working in the national interest - loosening controls when necessary, tightening others when necessary, playing your full hand.”. Ahah! Spoken like a true Keynesian bureaucrat. Point to one success story in Australia and I will give you five failures of bureaucrats in action in return.

As to your exampled countries, in any race at any point of time you do indeed see some that streak away (eg. reference to say like Brazil where they pay factory fodder rates), but they run out of puff. I am encouraging to stay focussed on increasing countries now AHEAD of Australia.

So, if there are NO successful countries ahead of Australia using tariffs for other than cup of tea events to reduce them, why then should Australia?

Shouldn’t we all not be embarrassed at Australia’s pathetic economic performance given our natural endowment owned by just twenty million people?

Shouldn’t we be exporting our skills rather than importing them from a country that is one-quarter our age and with all of its young people in arms (I talk of Israel) and stop copping out in excuses why Denmark with just wind and sand (producing one-fifth of its energy from wind exporting its know-how as SMART manufactures and services) is AHEAD not only in Europe, but in the world. Studies and examples abound showing discriminatory tariffs impede growth, smartness, flexibility and wealth creation. Just read the volumous Industries Assistance Commission studies and reports. Lefties hate them of course. Yes 5 per cent is just right, to PRESERVE a failing (yes it is failing thanks in good part to Fraser and Howard governance) economy.

Fozz: I will let you have the last say. You win. Bureaucrats that like to “play their hand” and walk away with their super regardless of how they have played.

“……working in the national interest” as you put it, reminds me of some graffiti on the Berlin Wall, under an image of Karl Marx “Sorry chaps, it was just an experiment”

PLEASE READ THIS AT

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24187806-26017,00.html?referrer=email or http://tinyurl.com/5qv33z

This makes this whole discussion redundant.
Eg. he cars our industry makes, we no longer want. The gradual removal of car tariffs, which have fallen from 57.5 per cent in 1984 to 10 per cent, came as an eye-opener to Australians. Ten years ago, you could buy a Holden Statesman V6 for about $50,000 and still be $9000 better off than if you'd bought a Mercedes-Benz C200, with a weedy 100kW four-cylinder engine and manual gearbox. Today, the equivalent starter-pack Mercedes comes in $4000 below the Holden.

OR...
exported Commodore, sold in the US as the Pontiac G8, starts at $US27,585, equivalent to $32,000. Here, the Commodore range begins at $36,790 with fewer bells and whistles and, obviously, doesn't have to cross the Pacific to reach a buyer. It must be comforting for Detroit executives to know that when GM is in trouble and US President George W. Bush won't come to the rescue, at least the Australian taxpayer is willing to help out.

I need say no more

Ah yes, The Oz-tray-lian - my favourite morningly online right wing snot rag. Read that article the other day, it changes nothing.

First things first. Yes I do think Keynes was a great economist.

We can all cherry pick evidence to support our arguments - give me one example of a trade liberalization success story and I could give you five failures, Latin America is a wealth of examples (in fact, the called it "the lost decade"). This is not to say that I am necessarily in favour of high tariff walls for their own sake (by what and whose standards should a tariff be regarded as "high"?) rather that I am in favour of not allowing the destruction of valuable local industries and tens of thousands of skilled jobs merely for the never ending pursuit of ever cheaper consumer goods.

Now, exactly which 30 countries were you referring to? And by exactly what kind of standards are we at the bottom of this list anyway? I need more information here.

Please explain what you mean by "exporting our skills".

If there's any conclusions here that are inescapable they are:

Many countries use tariffs and still succeed. Some use moderate tariff levels and do outstandingly well.

Many countries have reduced tariff protections while simeltaneously increasing non-tariff protections to compensate. These include subsidies, ongoing industry grants and even quarrantine regulations. They often pretend that they have reduced protection when they have just switched to another taxpayer funded form of protection to prevent the destruction of local industries they regard as valuable.

And some are just giants who can use sheer economic brute muscle to get what they want. Giants like the US and EU also use non-tariff protections on top of their sheer economic might.

cont later

Behind the former Berlin Wall there are still those that pine for the good old days under communism. Australia too had its gigantic trade wall that saw Australian's pay up to 100 per cent above free trade prices on some claim of jobs.

Today with close to zero tariffs, we have a shortage of people to fill those jobs.

It seems people like Nick and Fozz have their backs to the future.

I stand for a flexible well trained workforce, quality education, services, a competitive taxation system and efficient communications and transport.

Sorry chaps, you have had your day. The ideas of beggar thy neighbour taxes as tariffs are, have been exposed. Yes you can point to other countries that still have them, but I point to those that are in front and STAYING in front.

We have a shortage of people to fill those jobs because of a resource boom. We also had a shortage of people to fill those jobs in this here resource town that I'm posting to you from back in the late 60's - when the last boom somehow managed to occur despite higher tariffs.

It might be fun to pretend that tariffs have been removed when they have often just been replaced with another form of protection to compensate or the levels altered due to changing conditions, but to fantasize that economies will ever exist completely free of rules, regulations and controls is just a Milton Freidman wet dream and nothing more.