Australia is in the forefront of the movement to reduce international trading restrictions.

Our nation has rightly been reducing domestic protection for the past dozen years, recognising that protectionism is a tax on the consumer for the benefit of the industrialist.

I am proud that my country has been standing for freedom in this way. But our local government wants to turn back the clock. It prefers the straitjacket to freedom.

It has judged that the owners of small supermarkets are more important people, have more personal value, than the shareholders of larger supermarkets, than the low-income workers employed by Woolworths et al, than the people of Canberra who will be forced to shop at inconvenient hours and high prices.

It has decided to hurt the many to 'help' the few, and those few will most likely not be helped anyway.

I am a Liberal voter. Shame on our ACT Liberal Government!

© 1996 - Stephen Dawson