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Liberal Party implodes while Bracks’ Government attacks consumers
Gerard Jackson
Here is an issue that the state Liberal Party should get stuck into. Environment Minister John Thwaites is calling for a ban on plastic bags if retailers do not reduce their use. This is another example of ALP stupidity and ignorance. Retailers do not use plastic bags — their customers do. So what kommissar Thwaites is really attacking is consumer preferences. If those pesky consumers do not behave the way they should, so much for them!
That consumers might be right about the use of plastic bags is too painful a thought for the self-righteous Thwaites to consider. In his mindset only lefty politicians and their apparatchiks really know what is good for consumers. (And I bet you thought Soviet-style thinking died with the Soviet Union).
Let us do what Kroger’s Liberal Party cannot be bothered to do and that is examine the case for plastic bags. In other words, stand up for the consumer.
That such a ban could damage the environment while doing nothing to conserve resources is not something that would occur to Thwaites or his greenie advisers. (Unfortunately the same can be said of Robert Doyle the state Liberal Party leader)
There are two principle arguments against plastic bags, one of which states that they waste resources. Greenie zealots argue that these bags require more resources than, for example, cane baskets and that this proves they should be phased out of production. This is the kind of fallacious argument that appeals to simpleminded politicians like Thwaites and Doyle.
A little reflection would make it clear that the quantity of resources that would have to be devoted to manufacturing enough cane baskets to do the work now performed by plastic shopping bags would be enormous.
Why do shops, from the smallest to the largest, give away plastic bags and not cane baskets, canvas bags or shopping jeeps? The reason is cost. Manufacturing a ‘simple’ canvas bag, for instance, costs vastly than manufacturing a plastic bag. That’s why plastic bags must be sold in large bundles instead of individual units.
Oil is what critics usually have in mind when they attack plastic bags as being wasteful of resources. However, since less than 2 per cent of total oil production is used to produce petrochemical products of all kinds, including plastics, the impact on oil consumption of using plastic to make consumer products is negligible.
What needs to be stressed is that abolishing plastic bags will reduce human welfare by misdirecting capital goods. Because substitutes for plastic bags require more resources, i.e., land, labour and capital, per unit other lines of production will be forced to restrict their outputs.
If it were not so, the cost of producing substitutes would be no greater than the cost of producing plastic bags. Any doubts about this statement should be dispelled by the fact that paper bags cost much more than plastic bags and require many more resources in their production as evidence by the difference in costs.
The second line of attack accuses plastic bags of damaging the environment. Those who pursue this line greatly exaggerate their case while ignoring the significant role plastic bags play in greatly improving hygiene by acting as rubbish containers, not to mention the enormous convenience that shoppers derive from them. (Socialists have never concerned themselves with convenience for customers).
I cannot help noticing that the swarms of summer flies that we once had to tolerate have greatly declined since the arrival of plastic bags. Whether this is a coincidence or not, it still cannot be denied that plastic shopping bags reused as rubbish bags have been a great boon to households and the environment. In my own case, and also that of my friends and relatives, all the plastic bags, apart from the very small ones, that enter my household are used as bin liners. This raises an interesting point: in order to keep his environmental credentials pure Thwaites would also have to ban plastic bag liners.
Opponents cite litter and landfills as an environmental problem that plastic bags aggravate. But the question of litter applies to a great many things, including newspapers, aluminium cans, and various wrappings. These examples merely emphasise the fact that littering is a behavioural problem that has nothing to do with the production of plastic bags. In any case, if opponents are genuinely concerned about litter they would focus on the production of bio-degradable bags instead of their elimination.
I am aware that none of the above will persuade greenie dimwits like John Thwaites who is demanding a total ban on plastic bags. That the costs of such a ban would fall disproportionally on the lowest paid in our community would not bother him one iota.
In the tradition of every socialist-minded politician this taxpayer-funded superannuated meddler is impervious to facts and reason. But what are we to think of the so-called Liberal Party opposition? It appears totally incapable of effectively tackling Bracks on any issue, including economic ones. Since Kroger has taken over the Party administrative structure he cannot escape stricture for this appalling state of affairs, nor should he be allowed to do so.
Note: It has become clear that Bracks intends to use Howard’s industrial relations reform bill against the Libs in the November election. (He’s already got his union mates collecting hard-luck stories that can be used in an advertising campaign). This could turn out very nasty for the Liberal Party as it does not appear capable of putting up a sustained muscular defence of free labour markets.
Gerard Jackson is Brookes’ economics editor
BrookesNews.Com
Monday 27 February 2006