Gruen then commissioned Professor Peter Lloyd to write the survey of Australian economics of protection which would survey the tariff compensation debate. Lloyd had been one of Gruen's main opponents in the tariff compensation debate and his survey argued that the case for tariff compensation had been overstated – including in a Green Paper on Rural Policy in 1974 of which Gruen was a co-signatory. Gruen later agreed with Lloyd's analysis on the point. Gruen also published a theoretical curiosity with Max Corden in 1970 "A tariff that worsens the terms of trade", though it was focused on a specific policy problem. In response to growing unease at Monash University, Gruen attempted to engage with the more reasonable student radicals and set up complaints mechanisms. When those mechanisms sometimes found against his colleagues, his faculty became – unsurprisingly – less congenial to him and so, when he was offered a chair at the ANU in late 1971, he "accepted with alacrity". Shortly afterward, following the election of the first Labor Government in 23 years under the leadership of Gough Whitlam, Gruen was approached by the Secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to become a special consultant to the department to enable it to provide economic advice that was independent of the Federal Treasury. He accepted the position, though did so on a part-time basis to enable him to also fulfill duties at the ANU. In 1973 with Australia experiencing sharply rising inflation and strong current account surpluses, Gruen proposed a 25 percent across the board tariff cut, which was adopted by the Whitlam government. Gruen regarded this as his greatest achievement and it is probably the policy he is best known for. In August 1975 he informed the Prime Minister's Department of his desire to return to the ANU full-time and he made the move in March 1976, remaining at the ANU as professor and then as professor emeritus for the rest of his life. Gruen was an academic entrepreneur initiating important projects such as a series of reviews of Australian economics, a survey of the Australian economy by the Brookings Institution and the foundation of the Centre for Economic Policy Research. His talents were particularly well suited to identifying and motivating talent and to attracting it to the Centre. As an administrator, he was responsible for hiring and encouraging many of Australia's best-known academic economists. Many were somewhat to the left of centre, though few trenchantly so, but for Gruen one's position on the political spectrum was never a pre-requisite. Indeed, he was a great believer in people having their ideological world view challenged.