tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29199992287544060962024-03-28T04:43:54.018+11:00Kelvin Thomson MPKelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.comBlogger273125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-43547052179260576182016-04-28T12:12:00.003+10:002016-04-28T12:12:49.857+10:0060 Minutes in Lebanon
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It is doubtful that
Channel 9 really needs to conduct an investigation into how its crew came to be
arrested in Lebanon. It was right in the middle of this story, in it up to
their eyeballs, and they no doubt already know exactly what happened.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The "review"
is not independent. The people doing the review are all connected with Channel
9. If there was a major bungle by a Government Department or a Bank, and the
Department or the Bank simply conducted an internal review, 60 Minutes would
scream "cover-up". The "review" may be simply an attempt to
buy time and hope the public loses interest in this debacle.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">There is evidence the
Channel 9 network paid $69,000 directly to the personal company of Adam
Whittington, the imprisoned head of Child Abduction Recovery International.
News Corporation has reported that Channel 9 made two separate payments in this
case totalling more than $115,000.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Given this, rather than
buying time, Channel 9 should do three things. First it should do would it
would demand of anyone else in a comparable situation – provide a full
accounting to the public of exactly what it did, what money it has paid or
promised and to whom, and which of its personnel decided on or approved the
actions it carried out.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Second, it should
change its ways in relation to chequebook journalism. Chequebook journalism is
a slippery slope where media outlets risk losing their moral compass. You can
end up like the UK paper "The News of the World" did in 2011, caught paying
bribes to police officers to reveal information about cases.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">If there's nothing
wrong with chequebook journalism, let TV stations always reveal when they do a
story and they have paid someone for their role in it, who they have paid, and
the amount. Let's have the full story. Many stories are presented as being
justified in the pursuit of openness and transparency and the public's right to
know. It is therefore hypocritical for those paying for the stories to shy away
from saying how much was paid, to whom, what it was paid for, and why it was
paid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Third, it should resolve never to pay money in
order to create news, and certainly not to facilitate the commission of a
crime. Journalists should report the story, not be the story. If you pay the
Beaconsfield miners for their story after they are rescued that is one thing –
it should be disclosed – but paying money to set up a story is another thing
altogether. It runs counter to the ideals of journalism which should have
ethical principles and truth telling at its core.</span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-88868228993716540242016-04-22T09:14:00.002+10:002016-04-22T09:14:53.654+10:00Channel 9 Owes Public Explanation of Lebanon Conduct
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Channel
9 must now provide what its 60 Minutes Program would require of anyone else
involved in a debacle like the child abduction in Lebanon - a full accounting
to the public of exactly what it did, what money it has paid or promised and to
whom, both before and since the abduction, and a full accounting of which of
its personnel decided on or approved the actions it carried out. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Channel
9 has embarrassed Australia and its diplomatic personnel, has put its own
employees in danger, and has almost certainly been involved in a conspiracy to
break the laws of another country. People are not entitled to take the law into
their own hands, and two wrongs do not make a right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">60
Minutes seeks to shine a light in dark places and is strident about the
public's right to know. On this occasion the public has a right to know exactly
who in its organisation did what, and who is responsible for this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-33755088898676399512016-04-15T16:46:00.002+10:002016-04-15T16:46:28.149+10:00Australian Business Culture Doomed to Remain in the Stone Age?
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">On April 14, the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Knowledge
Nation 2016 Summit</i> was convened in Sydney, involving leaders in science,
technology and innovation, to consider how Australian society may be successfully
transformed into a prosperous, globally competitive, knowledge-based economy. Elena
Douglas, Convenor of the Summit, outlined the nature and urgency of this
challenge in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Australian </i>(‘Yes, we
have innovation skills, but we must foster entrepreneurialism’, April 14, p.
12). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Although Elena Douglas highlights a number of home truths
about the Australian economy and business culture which obstruct economic
revitalisation, there are also a number of significant factors which she does
not discuss, but which are central to any serious attempt to foster such a
transition. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Acknowledging the quickening pace of technological
innovation in the world economy, it is argued that Australia needs to become an
‘agile’, innovative economy, which will require a new sense of purpose and
collaboration between government, business and educational institutions. Cultural
obstacles are identified – lack of ambition (the ‘lucky country disease’), and a
business culture too focussed on short-term return. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Much of this criticism is valid particularly in relation
to an Australian business culture preoccupied with short-term economic return. A
longer-term view of the Australian economy and governance since the 1980s,
however, points to a number of other uncomfortable truths which need to be
faced up to by national leaders if any genuine progress towards economic and
cultural renewal is to be realised. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The neo-liberal orthodoxy which has dominated Australian
business and government thinking since the 1980s represents a major barrier to
economic innovation and renewal. Too great a reliance upon market processes
alone has resulted in the hollowing out of the Australian economy through the widespread
destruction of existing enterprises and a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">failure
to deliver new ones </i>with higher technological sophistication and global
reach<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That this failure has been met with calls for an
even greater reliance upon small government and deregulated market processes is
an impediment to national economic renewal. Basic lessons have not been learned.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">At the same time, other economies in Pacific Asia have
modernised - developed new, globally oriented and knowledge-intensive
industries from relative economic backwardness and left Australia behind. We are
left with no alternative, but to import virtually all elaborately transformed
goods that we associate with our First World lifestyle. In return, for the most
part, we depend on mining and agriculture for export income. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A key observation, however, is that these
economies – South Korea, Japan and China, have not engineered this success on
the basis of crude free-market principles, but coherent, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mercantilist national strategies</i>. These societies have not relied
upon ‘comparative advantage’ as determined by market forces, but have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">created their own advantage</i> through
strong pro-active government, focussed government-business collaboration and an
unswerving sense of national purpose. Former US Assistant Secretary of Commerce,
Clyde Prestowitz, has highlighted this dilemma. The trade policies of the free
market West have become increasingly divorced from reality. The reality, he
argues, is a global economy where “roughly half the countries are more or less
free trade driven, while the other half are neo-mercantilist (Prestowitz,
2009).”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Furthermore, before there can be any paradigm shift in
investment priorities from short-term to strategic long-term innovation
outcomes, there has to be an honest recognition of the extent to which
Australian business elites have become dependent upon quick returns from crude,
low-level capital widening based on rapid population growth and city building. The
economic pie does get bigger, but the growth is largely ‘more of the same’,
doing what we do already, but on an ever larger scale;<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> with declining GDP per capita</i>. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">So entrenched has this approach become that, in its 2015
Intergenerational Report, the Australian Treasury calculates that<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>nearly half of Australia’s modest expected annual
economic growth to the year 2054-55 will be due to continued high <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>population growth. It is worrying that the
Australian Treasury engaged in outright political deception in overemphasising
the negative implications of reducing population growth, while largely ignoring
the serious social and economic problems of high population growth. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">It is simply muddle-headed to bemoan the Australian
business culture’s fixation on short-term financial gain and upon the domestic
market rather than global competitiveness, when the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">primary economic strategy</i> of the Australian Government and the
Australian Treasury is to facilitate, encourage and reward such entrepreneurial
backwardness. Moreover, powerful business interests (retail, housing construction
and banking), which have benefited from this failed strategy continue to successfully
lobby government for its perpetuation. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Nevertheless, crude growth is politically seductive; it
has created an illusion of prosperity and even the illusion of good governance
– an economy that is ‘the envy of the world’. It is worrying that the Prime
Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, on his recent visit to China bragged about the
“remarkable resilience” of the Australian economy in context of the Global
Financial Crisis and its aftermath. The fact is that Australia faired
reasonably well through the GFC because of a mining boom propped up by Chinese
iron ore demand and reliance upon a high population growth capital widening
strategy. The reality is that, when the Chinese demand for Iron ore rapidly
subsided, the Australian economy was exposed as ill-equipped and underdeveloped
in the global high-tech stakes. In terms of economic modernisation, high
population growth and city building is now exposed as a road to nowhere. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Federal Government’s response to this is woefully
inadequate. Instead of a robust hands-on approach by government, as practiced
by our successful regional neighbours, the Federal Minister for Industry,
Innovation and Science, Christopher Pyne’s key initiatives for correcting the
situation have been to offer tax breaks for start-up firms, to flag the
creation of a special visa to attract smart minds from overseas and to reprimand
those who suggest that the Australian Government might spend more on public
research and development. A whole hearted commitment to Australia paying for
and generating its own human capital seems to be beyond the Minister’s and the
Government’s expectations. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Australia is now behind the eight ball in the economic
modernisation stakes. The 1990s and the recent mining boom have been an era of
lost opportunity for Australia. Until our economic and political elites can
face up to this, talk fests and any amount of hand wringing about Australia’s
falling position in global knowledge economy rankings will likely fail to rectify
the situation. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The contradictions are staggering. While the Federal
Government insists that the public research sector has to pay its own way
through stronger links with private industry, its continuing commitment to high
population and crude growth sees a disproportionate share of Australia’s
limited wealth being diverted into urban infrastructure and other spending in
our ballooning capital cities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-18337051068337415162016-04-14T12:32:00.001+10:002016-04-14T12:32:44.731+10:00Population Growth Driving Infrastructure Deficit
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Josh Gordon is
absolutely right to raise the problems associated with Melbourne's rapid
population growth of the past decade. It is absolutely correct that politicians
and economists are allowed to get away with murder by talking about economic
growth when they should be required to talk about GDP per capita. It is like
saying that because more people have moved into your street, that the street
has more money, and therefore you are richer. You are not personally richer at
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">all – indeed </span>the probability is that your street is more crowded and that in
amenity you are poorer.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Melbourne's rapid
population growth is the reason there is an infrastructure problem. The
Queensland academic Jane O'Sullivan has done research which shows that in a
stable population the community needs to set aside around 2 per cent of its
income to repair and replace ageing infrastructure, but that in a community
growing by 1 per cent it needs to set aside 3 per cent of its income to keep
up, and in a community growing by 2 per cent it needs to set aside 4 per cent
of its income. The infrastructure task doubles, with only 2 per cent extra
people to pay for it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Little wonder that
Councils and State Governments in rapidly growing populations are unable to
keep up. It is not that they are lazy or incompetent or corrupt, it is that the
task is too big for anyone. This is also why we are seeing so many Councillors
and State Governments having short political life expectancies. If they worked
on getting the Federal Government to reduce the greatly increased net migration
rate of recent years, their job would become achievable and their political
life expectancy would increase.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/governments-cannot-keep-using-population-growth-to-inflate-economic-figures-20160412-go4wxz.html">http://www.theage.com.au/comment/governments-cannot-keep-using-population-growth-to-inflate-economic-figures-20160412-go4wxz.html</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-2453952822122874092016-04-13T13:53:00.002+10:002016-04-13T13:53:29.209+10:00Colin Barnett Right About Gas Reservation
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Unaccustomed
as I am to agreeing with WA Premier Colin Barnett, he is right to observe that
Western Australia is the only state to reserve 15 per cent of gas deposits for
domestic use, and that the LNG industry in Western Australia enjoys more public
support than the coal seam gas industry in the eastern states.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">It
may well be the case that people are more supportive of an industry if they
feel it can benefit them. In the eastern states both manufacturing industry and
consumers have been offered nothing except the prospect that locally produced
gas will all be exported and the price will go up! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Public
opposition to coal seam gas has forced a ban on it in Victoria, and projects
being halted in New South Wales. Labor in the Northern Territory has said it
will ban onshore drilling if elected.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
Federal Government and the gas industry would do well to listen to Colin
Barnett and stop being so greedy and trying to have it all their own way. 85
per cent of something is, after all, a lot more than 100 percent of nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-26953560974690902732016-04-12T10:47:00.004+10:002016-04-12T10:47:37.833+10:00Australia Should Come to the Table
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Timor-Leste
has launched compulsory conciliation proceedings under the United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), with the aim of concluding an
agreement with Australia on permanent maritime boundaries.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">UNCLOS
provides an internationally accepted method for delimiting maritime boundaries
which Timor-Leste is confident would place oil and gas reserves in the Timor
Sea within its territory. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">However
Timor-Leste can’t have an independent umpire decide a maritime border with
Australia because in 2002 the then Foreign Minister Alexander Downer decided to
pull Australia out of the compulsory jurisdiction of international courts and
tribunals in relation to maritime boundary matters. This decision was made just
two months before Timor-Leste achieved its independence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Timor-Leste’s
Prime Minister, Dr Rui Maria de Araujo said “establishing permanent maritime
boundaries is a matter of national priority for Timor-Leste, as the final step
in realising our sovereignty as an independent State.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">I agree with
Timor-Leste’s Minister of State, Agio Pereira, who says this process is still
worthwhile. The conciliation will lead to a report after 12 months. Both sides
can appoint two members and have to agree on the chair of the conciliation. If
Australia declines to participate, the UN will intervene to appoint experts.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">East Timor
and Indonesia have committed to formal talks on the boundary but Australia
refuses to negotiate a permanent sea border. Australia should come to the table
and participate in these proceedings in good faith.</span></div>
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Further reading:</span><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">My speech on the <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Timor Sea
Maritime Boundary</b> given to Friends of Dili 15 March: </span></div>
<div class="Default" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></div>
<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/editor/assets/160315%20Timor%20Sea%20Maritime%20Boundary%20-%20Friends%20of%20Dili.pdf"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><span style="color: blue;">http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/editor/assets/160315%20Timor%20Sea%20Maritime%20Boundary%20-%20Friends%20of%20Dili.pdf</span></span></a></span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-61160420094394734452016-04-11T16:20:00.001+10:002016-04-11T16:20:48.616+10:00Council Mergers in NSW – Back to the Future
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Liberal Premier of NSW, Mike Baird, is advocating the
merger of local councils across NSW, with a view to reducing their numbers from
152 to 112. The basic arguments put forward to justify council amalgamations are
somewhat predictable, reflecting the premise that less government is better
government. Council amalgamations, it is asserted, will result in improved
economies of scale and improved service delivery for residents, with modelling
showing that $2 billion in savings would be achieved over the next 20 years. While
much is made of the fact that many local governments in NSW currently spend
more than their revenues, the fact that such a saving would represent only a
small proportion of aggregate council expenditure over this period goes barely
acknowledged. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">To date, Premier Baird’s proposal has met stiff
resistance. Anger amongst residents and councils is widespread, including
affluent and lower socio-economic councils alike. There is much about the NSW
Government’s proposal that is not transparent. Claims of improved financial
efficiencies do not seem to stack up, and many proposed council mergers do not reflect
the formal criteria put forward by the Baird Government. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The NSW Government’s heavy handed response to such
resistance is all too familiar to Victorians who experienced forced municipal
amalgamations during the 1990s under the Kennett Coalition Government. There,
too, resistance was met with a ruthless determination not to allow local
community sentiment and identity to stand in the way of municipal ‘reform’. The
Victorian experience should serve as a warning to the people of NSW. There was
a lot more involved in forced municipal amalgamations than imagined economies
of scale in services delivery. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">The
Kennett Government’s policy approach was firmly founded on neo-liberal tenets -
intent on maximising property investment opportunities by opening up
established urban areas to massive redevelopment and densification. With this
goal in mind, it set about coercively limiting the capacity of municipal
government and local residents to defend their local urban environments from unwanted
change. Council amalgamations set in motion a wave of urban ‘renewal’ - dramatically
increased residential densities - across metropolitan Melbourne with only
superficial regard for the preservation of neighbourhood character and valued
community amenity, which has continued to the present day. The property development
industry has had a field day. Fortunes have been made through the
institutionalised vandalism of inherited urban amenity. Despite superficial claims
of improved efficiencies from larger Councils, the underlying motivations were
clearly political. The priorities of local constituents can be more easily
suppressed within a smaller number of bigger councils. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">This
is part of the NSW government’s hidden agenda. Recent public statements by
Sydney architect, Penelope Seidler, clearly represent the big property
development interests behind the Baird Government’s push to reduce the number
of councils. Arguing that the Baird government’s municipal rationalisation
agenda does not go far enough, and acknowledging the ‘huge resistance to higher
density” development in Sydney, Seidler explicitly cites small local government
as an obstacle. Small local governments in her view, have allowed “local vested
interests groups [to] get hold of these councils and there’s too much self
interest in there.” For the most part, the local vested interests that Seidler
refers to are simply the priorities and values of local residents and community
groups. However, the objection that small local government is prone to minority
group capture completely misses the point. Local government <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should</i> be about local capture. Residents
should be entitled to a real say in the character of the street and
neighbourhood in which they live. As one academic (Allan, 2003) has stated:
“The smaller the council the more control and hence responsibility citizens
feel for its operations.” This is what the Baird Government and the property
industry are opposed to. To facilitate their own capture of the urban
development agenda, they need to undermine the existing democratic ‘capture’ by
local residents that stands in their way. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: SimSun; mso-fareast-language: ZH-CN;">Council
amalgamations in Victoria ushered in a worrying sea-change in the very nature
of local governance. Council amalgamations were accompanied by legislation
which facilitated greater state government control over council decision
making. At the same time, there was a shift from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">administrative to managerial</i> values. Public servants were
transformed into managers and the public into customers. And there was an
accompanying shift which saw increasing local government reliance upon market
values. For a period, local governments were dissolved and CEO’s installed. Local
public servants were required to adopt private sector principles and practices,
rendering councils less politically responsive to local aspirations and more
‘business like’. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Since the 1990s, there has been increased expert scrutiny
of issues relating to council amalgamations and associated claims of beneficial
scales of economy. Studies have noted widespread disillusionment with the
“almost universal belief in amalgamation as a panacea for improving the
operational efficiency of municipal service delivery”. Nevertheless:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt 36pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">…despite increasing
scepticism in the broader Australian local government community, which echoes
similar sentiments in American and Canadian policy circles…. Australian state
government policy seems largely immune to doubt and continues to employ
amalgamation. (Dollery and Fleming, 2005)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The Baird Government’s determination to push ahead with
council amalgamations in the face of deep public resistance and questionable
economic assumptions is a case study in the persistence of the big end of town
in promoting bad ideas and democracy busting. </span><o:p></o:p><br />
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-40960185171930670612016-04-11T09:39:00.001+10:002016-04-11T09:39:45.236+10:00Supporting Local Steel Does Not Jeopardise Trade Deals
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Claims
by Liberal Government Ministers that if Australia required the use of
Australian made steel in government projects that this would tear up or
invalidate existing Free Trade Agreements are without foundation and are simply
scaremongering.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">A
court or tribunal MIGHT find that a particular contract or provision was not
legal under the FTA. This would invalidate the contract, but have no impact on
the FTA, which would continue as before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Whether
a court or tribunal WOULD find that a particular contract or provision was not
legal under the FTA depends on the particular facts. While some of Australia's
FTAs contain rules preventing discrimination in government contracts, others do
not. Those that do – the US FTA, the Korea FTA, and the Japan Australia Economic
Co-operation Agreement – contain exemptions, such as for defence contracts and
for SMEs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">For
a government procurement contract or provision to be invalid:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">(1)
a company in another country would want to obtain a contract for the supply of
steel to the Australian Government,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">(2)
the company would need to be based in a country which had an FTA with Australia
that contained rules preventing discrimination in the awarding of government
contracts,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">(3)
the government contract would have to be for a purpose that was not
specifically excluded from the government procurement rules, such as defence
procurement, and <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">(4)
the company would need to win a legal challenge against the contract. The
government could argue that foreign firms were not being discriminated against;
they could win the contract, all they were being required to do was to use
Australian steel, as local companies were being required to do.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">As
I said earlier, even if these hurdles were all jumped, all that would happen is
that the contract would be invalid – the FTA would continue as before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
personally think it is unwise to agree to government procurement provisions in
trade deals. They can fetter the capacity of governments to act in the best
interests of their own industries and workers. <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">I don't mind if other countries do it – why shouldn't they support their
own industry and their own workforce?</span>
The China FTA contains no government purchasing rules because the Chinese
Government itself wanted to make its own decisions about purchasing. And the US
Australia FTA exempts the US steel industry from government purchasing rules,
but not Australia's! Those Liberal Ministers who now say we are blocked by the
US trade deal from helping the Australian steel industry should explain the
negotiating genius of the Howard Government in achieving this outcome.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">But to claim that we
can't support local steel in government procurement contracts because they will
invalidate existing Free Trade Agreements is scaremonging nonsense. The reason
Liberal Ministers say we can't give local preference is because they basically
don't want to.</span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-53358857234347292102016-04-01T11:25:00.002+11:002016-04-01T11:25:47.142+11:00Senate Education and Employment References Committee on the Exploitation of Temporary Resident Visa Holders
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
recent report of the Senate Education and Employment References Committee on
the exploitation of temporary resident visa holders, ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A National Disgrace: The Exploitation of Temporary Work Visa Holders’</i>,
highlights the way in which current visa arrangements facilitate foreign worker
exploitation and fail to protect the job opportunities of local workers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Including
visa holders from New Zealand, the number of temporary visa holders in
Australia has remained steady at around 1.8 million persons since 2013 (primary
and accompanying visa holders combined). The majority of these visas have work
entitlements attached to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
Committee’s report is valuable for its emphasis upon the broad range of such
visas available and the scale of the associated flows. A major focus of the
report deals with exploitation linked to the skilled temporary entry 457 visa. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">The
457 visa category is demand driven, uncapped and virtually all occupations
entering under the 457 visa program are exempt from labour market testing. A serious
broadening and strengthening of labour market testing requirements for 457
skilled temporary entry visa holders, as recommended by the Committee, is
essential. The flow of these workers has been slow to respond to worsening
labour market conditions for local workers in many occupations. A factor
explaining this is the pathway between 457 sponsorship and permanent residence,
providing a back door to permanent migration for many workers who would not otherwise
gain entry as independent applicants. About half of those sponsored on a 457
visa go on to acquire permanent residence. The link between skilled temporary
entry and permanent residence needs to be reconsidered. With this motive in
play, 457 visa holders are easily exploited because running foul of their
sponsor jeopardises their prospects of permanent residence in Australia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">457
visa holders, especially in the IT area, are paid at low rates compared with Australian
industry norms. Further, as the report indicates, local training efforts are
likely put at risk from easy access by Australian employers to relatively
unchecked temporary resident flows. The recommendation to apply a training levy
upon employers for each 457 entrant has merit, as does the recommendation to
require employer sponsors of trade workers to demonstrate that 25% of their
total trade workforce consists of apprentices. The recommendation that sponsors
of 457 professionals be required to employ an Australian tertiary graduate is
also sound. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Contrary
to claims by government and business leaders that the 457 visa entry only
consists of migrants with occupations that are in short supply in Australia, skills
targeting under the program has been consistently poor. Only a relatively small
proportion of skilled temporary entry workers arriving under the 457 program (around
36%) have had occupations listed on the Skilled Occupation List (SOL), which
purports to identify occupations in short supply in the Australian labour
market. Major anomalies have resulted. The SOL has included many occupations
that were known to be in over supply. In recent years, for example, cooks have
figured prominently in 457 visa arrivals even though cooks were not on the SOL.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">457 temporary
residents aside, the now massive temporary resident migrant flows include
student visa holders (uncapped), working Holiday Makers (uncapped), and
bridging visa holders. A factor which has had a severe impact on the job
prospects of local workers is the ease with which temporary residents have been
able to easily shift from one temporary resident visa type to another, enabling
them to prolong their access to the Australian labour market irrespective of
prevailing labour market conditions.</span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-91223179251224216432016-03-30T15:32:00.004+11:002016-03-30T15:32:55.140+11:00Current Tax Settings Lead to Empty Houses!
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">At the last census
there were nearly 120,000 empty dwellings in the greater Sydney region. When
combined with under-utilised dwellings, such as those let out as short-term
accommodation, the total number reaches 230,000 in Sydney, and 238,000 in
Melbourne. These empty dwellings could more than account for the present supply
shortfall in housing!<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The question is why are
these homes are being left vacant when they could command the highest prices or
rents, given they are concentrated in central parts of all our metropolitan
areas? The answer is that dominant driver of negative gearing is where the
capital gain is the main objective rather than the rental yield. On the urban
fringe, where there is less expectation of capital gains, there are much lower
rates of empty dwellings.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-AU; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">The current tax settings
are driving a mismatch between the supply of housing and housing need. This is
exacerbating </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">inequalities
experienced in our major cities, driving unaffordability in central, well
connected and serviced parts of the city. This is not the fault of the planning
system, as property developers would have us believe. <span style="color: black;">The
situation is likely to have worsened since the last census in 2011 as more
housing is being delivered precisely in the locations where there appears to be
a concentration of homes standing empty, where supply is being driven by a
desire for capital gain not rental yield.<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">Labor’s
policy, addressing this crucial issue of housing affordability will make
speculative investment to obtain capital gains less lucrative by reducing the </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">capital gains tax
concession from 50% to 25%</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">for all assets
purchased after 1 July 2017. This will stem the speculative investment in
property that has raised house prices and lowered more productive investment.
Negative gearing and capital gains tax exemptions for investors have been a
dead weight on the ability to create more housing affordability.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">Despite the strong
economic arguments behind this reform the Liberal Government has chosen to
embark on a scare campaign </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">embracing a Chicken Little approach. A far cry
from Malcolm Turnbull saying in his 2005 tax paper, that the </span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">capital gains tax</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"> discount along with
negative gearing was a <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“sheltering
tax haven”</span> that is<em> </em><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">“skewing
national investment away from wealth-creating pursuits, towards housing”,<em> </em></span>and
has caused<em> </em>a<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";"><em> </em>“property bubble”.</span></span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-13382362584065708532016-03-07T15:17:00.002+11:002016-03-07T15:17:14.000+11:00Report Indicates Pentridge Tower Should Be Scuttled
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">An independent research report
released today by the Australian Population Research Institute (TAPRI), ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sydney and Melbourne Housing Affordability
Crisis: No End in Sight’</i>, has highlighted the flawed approach to housing
development currently pursued in Wills, where the main preoccupation of urban
planning in relation to the Pentridge Prison site and other activity centre
locations is for high rise apartment development. The report finds that such
high-rise apartments remain unaffordable to most people and they are unsuitable
for younger persons establishing or raising families.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Urban planners have consistently
underestimated the proportion of new households over the period to 2022 that
will be family households. Not only are record high housing prices driving down
levels of home ownership amongst younger persons, but years of ill-conceived
housing policy assumptions have resulted in a supply of housing unsuited to
raising families. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The report’s findings are particularly
relevant to the federal electorate of Wills, in stressing that the “greatest
need for additional dwellings is from new young households and recently-arrived
migrant households”, not simply for ageing one and two person households as
falsely assumed by professional planners to date.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">Official Victorian government
population projections for the City of Moreland show that the municipality’s
population is not expected to age dramatically. In light of this research, the
19 storey Pentridge tower and other high-rise apartment proposals for Moreland
should be scuttled, and planners should turn their minds to retaining family friendly
housing in Wills. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif";">The report also vindicates Labor’s
pledge to abolish negative gearing tax concessions on new housing. Based on an
analysis of housing markets in Melbourne and Sydney, the researchers concluded
that rampant house prices, together with continued high net overseas migration,
over an extended period have disenfranchised a growing proportion of the
younger generation from home ownership. The report’s authors specifically
criticised Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s opposition to Labor’s negative
gearing reforms as “monumental insensitivity to the growing catastrophe flowing
from record high housing prices for the next generation of home owners.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-43790002846858785542016-03-02T15:38:00.000+11:002016-03-02T15:38:29.088+11:0020 Years in Federal Parliament
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Today I
clock up 20 years in this House. It is a great honour to serve here, and in an
age of the 24/7 media cycle and a cultural tendency to chew politicians up and
spit them out, a remarkable honour to serve for 20 years.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">George
Bernard Shaw said the reasonable man adapts himself to suit the world, while
the unreasonable man insists on trying to change the world to suit him,
therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. For much of my
political career I have been in this sense unreasonable.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I
couldn't have done this without support. I want to thank the voters of Wills
who have stuck with me in good times and in bad. I want to thank my partner
Kerry and my children Ben and Naomi, my father Allan and other family members. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I want
to thank my office staff – Mimi Tamburrino, Tim Hamilton, Mark O'Brien, Julie
Ryan, Cate Hall, Nosrat Hosseini, and many others who have served over the past
two decades.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I want
to thank the Labor Party members and volunteers in Wills – families like the
Hosseini family, the Ouaida family, Angelo Koutouleas, Oscar and Alan Yildiz,
Gino Iannazzo and Vic Guarino and so many others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I want
to thank the Trade Union Movement – Ged Kearney and Dave Oliver from the ACTU,
Ben Davis and his team at the AWU, Tony Sheldon and his team at the TWU, Glenn
Thompson and the Manufacturing Workers Union, Earl Setches at the Plumbers,
Dave Noonan at the CFMEU, the Institute of Marine and Power Engineers and many
more.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And I
want to thank some business leaders too for their support and encouragement –
Dick Smith, Graham Turner and Geoff Harris from Flight Centre, Robert Rio from
Rio Industrial, Hugh Middendorp from Middendorp Electrical amongst others. To
all of you thank you, for the chance to do this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-24576531707960022582016-02-18T15:24:00.002+11:002016-02-18T15:24:27.029+11:00Rising Unemployment
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Unemployment
is back up to 6 per cent, off the back of a decrease in full time employment of
over 40,000. The number of unemployed is over 760,000.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">This
number is way too high. This lingering and even rising unemployment number is a
recipe for long-term unemployment, which in turn is a recipe for social
disadvantage and the drugs, crime, homelessness and mental health problems that
go with it. It is particularly not good enough when you realise that the
developed countries that we did so much better than during the Global Financial
Crisis have now improved and many of their jobless rates are lower than ours.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We
are still running migrant worker programs as if the mining boom was in full
swing, but it is not. It is high time we reduced those programs and gave our
unemployed - our young people, our indigenous unemployed, and our older workers
who have been thrown on the scrap heap prematurely – a decent chance to do the
jobs that do become available.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If
Australian workers lack the skills to do these jobs, this needs to be
rectified, and our education and vocational training programs made to
effectively prepare them for the world of work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-71067495369196892082016-02-09T16:51:00.001+11:002016-02-09T17:07:08.150+11:00Intergenerational Equity – Intergenerational Report 2015<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
real purpose of the Intergenerational Report 2015 was to try to justify the
2014 Budget cuts to pensions, education and health. The report made numerous
misleading claims to try to convince us that we could not afford our present
levels of commitment to older and younger people. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
first misleading claim is that labour force participation is going to fall and
reduce per capita economic growth. The second misleading claim is that the
costs of providing for an older population will increase significantly as a
percentage of GDP over the next forty years. The third misleading claim is that
in order to deal with these costs Australia must maintain high immigration, on
the grounds that migrants tend to be younger than the average resident. The
Intergenerational Report assumes Australia's population will rise from 23.8 as
of mid-2015 to 40 million in 2055, a massive two-thirds increase in just 40
years. The Report is completely inadequate in dealing with the numerous
economic, social, and environmental consequences of such an increase.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">In fact
an analysis of the Report by Bob Birrell and Katherine Betts shows there is NO
net change in per capita economic growth over the next 40 years. There is a
slight fall in real per capita economic growth from declining labour force
participation of 0.1 percentage points a year. But this is totally offset by an
increase of 0.1 percentage points a year because the proportion of the
population who are children will fall relative to those aged 15 plus. Any
decline in labour force participation of those aged 15 plus is offset by the
rising share of the population in this broad age group. ("The 2015
intergenerational Report: Misleading findings and hidden agendas", Bob
Birrell and Katherine Betts, The Australian Population Research Institute,
Research Report, July 2015). It is regularly the case that the people who want
to use a scare campaign about population and workforce ageing to attack social
security "accidentally" forget to take into account the ways in which
population ageing makes life easier for governments and communities.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
Report is also misleading about rising medical and hospital costs. It is true
that health expenditure is rising and will continue to do so. But the vast
majority of this extra cost is due to the higher costs of providing health care
for everyone, including the implementation of new technology. While
Commonwealth spending per person is projected to increase by $3700 by 2054-55,
$3100, or 84 per cent of this, can be ascribed to non-demographic causes.
Ageing is only a minor factor. (Ibid). I don't accept that our spending on
health, welfare and pensions is unsustainable. We spend a lower proportion of
GDP on government funded age pensions than most OECD countries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And what
of the third claim that we need high migration to slow down population ageing?
Bob Birrell and Katherine Betts have calculated from the data in the report
that every extra 70,000 migrants up to the year 2055 only increases economic
growth by a mere 0.06 per cent. And yet an extra 70,000 net overseas migration
adds over four million people, and the Report says nothing about the extra
costs on the community that this imposes. Indeed the Report works on the basis
of population growth between 2015 and 2055 of nearly 16 million!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
infrastructure costs of such an increase are glossed over with the claim, which
Bob Birrell and Katherine Betts describe as bizarre, that infrastructure costs
"are not linked explicitly to demographic factors".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
Report also is misleading about the issue of productivity. It says high levels
of migration MIGHT increase productivity because migrants may, on average, be
better educated than the average Australian. No evidence is advanced to support
this optimism, and given the extent of the rorting of migrant worker and
overseas student programs it seems to me to be doubtful. In any event Ross
Gittins has reached the opposite conclusion - that high migration lowers
national productivity. Rapid population growth, through its effects on
congestion and land and housing prices, acts as a drag on productivity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
Report also papers over the impacts of rapid population growth on the
environment, saying the 'level of government spending on the environment is not
directly linked with demographic factors". This is amateur hour.
Population growth is a direct and indirect cause of environmental damage and
should not be glossed over in this way. The fact that State and local
governments have to do much of the heavy lifting in terms of maintaining water
quality, and environmental repair, does not make these costs any less real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The IGR
finds that per capita income will be higher in real terms than it is today. Its
modelling shows an increase, in constant dollars, from $64,400 to $117,300 by
2054-55. Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts say our descendants should he selves
be able to comfortably deal with any extra costs that arise from providing for
a larger cohort of older persons (Ibid, p.6). They say the IGR's own data show
that the supposed ill-effects of ageing are trivial, and should be easily
managed by future generations themselves. The IGR's lukewarm endorsement of
massive immigration-driven population growth just about completely overlooks
and fails to take into account the massive costs of such growth. (Ibid, p.v).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
problems which the Intergenerational Report 2015 says are looming are looming
due to the policy failure of neo-classical economics, which has dominated
economic policy-making since the 1970s. Its signature policies of economic
growth, rapid population growth, globalisation, free trade, privatisation, and
deregulation have progressively generated deficit and debt, de-industrialisation
and unemployment, and a declining capacity to care for older Australians,
younger Australians, and the environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">After
the war the Marshall Plan of 1947 paved the way for the re-industrialisation of
Europe and a long period of economic prosperity. Lessons learned from the 1929
financial crash and the Great Depression saw an essentially tripartite
political setting, with business, labour and government roughly in balance. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
free trade theory of comparative advantage espoused by David Ricardo in the
19th Century and the Washington Consensus in the 20th was not actually applied
in western countries. Countries which actually applied the theory, for example
Somalia with its comparative advantage in agriculture, continued to specialise
in agriculture and remained poor. By contrast, Korea, through very heavy-
handed industry policy, broke away from its comparative advantage in
agriculture, and it's GDP per capita skyrocketed, whereas Somalia's remained
static.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Other
Asian nations which industrialised were also successful. As Eric Reinert says a
nation with an inefficient manufacturing sector is much better off than a
nation without any manufacturing sector at all. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
from the mid 1970s neo-liberal economic policies started de-industrialising
countries both in the developed world and in the developing one. Free trade has
undermined the manufacturing base of many western countries, including
Australia. Neo-classical economics has failed to distinguish between the
financial sector and real wealth creation. Where Roosevelt's New Deal reigned
in the financial sector to become the servant rather than the master of
capitalist development. Countries which did better during this period, such as
Brazil, India, and China, did not embrace or implement neo-classical economics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We need
to return to the middle ground represented by initiatives such as the New Deal.
Otherwise we will continue to de-industrialise, with the financial sector
destroying value in the real economy, and business, labour and governments out
of balance. Our debt and deficit will continue to grow, and we will be unable
to meet the needs of older Australians and younger Australians, and we will
continue to trash the environment in a futile quest for economic growth in the
mistaken belief that this will solve our problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-54145219789966915212016-02-08T11:57:00.002+11:002016-02-08T12:04:26.546+11:00Intergenerational Equity - Change in the Eighties<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">John
Edwards (Australian Financial Review March 2015) said "Elected on a
platform of opposition to the Campbell recommendations and of budget
expansionism, the Hawke Government abruptly moved in the reverse
direction".<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">And
there is no shortage of people working for big corporations or their political
or media cheer squads who are happy to regard the 1980s and 1990s as a halcyon
era of political and economic reform which served Australia well. The argument
goes that floating the dollar, pulling down tariff barriers, deregulating the
financial markets, and implementing National Competition Policy, laid the foundation
for economic growth and rising living standards in the years that followed. It
is said that Australia's income per head rose during this period as a result of
these changes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
less simplistic and more detailed analysis suggests that the deregulation and
destruction of industry support, and the ripping up of the Australian
Settlement which occurred in these years and subsequently, has not been the
claimed road to paradise. Much of Australia's increased income has been a
consequence of exports to China. China's increased prosperity has led to demand
for Australian commodities, particularly minerals. The mining boom could not go
on forever, and it has not. It has come at the cost of narrowing our economy,
when we need a broader, more resilient, one.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Secondly
Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy have pointed out that the achievements of the
1990s were not just attributable to the protection offered by the low
Australian dollar and therefore vulnerable to the currency rise that came with
the mining boom, much of the elaborately transformed manufacture (ETM) exports
of the 1990s can be attributed to foundations which had been established during
the protectionist period, which the market liberal policies of the 1980s and
1990s dismantled.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Peter
Sheehan and colleagues showed that ETM exports from the mid-1980s to the early
1990s were predominantly those which had benefited from "industry specific
policies directed at increased outward orientation and export levels". (P.
J. Sheehan, Nick Pappas and Enjiang Cheng, 1994, The Rebirth of Australian
Industry, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University, p. 30).
The industries included telecommunication equipment, cars, computers and
pharmaceuticals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Motor
vehicles were a standout, with an average annual rate of export growth of 16
per cent over the decade to 2000-01. Pharmaceutical exports grew by 21.4 per
cent per annum during the same period, to $2.4 billion. (Jonathon Coppel and
Ben McLean, 2002, 'Trends in Australia's<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Exports, Reserve Bank of Australia Bulletin, April 2002, p.3).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">New
enterprises were not significant contributors. Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy
present the heretical hypothesis that the tariff protection and industry policy
support of the pre-reform era laid the foundation for Australia's ETM export
successes in the 1990s, and that once this support was removed in the 1990s and
2000s that the success was short-lived.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Dennis
Glover, Lecturer Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the
University of Melbourne, draws a parallel between what happened to English
workers in the first three decades of the 1800s and what happened in Australia
from the Mid-eighties and the 2015. ("The unmaking of the Australian
working class - and their right to resist", The Conversation, 3 August 2015).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Dr.
Glover says that at the end of the eighteenth century the English working class
of hand loom weavers, agricultural labourers, iron workers, miners and so on
lived a largely rural existence, employed at home or in small workshops, with
strong connections to village or parish life. But by the 1830s many had been
agglomerated into large factories. Towns like Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds
had been transformed into the "dark satanic mills" of Blake's poem.
Crammed into dangerous slums, many died young and poor. The old world had been
physically transformed: bricked over, blackened, cheapened, uglified.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Dr.
Glover says something just as dramatic happened in Australia during the past
three decades. He says the transformation from the industrial to the post-industrial
era has been so total as to constitute the sociological equivalent of an
extinction event. (Ibid). "The queues of workers' cars lining up each
morning to get through the factory gate - gone. The publicly owned banks and
utilities - gone, or about to go...... Secure, full-time employment, with its
guarantee of holidays, sick pay and promotion - in many industries long gone.
The working class dream of home ownership and upward mobility via cheap land,
equal educational opportunities and cheap land - all are on the way
out"(Ibid).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Dennis
Glover describes this as the un-making of the Australian working class.
"Just as 18th century England's green and pleasant fields were paved over
with brick, its vocations replaced by the steam-powered machine, its pastoral
life rent asunder by the regimentation of the Industrial Age, in just 30 years
the world of the Australian working class, with its factories and unions and
quality public services and the communities they supported, has been made all
but extinct, wiped out, like the dinosaurs, by the fiery asteroid of creative
destruction". (Ibid). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
describes this as the revolution the little people lost, and makes the astute
observation that the little people, the losers, refuse to go away. They vote
against more "economic reform" - they won't support a higher GST and
they won't support more privatisations. One might add that they voted out the
party of Workchoices and they don't support deregulated university fees or
Medicare co-payments either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Dr
Glover asks why they don't thank Paul Keating for liberating them from their
dull, monotonous, supposedly unskilled and unimportant jobs making cars? He
answers by saying that Australia's working class won't easily give up without a
fight, won't voluntarily accept poverty, and won't surrender its culture and
traditions without a struggle. "Australia's wilful working class deserves
to be rescued from the condescension of the economic reformers. Just like the
members of the English working class who went through the Industrial
Revolution, the people who have experienced the destruction of their industries
and communities in places like Dandenong and Doveton in Melbourne's South-East,
Norlane in Geelong, Broadmeadows in Melbourne's north, and Elizabeth outside
Adelaide, where the car factories and canneries are still being closed and
unemployment is still well above 20per cent after 25 years of economic growth,
have something important to say to us" (Ibid). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">He
concludes with the observation that we should try to make economic change work
for everyone.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Right
wing commentators and economists regularly say the world is changing, and
changing rapidly, and nations must change in order to survive. This is a
classic case of seeking to profit from their own wrongdoing. Much of the change
that is happening is being driven by policies advocated and implemented by
right wing commentators. Much of the change is not inevitable. The fact that it
is making it tougher to survive should be cause to question our policy
directions, not head even faster towards the cliff.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">One of
the defining features of modern political life is a pervasive loss of faith in
government's ability to solve problems, or indeed do anything much at all.
Sally Young, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of
Melbourne, says we are living through a lost era of policy making. She says
that politicians of today are suffering a crisis of confidence about whether
their policy making can make a big difference. (The Age, 1 April 2015, p.20 ).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">She
notes that the Prime Ministers of the seventies built things. Gough Whitlam
left behind Medibank, women's health centres, the Family Court, single-parent
pensions, public transport projects, sewerage systems, the Arts Council, the
National Gallery, Triple J and Legal Aid. He gave us free tertiary education,
the Trade Practices Act, no fault divorce, needs based schools funding, the
abolition of conscription, the Heritage Commission, aboriginal land rights,
voting at age 18 and fair electoral boundaries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But the
situation since the 1970s has deteriorated dramatically. Erik S. Reinert from
The Other Canon Foundation set this deterioration out in detail in 2012 in his
paper "Neo-classical economics: A trail of economic destruction since the
1970s". He says that three decades of applying neoclassical economics and
neo-liberal policies have destroyed, rather than created, real wages and
wealth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reinert
starts by observing that after the Second World War Two institutions were
established which provided the conditions for an unprecedented increase in
human welfare. The 1947 Marshall Plan paved the way for the re
industrialisation of Europe and other nations all the way to Japan. The 1948
Havana Charter established rules of international trade that made this
industrialisation possible. It allowed for "infant industry
protection" where unemployment was present in a country. There was a
tripartite political setting, with a balance of power between business, labor
and government.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Countries
with a diversified economy prospered. For example South Korea diversified away
from agriculture and raw materials and into manufacturing industry. It did not
continue to rely on its 'comparative advantage' in agriculture, instead using
heavy-handed industry policy to break into manufacturing. On the other hand
Somalia was richer than Korea until the mid 60s, but in Reinert's words
"continued to specialise according to its comparative advantage in being
poor".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reinert
says that the theory of "comparative advantage" advanced through
David Ricardo's free trade theories was in practice only applied in the
colonies. He says that the US Washington Consensus free trade theories were for
a long time mainly intended for export, not for use at home. He says that
"Unfortunately, in the end the West also started believing in the
propaganda version of its own economic theory". <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
world development record, expressed as a growth rate of GDP per capita, is
described by Reinert as excellent from 1950 to 1973 but dismal from 1973 to 2001.
He says that during this period Latin America experienced a string of 'lost
decades'. Real wages in Peru were more than halved when the free trade shock
and subsequent deindustrialisation hit Peru starting in the mid-1970s. Africa's
beginning industrialisation was reversed, and the communist economies became
poorer than they had been under a notoriously inefficient communist planned
economy. Reinert concludes from this period that a nation with an inefficient
manufacturing sector is much better off than a nation without any manufacturing
sector at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Reinert
says that even the United States finds that too much free trade has undermined
its manufacturing base. The West has embarked on an attack on wage levels and
purchasing power in the name of austerity. The results are likely to be just as
harmful to real wages and purchasing power as they have been wherever they have
been applied. A wave of neo-classical wealth destruction hit Latin America in
the mid-seventies. It also hit the little industry Africa had managed to build.
Another wave of destruction hit the centrally planned economies after the fall
of the Berlin Wall. The fall of the Wall heralded a period of Western
triumphalism, an in particular a failure of mainstream economics to distinguish
between the financial sector and real wealth creation. This has now caught up
with country after country in Europe and beyond.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Three
economies which have done well during these lost decades have been Brazil,
India and China. Reinert notes that they escaped the free market fundamentalism
and free trade shock that accompanied the fall of the Berlin Wall. In these
countries neoliberalism was met with resistance from a critical mass of
economists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Reinert says that
what is needed is to recapture the middle ground. He supports the principles of
the Havana Charter, unanimously approved by the members of the United Nations
in 1948, as a blueprint for a world economic order that creates, rather than
destroys, mass welfare. He says that of the three political systems which
brought financial capital under control during the 1930s, - communism, fascism,
and the New Deal - there is little doubt what most people today would choose.
But that needs to be kept as a live option, and neoclassical economics is
failing to do this. It fails to distinguish between the real economy and the
financial sector, with the risk that financial sector stops adding value to the
real economy, but starts to parasitically destroy value. (This paper is online
at <a href="http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/47910/"><span style="color: windowtext;">http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/47910/</span></a>)</span><span style="font-family: "calibri" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">.</span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-34727572421902185932016-01-15T15:08:00.000+11:002016-01-15T15:08:38.592+11:00Intergenerational Equity – The Australian Settlement
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The argument over
protection versus free trade has been around for well over a hundred years.
Indeed it was the dominant political debate at the time Australia was becoming
a nation. And many of the arguments of the time sound familiar to our ears and
ring true today. Bob Birrell writes in his book "A Nation of Our Own"
that free trade was seen as the policy of the pastoralists (p.169). That is
still true. It is the agribusinesses that push hardest, by a mile, in favour of
the free trade agreements that Australia has entered into in recent years.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And back then, as now,
the protectionists were people who wanted to promote a diverse industrial base.
Protection was also seen as crucial to the well-being of the working class. The
great Liberal Alfred Deakin declared in 1901 that "if federal protection
increases the manufacturers' profits, state laws must provide that the employee
shall secure his share, perhaps by means of special boards for wages and hours,
according to the plan partly adopted by Victoria". (Robert Birrell,
"A Nation of Our Own", p. 170.)<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">A similar insight into
why the protectionists did not support free trade comes from the Bulletin's
leader writer, James Edmond, in his 1900 tract "A Policy for the
Commonwealth". He says "No country ever became a great industrial
state under free trade unless it had cheaper labour than its neighbours, and
cheap labour means degradation and slavery... Nor can any nation, in these days
of cheap freights, remain a great industrial state under free trade unless it
pays as low wages as the cheapest of its rivals, or unless its workers can hold
their own by exceptional skill". (Ibid). Observers watching the way in
which nowadays the rich get richer while low paid workers are becalmed or going
backwards might think Mr. Edmond just as relevant today.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The view of many
protectionists and particularly the social democrats among them was that
Australia should learn from the mistakes of the 'old world' and become a 'new
world’, free of both the social divisions and strong class boundaries of the
United Kingdom, and the slavery which had blighted the United States.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were to do our own dirty work rather than
expect someone else to do it. Australia was not to be like America, where
competition reigned supreme at the expense of workers' long-term will-being.
This outlook was egalitarian, and helped give the Australia of the Federation
era a democratic culture – that Jack is as good as his master, and down with
"tall poppies", or at least those who give themselves airs. (Ibid, p.
281).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Bob Birrell concludes
that the Federation era and the 'Australian Settlement' offers ideals directly
relevant to our present dilemmas, and that it is a shame that it has been
disparaged by Australia's cultural gatekeepers. (Ibid, p. 283).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It has been fashionable
for years to deride the Australian economic, political institutions and culture
of the Federation era, often referred to as the Australian Settlement. And the
Settlement itself was effectively torn up several decades ago.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">But I believe many of
the things done at that time served Australia well and indeed are key reasons
why we developed a more egalitarian, more prosperous, fairer society than many
other countries were able to accomplish. Darin Acemoglu and James Robinson have
written a book about why some nations have succeeded in generating sustained
economic growth through industrialisation and others have not, titled "Why
Nations Fail" (Crown Business, New York, 2012). They regard Australia as a
success story.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">They focus on the role
of what they describe as "inclusive institutions", which include
democratic accountability and the rule of law. Once they are established, these
institutions create circumstances where the government is accountable and
responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people can take advantage
of economic opportunities. Acemoglu and Robinson say that these institutions
tend not to emerge in "extractive economies", where the economy is
based on natural resources, and their exploitation is dominated by a narrow
elite. Too often the elite uses its political power to prevent the development
of inclusive institutions which could provide a pathway to industrialisation.
(Ibid).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Argentina is a classic
example. It is a country rich in natural resources, and at the turn of the
twentieth century it was prospering; it was as wealthy at the time as
Australia. But its large landholding elite conceded little to either urban or
rural work forces. It did not industrialise, and remained an extractive economy
and society. It was therefore highly exposed to commodity downturn in the 1930s
and it did not handle the Depression and its aftermath well. Political turmoil
led to military coups in 1943 and again in 1976. From being one of the world's
most affluent nations at the start of the twentieth century, it finished the
century a long way down the chart. In 2001 it defaulted on its debts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Australia could have
had a similar experience, but we did not. New South Wales was indeed an ideal
location for an extensive pastoral industry based on cheap convict labour. In
the early nineteenth century its political leaders wanted to turn New South
Wales into an extractive economy free of inclusive institutions. Their first
problem was the British Government, which was persuaded to lay the foundation
for a working democracy in the colony of New South Wales.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Their second problem
was Victoria. The Victorian gold rushes of the 1850s led to direct conflict
between the gold diggers and the pastoral landholding class. Victoria got limited
parliamentary democracy, and then small farmers. The Victorian Government also
took up the cause of protection to provide additional employment opportunities
and in order to create a more self-reliant society. Protection was strongly,
but unsuccessfully, opposed by the pastoral elite and their merchant
supporters, and by the end of the nineteenth century, in Victoria, although not
in New South Wales, most leading politicians were committed protectionists.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Victorian Alfred
Deakin was both a protectionist and a radical social democrat. His
parliamentary group wanted to create an Australia free of the old world class
and caste differences. Deakin was able to implement much of the protectionist
agenda, including its social democrat dimension, between 1905 and 1909 when he
was Prime Minister of a government which ruled with the support of the Labor
Party.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Deakin expressly set
out to make Australia a more diverse and self-reliant industrialised economy.
He and his supporters were worried that Australia could become, in his words of
1905, an economy of "hewers of wood, drawers of water, shearers of wool,
and growers of wheat". (Bob Birrell, "Federation, the Secret
Story", Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney 2001, p. 203). Furthermore the Deakin
Government linked receipt of tariff protection to the payment of 'fair wages',
establishing the Commonwealth Arbitration Court, which incorporated the
principle of a living wage into its determination of industrial awards.
Australia developed a reputation as a 'working man's paradise'. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Australia was hit hard
by the Depression, but the Australian Settlement and the Federation-era
institutions survived the test. There was little social unrest, and after the
Second World War Australia's manufacturing exports expanded and we enjoyed a
golden age of prosperity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Between 1946 and 1974
real per capita GDP increased at an average annual rate of 2.2 percent. From
1974 to 1991 it slipped to 1.5 percent, and between 1991 and 2010 it was still
lower than in the post war years, at 2 percent. (Ian McLean, "Why Australia
Prospered", Princeton University Press, 2013, p. 16).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Of course during these
later years the Australian Settlement has been abandoned. Industrialised
countries benefit from the productivity gains that flow from adopting the
latest technology in manufacturing. On the other hand, economies based on
natural resources face diminishing returns. Miners have to dig deeper or
exploit ore bodies with lower mineral content. Farmers have to farm less
productive land, or add more fertiliser or water to their crop. This leads to
lower returns on capital and labour.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">But before the
Australian Settlement was abandoned, Australia had a vibrant manufacturing
industry, thriving in such diverse areas as pharmaceuticals, chemicals,
automotive, iron and steel, and telecommunications. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">Our pharmaceutical
industry had prospered due to the Labor Government's Factor F scheme. This
piece of industry policy paid drug companies who increased their research and
development, production and exports from Australia. It was successful in increasing
exports of pharmaceuticals from $321 million in 1990-91 to $894 million in
1995-96 and $2.3 billion by 2001-2, jumping by a factor of seven in just over a
decade. Later on the program was cut and in the decade after 2001-2 we built up
a trade deficit in drugs of $6.9 billion. Pharmaceutical company executives
contrast the present situation with the Factor F era. According to the head of
AstraZeneca it manufactures in Australia because the Labor Government
"incentivised pharmaceutical companies to invest in sophisticated
manufacturing facilities in the 1980s". ("Pharmas need to more
drugs", Nigel Bowen, The Age, 19 May 2014).</span><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<h1 align="center" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: center;">
</h1>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-45238736598369332222016-01-15T09:41:00.000+11:002016-01-15T09:41:29.242+11:00Professionals Australia and Contracting Out
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This week I was visited
by a member of Professionals Australia who expressed great concern at the loss
of science and engineering skill sets to the Australian Public Sector, and
particularly the Department of Defence.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">He described to me an
epidemic of contracting out, involving a push to have as much work as possible
done by private industry, and as little as possible done by the Defence Science
and Technology Group within the Department of Defence, and the removal of staff
with decades of high-level experience.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I share the concern of
Professionals Australia about this modern fad. I think it is important that the
Australian Public Sector builds up and retains genuine expertise. Without it
the chances of delivering infrastructure projects on time and on budget
diminish. It is a false economy to contract out all the project delivery
functions – we need people who know what they're talking about inside the tent,
as well as outside it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The contracting out
obsession also has a real cost in terms of education and training. For many
years large public sector agencies like Defence have been prepared to invest in
education and training their staff, to the benefit of the nation. Private
sector companies don't have the same enthusiasm – they want someone else to do
the training. The risk is that no-one does it, and Australia becomes a less
clever country than we need to be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-3236253082880815462016-01-11T13:42:00.002+11:002016-01-11T13:42:17.639+11:00Intergenerational Equity – How We Are Failing Future Generations
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">In 2015 the Federal
Government released another Intergenerational Report. It was easy to dismiss it
as a political stunt. After all the well-known scientist they got to spruik it,
Dr Karl Krusenicki, did just that, correctly lambasting it for its failure to
talk about climate change. Any discussion about the future which leaves out
climate change is farcical.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And these Reports,
first commissioned by Peter Costello, are absolutely a Trojan Horse for the
right wing agenda of winding back the social contract, dismantling the benefits
achieved in Australia with a lot of blood, sweat and tears over many years, in
health, education, and retirement incomes, which make Australia one of the best
countries in the world to live in. They run a scare campaign about population
ageing designed to convince us that our health, education and retirement
incomes systems are not sustainable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This is just not right.
Population ageing is not a bad thing at all. Countries with older populations
are uniformly healthier, wealthier, have longer life expectancy and fewer
problems than countries with younger populations. The group Sustainable
Population Australia has produced some great work from the academics Katherine
Betts and Jane O'Sullivan about this and I recommend it to anyone with an
interest in this issue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My take home
message about population ageing is "Don't worry, be happy!"<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">But is the issue of
Intergenerational Equity important? Bloody oath it is. Do we want to be
remembered as a generation that wrecked the planet and passed on an inheritance
and legacy of unemployment, mental health problems, drugs, conflict and
terrorism to the next generation? Surely we have an obligation to pass on to
our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our
parents and grandparents gave to us. We do not have a right to trash the joint.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">So how are we going so
far? Well let's look at deficit and debt, the two Ds, a bit like Daz and Dee
from The Block. It is true that we need to balance the books. It is true that
leaving behind deficit and debt is unfair to future generations, who have to
pick up the interest bill.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">It is worth noting that
countries with large populations and rapid population growth tend to have
greater problems of deficit and debt than smaller countries, or countries with
stable populations. Rapid population growth leads to overcrowding and pressure
on existing infrastructure. Residents and communities naturally object to this,
so in order to head off public objection to rapid population growth governments
have to build new infrastructure. This new infrastructure is very expensive,
and leads to deficit and debt. The Queensland academic Jane O'Sullivan points
out that maintaining infrastructure in a population growing at 2 per cent
doubles, repeat doubles, the infrastructure cost for governments, who have only
two percent extra taxpayers to pay for it.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">We have seen a classic
example of this in Melbourne, with the former State Government secretly locking
Victorians into a contract to build a tunnel through Royal Park that would have
cost $8 billion. Seriously $8 billion for a tunnel! I had Professional
Engineers in my office giving this as an example of the way the public sector
is being stooged by private consortiums. Victorian taxpayers dodged a massive
financial bullet as a result of the Victorian Labor Government negotiating an
end to this contract. It is remarkable that the Liberal Party and its media and
corporate cheer squad had the temerity and audacity to criticise this. To lock
Victorians into a multi-billion dollar contract with a secret side note days
before an election was the height of contempt for the right of Victorians to
democratically decide our future.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Let me return to the
two Ds, deficit and debt. During the good times John Howard and Peter Costello
introduced measures which damaged the revenue and pushed up deficit and debt.
The fiscal time bombs they left behind for subsequent governments included
abolishing tax on superannuation income, cutting capital gains tax in half,
introducing the Baby Bonus – now thankfully gone – and ramping up Family
Payments. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The Abbott Government went
down the same path. It reinstated the Howard Governments fringe benefits tax
arrangements for privately owned motor vehicles, which Labor had cancelled, at
a cost of $500 million a year. It cancelled Labor's 15 per cent tax on
superannuation income over $100,000. This reduced revenue by about $600 million
a year. They abolished the carbon price, at a cost of $7.6 billion, and
overturned the mining tax. One country which runs a whacking great surplus and
has no debt is Norway, which years ago introduced a sovereign wealth fund.
People say Norway is fortunate because it has lots of natural resources. And we
don't?<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The legacy of deficit
and debt we are handing down to future generations is not unavoidable. For
example we have allowed companies to avoid paying tax on their income. In one
financial year just 10 companies channelled over $30 billion from Australia to
Singapore and avoided paying tax in Australia. In that year, 2011-12, an
estimated $60 billion in so-called "related party transactions" went
from Australia to tax havens. Energy companies have established "marketing
hubs" in Singapore, but their principal purpose appears to be as a
destination to shift profits in order to pay less tax. A report by the Tax
Justice Network estimated annual tax avoidance by the top 200 companies at over
$8.4 billion.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And as for
infrastructure spending, the property developers who are the beneficiaries of
the increased land value that comes from population growth ought to be the ones
to pay for the costs of this growth. I support the Labor Government capping
Council rates. Pensioners shouldn't be the ones paying for population growth;
the beneficiaries should be.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Let's now look beyond
the two Ds. How are we really going? Is there really intergenerational
equity?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The opportunities I and my
generation had – free tertiary education, lots of job and career opportunities,
affordable housing – seem a distant memory for way too many young people. They
are now fitted up with an axis of financial evil – job insecurity, housing
unaffordability, and student debt.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Job security has
declined dramatically. Back in the 1980s well over half a million 15 to 19 year
olds had a full time job. By January 2015 the figure was more like 150,000, an
all-time low. There has been a dramatic switch from full-time to part-time
employment. Back in 1980 just 20 per cent of workers aged between 15 and 19
were part-timers but the figure is now about 75 per cent. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Youth unemployment grew
to its highest for 17 years. The number of long-term unemployed has risen
dramatically in the last seven years, well over double what it was in 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Well-qualified young
workers are finding it difficult to break into high-skill jobs. Many young
people have to continue their part-time university jobs after they finish their
degree. And those who do have jobs have less secure jobs. In March 2015 the
Saturday Age reported a worker who only knew if he had work when he received a
text message just 15 minutes before his shift was due to start at a clothing
warehouse. As a statement of the bleeding obvious, it is impossible to plan his
day or his life around that kind of insecure work. It is a throwback to the
work arrangements on the waterfront a hundred years ago, when Dock workers
would stand in a line waiting to be picked out for a day's work.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The rise of casual,
contract and labour hire jobs, with far fewer protections for workers, is a
feature of the last 20 years. More than 2 million workers are now engaged as
casuals and more than 1 million are contractors or in labour hire.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The personal and social
consequences of unemployment and underemployment are negative and long-lasting.
Experts say that young people lose their hope, their health deteriorates, they
suffer from depression and anxiety, and they become vulnerable to drugs and
crime. Being out of work for long periods can affect physical health, mental
health, and future employability. The job market is now also tougher for
postgraduates.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Young people are also
getting the rough end of the pineapple in relation to housing. Whereas I and my
generation had opportunities to buy and live in detached houses, high-rise
apartment towers in Central Melbourne are now being built at four times the
maximum densities allowed in such crowded cities as New York, Hong Kong and
Tokyo. These hyper-dense skyscrapers are being built with little regard to the
effect on the residents within, or their impact on the streets below, or on
neighbouring properties.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And as if these issues
aren't big enough, in April 2015 a prominent Britain-based international mental
health commentator, delivering a public lecture for the Queensland Mental
Health Commission, suggested the modern rat race could be making us unhinged!
Gregor Henderson said that across the world levels of diagnosed depression and
anxiety, and the prescribing of drugs to deal with those conditions, are rising
alarmingly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Mr Henderson said there may
be a link between the way the modern world is structured and the elements of
emotional and psychological distress we are seeing. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">He said that if we keep
putting such a high value on economic product, this leads to materialism,
consumerism and individualism, which are mostly short-term benefits. Our modern
style of living is out of synch with our mental and physical wiring. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">I certainly think one
of the contributors to increasing mental health issues is the loss of our connection
with nature. Numerous studies have shown that public open space delivers
tangible and important benefits for physical and mental health. Mathew White
and colleagues at the University of Exeter Medical School found that people who
live in urban areas with more green space tend to report greater wellbeing –
less mental distress and higher life satisfaction – than city dwellers who
don't have parks, gardens or other green space nearby.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">A study from Norway
says that health benefits from nature arise from nature's stress reducing
effect. Stress, as is well known, contributes to cardiovascular diseases,
anxiety disorders and depression. The American biologist E. O. Wilson says that
because humans evolved in natural environments and have lived separate from
nature only relatively recently in our evolutionary history, we have an innate
need to affiliate with other living things. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">People aren't just
unhappy with their own lives. They're unhappy about the quality of their
political leadership as well.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">So if we are failing
future generations, and I am convinced that we are, what can we do about it? I
think employment is the key. We need to get fair dinkum about full employment.
Now there are plenty of captains of industry and economists who immediately
change the language and the objective of "full employment" to that of
"creating jobs". But they are not the same thing at all, even though
they may sound similar. The objective of "creating jobs" is used as
cover for the desire to reduce workers pay, conditions and rights. It is
claimed that reducing these things will increase labour market flexibility and
thereby create jobs. It is also used as a battering ram against the
environment, with the need to create jobs used to justify all manner of
environmental atrocities. We should not agree to surrender pay and conditions
or our beautiful and unspoiled environment. This would be the opposite of
intergenerational<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>equity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">So how do we achieve
full employment then, given its importance? I think five steps are crucial.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">First, we should wind
back our migrant worker programs, which have skyrocketed in the past decade. In
a stable or slowly growing population, workforce ageing will help solve
unemployment. As workers retire unemployed workers or young people entering the
labour force get job opportunities. This is how things used to be. But when we
are running massive permanent and temporary migrant worker programs, the
unemployed and young people entering the market find themselves up against
ferocious competition from new arrivals. The size of these programs puts us on
a treadmill. No matter how fast we create jobs we still have unemployment above
6 per cent, a totally unacceptable figure, and a recipe for drugs, crime,
mental health issues, even terrorism. As recently as 2000 the then Immigration
Minister Phillip Ruddock said that net migration may average out at 80,000 per
annum. A funny thing must have happened on the way to the Forum, because his
government subsequently increased it to over 200,000 per annum, where it still
sits.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Second we should focus
on education, skills and training. What has happened to technical and further
education is a scandal. Back in 2008 political parties promoted the
deregulation of vocational education. 'Contestability', that is competition
between the public TAFE Colleges and new private training colleges, became the
name of the game. They competed for students and for government subsidies. The
idea was that competition would lift standards and be good for students. The
result has been the opposite.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Private training
colleges have been quite unscrupulous. Their interest has not been in the
students, it has been in making money. They get students in and churn them
through. They have no interest in whether the students get the skills they need
to find work afterwards. As long as the students, or taxpayers, pay them,
they're alright jack.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Private colleges have
cherry-picked the most lucrative courses, leaving TAFE to deliver the balance.
The creation of a private market in education led to the appearance of
education brokers, signing up people outside Centrelink offices with
inducements like free laptops. Consumer protection has been inadequate.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And then there is the
change to "competency-based" training. Whatever the virtue of the
theory, in practice colleges have put students through courses in a matter of
weeks. Quality assurance has been absent. Trainers sign students off as
competent, but in practice they are woefully incompetent.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Then there are the
universities. Labor Governments introduced student fees and uncapped student
places. Now the Liberal Government wants to deregulate student fees. This would
be a disaster. When I went to University there were no fees and places were
allocated on the basis of academic merit. If fees are deregulated, the system
will have been turned on its head. Academic merit and performance will count
for nothing. Your capacity to pay large fees, or more commonly your parents
capacity to do so, will count for everything. How are academic standards and
quality expected to survive such an onslaught? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Education needs to
return to being about academic achievement and quality, not making a profit.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Third we need to back
science. The 2014-15 Budget cut a staggering $150 million from the science
budget, including a $115 million cut to the CSIRO. The CSIRO says these funding
cuts will cause the loss of nearly 1400 workers, over 20 per cent of its
workforce, including 500 science and research staff. We can't compete with the
rest of the world behaving in this short-sighted way. And we should rebuild
engineering expertise in government, and insist that companies building
infrastructure invest back into the engineering profession, for example through
cadetship graduate programs.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Fourth we need to back
manufacturing. During the mining boom we acted as if it didn't matter if all
our manufacturing went offshore. But to have all our eggs in the mining and
agriculture baskets is, once again, foolish and short-sighted. Recent
developments around the iron ore price reinforce this. We need a diverse
economy, and manufacturing provides good jobs in the middle of society – not
rich but not poor. It brings with it research and engineering expertise; the
kinds of things that distinguish successful nations from unsuccessful ones. We
should be wary of entering into trade agreements that kill off manufacturing
and render our economy narrow and vulnerable.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And we should back the
home team – Australia. Our personal buying habits, our government buying
habits, and our foreign takeover laws should support Australian jobs and
Australian industry. It is remarkable that when the Victorian Labor government
says it is going to use local steel that we have economic commentators saying
you can't do that because it's a breach of our trade agreements! We should have
food labelling laws that spell out what food is Australian and what is
imported, so consumers can make an informed choice. We should not enter into
Trade Agreements that contain Investor State Dispute Settlement clauses or
other provisions which act as a barrier to governments carrying out the wishes
of the electorate on matters like these.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">There is much that we
can do which will generate full employment, and it needn't involve trashing the
environment. But if we don't do it, then future generations will be deprived of
the opportunities that so many of us have had. And the big question for us now
is, do we want to be remembered as visionary, intelligent, compassionate and
generous, or remembered as greedy, selfish, ignorant and short-sighted?</span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-16053393355428348462016-01-07T14:32:00.003+11:002016-01-07T14:32:48.517+11:00Intergenerational Equity – A Day Representing the People of Wills
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">7.30 am. I visit a local railway station on the Upfield Line. The
trains are chockablock. The Upfield Line is predicted to have 80 per cent more
commuters in a decade. I try to explain to frustrated commuters that if we get
a Federal Labor Government, or a Liberal Government stumps up the cash, we
could build Melbourne Metro and put more services on these lines and improve
things in a few years time.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">9am. 61 year old engineer who has never been on the dole tells me he
has only had work for three months in the last eighteen months, due to mining
engineers bringing in '457' temporary workers on lower pay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">10am. Pascoe Vale residents come in to see me with concerns about the
pending City to Tullamarine Freeway Widening project. While motorists understandably
want it, in view of the freeway congestion, for these residents it just means
more noise and fewer trees.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">11am. Coburg residents come in with concerns about high rise
buildings of up to 10 storeys being proposed on the doorstep of their single
storey detached houses!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">12.30. Lunch. I am buttonholed in the street by a man who is
concerned about funding cuts planned for Fawkner Primary School. Later he sends
me some paperwork showing English is neither the first or the second most
common language spoken at home by the students, and that many students come to
Fawkner Primary School not having been in Australia in their early education
years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Afternoon. No appointments. I work on follow up of my two forums –
the Ice Epidemic and Unemployment. The Ice problem is very bad. Governments,
police, and welfare agencies all have their hearts in the right place but are
under resourced and overwhelmed by both the size of the problem and the number
of other problems they have to tackle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Unemployment in Wills is noticeably higher than for some years now.
Long term unemployment and youth unemployment is breeding an underclass of
disadvantage, people who are disengaged from community life.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Consolas; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">5.45. Go home and watch the news on TV. If it’s not Joe Hockey
telling us our best days are ahead of us, it's Malcolm Turnbull telling us how
exciting the future is. Or I can hear from some economist, lobbyist or
commentator saying Australia needs more population growth. What are these
people smoking? Where do they live? It must be a long, long, way from here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-18706623679233836472016-01-06T12:20:00.005+11:002016-01-06T12:20:34.769+11:00Intergenerational Equity – Introduction
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;">President Obama said
this about America, but it is just as valid for Australia and the other nations
of the world as well: "Loving this country requires more than singing its
praises or avoiding uncomfortable truths. It requires the occasional
disruption, the willingness to speak out for what is right, to shake up the
status quo".</span><b><span style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font: major-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There
was a really interesting survey carried out in 2013 in the US, the UK, Canada
and Australia. Over 500 people in each country – over 2000 in total – were
asked a series of questions, which included two gems as follows -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">"In
your opinion, how likely is it that humans will be wiped out in the next
hundred years?", "In your opinion, how likely is it that our existing
way of life will end in the next hundred years?"<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">They
are, of course, very different questions. It turns out that 24 per cent of us
think that there is a fifty per cent or greater chance that humans will be
wiped out in the next hundred years. Australia is right on the average, at 24
per cent, while Americans are the most apocalyptic, at 30 per cent, and Britons
the most sanguine, at 19 per cent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Even
more troubling, over fifty per cent of us – 54 per cent – think our existing
way of life will end in the next hundred years. Views about this are consistent
from country to country - 53 per cent in Australia, 55 per cent in Canada, 51
per cent in the UK, and 57 per cent in the US, think our way of life is for the
high jump. In each country less than fifty per cent thinks that our way of life
will see out the century. (Melanie Randle and Richard Eckersley, "Public
perceptions of future threats to humanity and different societal responses: A
cross-national study", 2015).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Richard
Eckersley and Melanie Randle see this pessimism as consistent with the results
of a survey of 1000 Australians which asked which of two scenarios of the world
in the 21st century more closely reflected their view -<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"By
continuing on its current path of economic and technological development,
humanity will overcome the obstacles it faces and enter a new age of peace and
prosperity", or<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"More
people, environmental destruction, new diseases and ethnic and regional
conflicts mean the world is heading for a bad time of crisis and trouble".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Two
thirds of Australians chose the pessimistic scenario, while less than a quarter
(23 per cent) chose the optimistic one (Ibid). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Several
questions arise. First, are the pessimists right? For reasons I will outline in
the coming days, weeks and months, I think they are. Secondly, why do we
continue on our current path given that a clear majority believes it is a path
to catastrophe? Third, are there alternatives that might serve us better?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Intergenerational
equity, or intergenerational fairness, means we have an obligation to pass on
to our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our
parents and grandparents left us. I will set out where, how and why we are not
faithfully discharging this obligation, and suggest how we could do better,
giving both young people and older people a better deal than they are getting
at present.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-73922844531379588452015-12-22T11:00:00.000+11:002015-12-22T11:00:03.154+11:00Michaelia Cash Channels Groucho Marx<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Groucho
Marx famously once said "Those are my principles, and if you don't like
them... well I have others.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Minister
Michaelia Cash is doing her best to channel him with her two totally different
positions concerning penalty rates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">On
the one hand she says penalty rates are not for the Government to decide, but a
matter for the Fair Work Commission. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But
then she says that the Government will not change penalty rates without taking
a proposal to the voters at an election first. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">So
what really is the Government's position? That penalty rates are a matter for
the Fair Work Commission or a matter for Government? And if they are a matter
for the Fair Work Commission, why did the Government send them off to the
Productivity Commission in the first place?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Workers
are entitled to more security than this. They are entitled to know whether the
government supports continued Sunday penalty rates or not. They know that
claims that cutting the Sunday rate will create more jobs are nonsense. They
know that if their penalty rate is cut they will have to work more hours to
make up for the pay cut, so there is a negligible prospect of more work for
people who don't already have work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-53532180198106978402015-12-16T10:36:00.002+11:002015-12-16T10:36:09.230+11:00Private Training Colleges Should Be Cut<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
Federal Government is lamenting its latest Budget blow out (I know, I know, the
government that said under it there would be no surprises and no excuses). It
says we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">We
certainly have a spending problem when it comes to bankrolling private training
colleges. The States used to fund Technical and Further Education, and it
worked well. But then some bright sparks decided that the free market could do
technical and further education better than the public sector. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Private
training colleges sprang up, and successive Federal Governments decided they
were worth bankrolling. The cost of courses has trebled since VET Fee Help
funding came on tap in 2012. We've seen the flowering of online courses – with
a 92 per cent dropout rate! – and college brokers, who forge peoples signatures
and sign up the brain injured and intellectually disabled to courses they have
no hope of completing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Some
private colleges now receive hundreds of millions of dollars every year. For
example "Careers Australia" received $146 million in 2014, and less
than 1200 students graduated from its courses. You would think that at over
$100,000 per successful student the Government might have concluded that it was
more efficient to put the money into TAFE, but you would be wrong. This year
"Careers Australia" received a whopping $229 million in public
funding for the eleven months to November 15. This is $27 million more than the
biggest publicly funded provider, NSW TAFE, got this year. No wonder the
deficit is increasing!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Many
of these courses have given students debts of tens of thousands of dollars, and
no job with which to repay them. This ideological experiment has been a
disaster. The Government should cut the funding of these private colleges,
which have spread like Prickly Pear, and save itself some serious money by
funding TAFE places that industry has ticked off on as genuinely likely to lead
to employment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-83617689324691519962015-11-18T17:04:00.000+11:002015-11-18T17:04:06.701+11:00Improve National Security by Importing Less Oil<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Malcolm
Maiden is right when he says in Today’s Age that reducing our oil imports could
make Australia safer. He says every barrel of oil saved would tighten the
funding equation for Islamic State and its supporters, and that the connection
between oil money and terrorism is toxic and chronic. This is true. An analysis
for Thomson Reuters last year by Jean-Charles Brisard and Damien Martinez found
that 38 per cent of Islamic State funding comes from oil sales. It also gets
money from donations, and some of the money behind the donors comes from oil
sales. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The
methods we have used so far to defeat Islamist terrorism ever since Osama Bin
Laden’s September 11 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre have not been
successful, and the world is every bit as dangerous as it was then, arguably
more so. Given this, it makes sense to me to do everything we can to throttle
the funding sources for Islamic State and other Islamist terrorists. Transitioning
out of oil and into electric vehicles and battery storage technology would be
an excellent place to start. And the UN Climate Change talks in Paris would be
a deeply appropriate time and place for the world to become fair dinkum about
this transition.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-33775390480427610552015-11-04T14:28:00.002+11:002015-11-04T14:28:55.187+11:00Predicted Hot Summer Means Danger for Bird Species<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">The forecast hot summer
is causing concern among ecologists regarding danger for woodland birds and
frogs.<o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This comes on top of
the protracted millennium drought of 1996 to 2010, the effects of which are
still being felt where kookaburras and superb fairy wrens declined and have not
properly recovered since. As reported in today’s The Age, ecologist Dr Dale
Nimmo has said more than half our bird species experienced a substantial
reduction in their population.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This decline affects
the broader ecosystem as birds play a key function as pollinators and pest
controllers.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">In a paper co-written by
Dr Nimmo, he and his colleagues outline the importance for species of adequate
tree cover which enhances their resilience in tough times such as during a
drought. The more tree cover you have, according to Dr Nimmo, the more birds
are able to survive a drought.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">In the report the
authors say that woodland bird communities in landscapes with larger areas of
tree cover retained a larger proportion of their species richness during the
Millennium Drought. Vegetation cover can influence the resistance, resilience
and stability of species in an extreme weather event, events that are becoming more
common as a result of climate change.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">The impact of climate
change, with more droughts and other extreme weather events, makes it all the
more important that we protect, restore and enhance Australia’s native
vegetation.</span>Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2919999228754406096.post-58487158921326374162015-10-12T09:51:00.002+11:002015-10-12T09:51:48.775+11:00What’s Wrong With the China Free Trade Agreement?
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">1.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> We don't need it.
China is already our largest trading partner. We didn't need a deal to do
business up until now, and we won't need one in future. Australian agriculture
exports to China have trebled in the past six years, from $3 billion in 2007/8
to $9 billion in 2013/14. They will continue to grow in future, deal or no
deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">China had $22.7 billion - $12 billion of it
in Australian real estate - in investment proposals approved by the Foreign
Investment Review Board in the 2014 financial year, more than from any other
country. Chinese investors bought more real estate in Sydney and Melbourne
combined – almost $3.5 U.S. billion) than in each of London, Paris, or New
York.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Any China market access advantage for
Australian exports will only be temporary. Nothing in the deal prevents China
from giving the same access to other countries. But all Australian concessions
will be permanent.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">2.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> The deal weakens the
rules about employing migrant workers from China. At present employers have to
test the labour market – that is to say, advertise positions or vacancies in
Australia and show no qualified locals are available - before they can bring in
Chinese temporary migrant workers, or employ those already here. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But the China FTA puts an end permanently to
labour market testing in the 457 visa program for all Chinese nationals in all
skilled occupations. This includes engineers, nurses, electricians, motor
mechanics and another 200 trades and occupations where testing currently
applies, plus the 400 or so other mainly graduate-level occupations where there
is no testing now simply by government policy. Employers will use this loophole
to substitute easily exploited overseas labour for Australian workers and
graduates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">3.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> It utterly fails to
create a level playing field for Australian domestic industry facing
competition from Chinese imports. There is no chapter on labour standards.
There is no chapter on environment standards. There is no mechanism to ensure
that imported products are of an appropriate standard. Alucoil Australia
advises that the much publicised Docklands Fire in Melbourne was in a high rise
apartment building cladded with non-compliant panels imported from China.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">4.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> A Memorandum of Understanding
establishes Investment Facilitation Arrangements. These will allow
Chinese-owned companies registered in Australia undertaking infrastructure
development projects of more than $150 million in specified sectors <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(a very low threshold these days, which would
cover most projects a Chinese-owned company would bother with) to negotiate
bringing in semi-skilled temporary workers on 457 visas plus ‘concessional’
skilled workers. The Liberal Government says it will be the same as the
Enterprise Migration Agreements proposed by Labor at the time of the Roy Hill
Mining proposal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But trade unions
objected vehemently to Enterprise Migration Agreements for good reason and none
of them ever happened – not at Roy Hill and not anywhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Liberal Government says direct employers
on these infrastructure projects must test the local labour market first. But
the government’s labour market testing requirement allows employers to stop
advertising jobs locally up to a year and a half before employing Chinese
semi-skilled workers!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">5.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> A side letter does
away with mandatory skills testing by the Australian Government in a range of
trades before Chinese-trained workers come to Australia. These include high
risk trades like electrical work, which is inherently dangerous. We have
stringent electrical training and safety standards in Australia, and eroding
these standards could lead to accidents, injuries and deaths. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">The Liberal Government says we shouldn't
worry because the Immigration Department can still order a skills test ‘if
needed’, and the States will step in and do assessments for licensed trades.
Really? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And if they don't? I guess we
can always have a Royal Commission.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Mandatory skills assessment for 457 visa
applicants from high-risk countries including China was introduced in 2009 by
the former Labor Government to help restore some integrity to the 457 program.
Before that it was commonplace for employers to nominate Chinese and other
workers for skilled 457 visas in trade occupations but work them as
semi-skilled or unskilled workers. For example some Chinese workers granted 457
visas as professional engineers were found to be working as labourers on
Australian construction sites! There was also concern about trade training
standards and qualifications and document fraud in some countries. Authorities
like the World Bank say those concerns are still valid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">6.</span></b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> The deal contains an
Investor-State Dispute Settlement provision. The details of the provision
haven't yet been finalised. In all seriousness, the details haven't been
finalised, but the Liberal Government is demanding that Labor agrees to the
deal. But Investor-State Dispute provisions allow overseas companies to sue the
Australian Government for actions that disadvantage them. Phillip Morris is
suing the Australian Government right now, using one of these clauses in a Hong
Kong investment agreement, over the introduction of plain paper packaging for
tobacco products. ISDS has mutated into a privatised system of 'justice',
whereby three arbitrators are allowed to override national legislation and the
judgments of the highest courts in the land, in secret and with no right of
appeal. No governments should enter into treaties which could stop them
carrying out their proper role of protecting public health, the environment,
and basic human rights.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;">There’s a lot wrong with the China Australia
Free Trade Agreement.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
</div>
Kelvin Thomson MPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14601295736691815153noreply@blogger.com5