Month: March 1996

The agreement by the cigarette maker Liggett Group to settle a major class-action lawsuit that claims nicotine levels in cigarettes are manipulated to keep smokers hooked is a breakthrough in getting cigarette companies to pay for past wrong-doing and to change their conduct to restrict the harm their products do in the future.

Liggett, the maker of Chesterfield and Eve cigarettes said, without admitting wrongdoing, that it would pay a portion of what it earns over the next 25 years to be used for quit programs. If the settlement is approved by the federal court, it would be the first time a tobacco company paid anything to settle a smoking lawsuit.

Liggett’s action shows the untenable position of the other four larger defendants, R.J. Reynolds, the American Tobacco Co, Lorillard, and Philip Morris. Further, Liggett in settlement talks with the attorneys-general of five states who are trying to get the tobacco companies to pay for the states’ costs under Medicaid programs of treating smoking-related illnesses.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader15mar”

It is quite insulting workers to be told that they are incapable of negotiating with their employers without a union. The message from the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union to employees at the Tweed Valley Fruit Processing Company is that the employees are to stupid or ignorant to negotiate a deal with the company in their own best interests. The employees disagree. They have traded off some of their sick pay for extra wages. It is notorious that some people in the workforce use all their sick leave, whether sick or not. Having a smaller entitlement might reduce sick days taken and therefore reduce costs to the company. This can be passed on in higher wages.

Some employees might be prepared to wear the loss if they use more than the new lower allowance, or they might want to insure against catastrophic illness. They do not need a union to tell them of the risks and benefits. If they want a union to represent them, fine. If they don’t, then there is no role for the union.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader14mar”

The industrial strife in the ACT has reached a stage of high farce. Unionists have imposed bans which severely affect government revenue. The Industrial Relations Commission bizarrely says that the ACT Government must negotiate while the bans are still on. It implies that the commission ultimately can order not only the amount of pay rise but how it is paid, that is, out of the Budget. So we have the ludicrous situation that an industrial relations commissioner determines elements of the Budget of the ACT, not the elected Parliament and Government.

The unionists who have imposed the bans and their leaders are just laughing. Bizarrely, they are still being paid while refusing to collect bus fares, mow lawns and do other work which is essential to their employment. In these circumstances, why would they move a millimetre until all their demands are met?

This is cuckoo-land. Imagine if the employees of a department store in town said, “”Yes; we are willing to come into work and serve customers, but we won’t collect money for goods.” And then the industrial relations commission told the store it had to negotiate under those circumstances.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader14maa”

It was predictable enough. The new government has announced the cupboard is bare. That will be greeted with some cynicism. But the cynicism has to be tempered with fact. Labor’s projected deficits for 1995-96 and 1996-97 were way off the mark. The 1996-97 position is an underlying deficit of $7.64 billion, compared to Labor’s forecast of a surplus of $3.4 billion.

It meant the election campaign was fought on a bad premise. One side (Labor) knew it and the other side (the Coalition) suspected it, but it suited the Coalition not to acknowledge its suspicion lest it be accused of creating sand-castles of promises which would be swept away when the fiscal tide came in. Worse, when pressed the Coalition said it would put promises before the deficit.

This has put the Coalition in a bind. It promised no new taxes and some new spending. That means it must either not take the deficit seriously or attack areas of government spending that were not quarantined by election tomfoolery. Treasurer Peter Costello made it clear that the Government would do the later, cutting recurrent spending by $4 billion in each of the next two years. That is the responsible course. He said this was needed to reduce pressure on interest rates, because a rise in rates would hit employment.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader13mar”

So much for business confidence being boosted by the election of a Howard Government. The Australian share market had its biggest one-day fall in four years yesterday with a 3.5 per cent fall. It was proof that events in the US affect the Australian economy as much as what the Australian Government does. The shock fall came after Friday’s fall on Wall Street which was the third-largest on record.

The reaction perhaps shows an underlying weakness in Australia’s financial position in that it is very susceptible to overseas changes and there is uncertainty about how or whether the new Government will deal with the raft of new wage demands. A more robust Australian would weather changes elsewhere better.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader12mar”

The ACT Government and Opposition and Australian Federal Police have jumped in too hastily to support a proposal by a Canberra licensee for on-the-spot fines for people caught fighting, urinating in public, or drinking alcohol-free zones. The very jumbling of very different sorts of offences shows the proposal is not well though out. It should not be acceptable in a liberal democracy that police have the power to be prosecutor, jury and judge in criminal matters as serious as assault. These matters are properly dealt with by courts.

The trouble with on-the-spot-fines is that they in effect reverse the onus of proof. It is no safeguard to say that if a defendant chooses he or she can contest the matter; the defendant walks into court with a ticket which is tantamount to a presumption of guilt.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader11maa”

Churchill once said that once a committee had more than eight members it was a dead loss. Prime Minister-designate John Howard, who has said that Churchill was a hero of his, has opted for a Cabinet of 15 and a ministry of an addition 13. It has the advantage of being smaller than Labor’s Cabinet and Ministry, but is perhaps not small enough.

There have been some surprises in both the ministerial and public service appointments announced yesterday. Both teams need to be given a fair chance before judgment is cast. The fact that a person in Opposition has received a great deal of media limelight and public eye does not necessarily mean they will make excellent ministers, or that they would be best suited in the portfolio they carried in Opposition. Moreover, new people have come in to the Parliament which should change the make-up of the ministry.

Mr Howard has made it clear that he expects more of his ministers. He does not want them running to cabinet every time something difficult turns up. He wants them to make decisions themselves and if they make too many mistakes, he has warned he has many others to drawn from. He may regret taking that philosophy too far. The electorate rightly visits the sins of the individual minister upon the whole government.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader09mar”

A great deal of heartache could face some couples in Canberra over surrogate motherhood … and some babies are on the way. The ACT has made it a crime to engage in commercial surrogacy, but has left open the field of altruistic surrogacy … where a woman agrees to carry the genetic child of another for nothing.

It is a case of the law not keeping up with medical technology. It is now possible for an egg to be fertilised by sperm externally and implanted into a woman. It provides for many combinations of biological and birth parenthood. As a general principle, however, the present law provides that the male who provides the sperm is father and the woman from whom the baby is delivered is the mother, even if the ovum was not hers. Maintenance duties and custody rights can flow from that.

So, at the end of the pregnancy the surrogate mother may be able to change her mind and keep the baby and the donor father may find himself liable for support. Moreover, even if the surrogate mother is happy to surrender to the other mother (who may have provided the ovum or may just be the wife of the man who provided the sperm using the surrogate’s ovum), there is no guarantee that a lawful adoption would follow. Adoption laws have been crafted without surrogacy in mind.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader08mar”

Enough is enough. Elections in Queensland, Mundingburra, Tasmania and nationwide in the space of a few months. And now Jeff Kennett is taking Victoria to the polls.

John Howard has promised a people’s constitutional convention to look at the republic and other constitutional issues. A major issue should be the number of election days in Australia. They are disruptive to business. They result in the unnecessary prolonging of the period of pork barrelling. They cause too much short-term decision-making with politicians’ eyes on the ballot box. The power of Premiers and Prime Ministers to pull the dates out of the hat adds to the uncertainty.

Mr Howard’s convention should look at a proposal to fix the terms of all federal, state and territory parliaments and have an election for the whole lot on one day, say, the first Saturday in December every three years. December elections have the advantage of allowing transitions in the silly season if there is a change of government.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader07mar”