Month: March 1996

Andrew Whitecross did not waste any time. The first business day after the federal election he moved decisively against Rosemary Follett and took the leadership of the ACT parliamentary Labor Party from her. It had been coming a long time. He could not, of course, have moved before the election because it would have looked bad of Labor. As it happened, it probably would not have made much difference; pebbles do not add much to landslides. In January, when the mutterings within the Labor Party became audible without, and this paper headlined that Ms Follett’s days were numbered, the official response from Mr Whitecross and Ms Follett was monomorphic: Rosemary has been the leader since self-government, she is the leader and she will remain leader. She has the total support of the parliamentary party.

On the other side of politics, the Liberals had been enjoying Ms Follett’s leadership. There was not much fire in it and it did not make for an effective opposition. They would not like a change. And thus, the Liberals pulled the rug from under one leg of a possible leadership challenge by Mr Whitecross with Terry Connolly as his deputy. Mr Connolly was offered and accepted a judicial post. Now the Liberals have to contend with a very much weakened Labor leadership team. Mr Connolly was by far Labor’s most articulate and intelligent MLA and most representative of moderate centrist government. But he came from the wrong faction; so there was no future for him.

Similarly, Bill Wood comes from the wrong faction, so there is no future for him. But though he represents a more palatable centrist political philosophy he obviously does not have the talent of a Terry Connolly to seek a better future elsewhere.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader06mar”

The resignation of the secretary of the ACTU, Bill Kelty, reveals a 1950s class-war, tribal mentality. His statement that “”I believe that my continued membership of the board may be inconsistent with my union responsibilities” is a curious one. Why is it inconsistent? Surely, both should serve the welfare of the Australian people, albeit in slightly different way. No, Mr Kelty believes that it is impossible for him, an ACTU official, to serve on a government economic body while the Coalition is in government because he thinks the union movement is at war with the Coalition and therefore at war with its economic instrument.

It seems that Mr Kelty has resigned from the Reserve Bank to free himself from economic responsibility so he can pursue any agenda he likes; so that he can put factional selfish aims of union power ahead of the general good.

Mr Kelty said his resignation had been prompted by the Coalition’s refusal to have an accord under which there were wage and social protections in return the Reserve Bank’s two to three per cent inflation target. But accord or not, that is a worthwhile economic and social target.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader05mar”

The convincing victory of the Liberal-National Party in yesterday’s election was more than a change for the sake of change. The Australian people have given clear endorsement to John Howard and the policies he articulated during the campaign.

Mr Howard is to be congratulated for marshalling a demoralised party after losing five elections in a row and suffering a leadership crisis in the first two years of the last term. In a little over a year he moved the party to the centre and held his nerve, refusing to be spooked by Paul Keating.

The result cannot reasonably be explained only as an expression of dissatisfaction with Mr Keating, though that was a significant part of the result.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader03mar”

The ACT Government is none the wiser about what to do with suburban supermarkets after two inquiries. One inquiry recommended that market and social forces had resulted in irreversible trends away from the suburban supermarket and that there was not a lot government could do about it. The other inquiry sided with the suburban supermarkets and suggested a range of regulatory measures, particularly regulation of business hours for large shops which would save the local supermarkets from competition and provide a place for people without transport could shop.

The divergent opinions show the inquiry process is often a waste of time and money. The results of an inquiry are more often dependant on the predilections of the inquirer than the state of affairs being inquired into. Inquiries are so often cop-outs by elected governments which are too scared to make decisions.

Before either of these inquiries were launched it was obvious what the issues were and what the views of the various protagonists would be.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_leader02mar”

We are lucky in Australia that our constitutional Achilles heel is not the right to bear arms, as it is in the United States, but industrial relations. At least people do not get killed because of it.

Both Constitutions have resulted in national black spots. In the US, people carry weapons with impunity and shoot each other far more often than in a society which could regulate gun possession. In Australia, we have had a reputation of unreliability and going on strike at the drop of a hat. True, the Accord period ameliorated that reputation but at huge economic cost.

To date, both nations have found it well nigh impossible to overcome these weakspots in their constitutional heritage. But it seems Australia is about to.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_column26mar”

There has been a lot of gloom around town since the change of Government.

Senior bureaucrats moped around the Turner exhibition bemoaning the sea change, oblivious in the works behind them of the wonders a real sea change can inspire. The gloom is generated by the belief that Labor was good for Canberra and the Coalition is not. But this is an enthymeme … an argument with some unstated premises.

The full argument would run something like: Labor believes the state should take a more active role; Labor is more centrist; the first requires more bureaucrats; the second requires that they be in Canberra; having more federal bureaucrats is good for Canberra. But saying that what is good for the bureaucracy is good for Canberra can be as mistaken as saying what is for General Motors is good for America. Witness the oil crisis.

Let’s look at the big ticket items. Hawke may have opened new Parliament House, but Fraser got the thing off the ground and ensured the project was an inspired one. Menzies made Canberra permanent. After depression and war, the thing could have been abandoned or let languish. Menzies had to force the bureaucracy to move from Melbourne; create the NCDC and make the lake.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_column19mar”

The ACT has apparently become the favourite shop of the forum shoppers who want to engage in surrogate motherhood. At least one woman is pregnant with another couple’s child, apparently ready to surrender it after the birth.

But the law is not in keeping with technology or morality.

ACT law makes it a criminal offence to engage in commercial surrogacy … where the receiving parents pay the surrogate mother. But it does not make it a criminal offence to engage in altruistic surrogacy … where only reasonable expenses are paid. That has resulted in people thinking that it is open-go for altruistic surrogacy. Not so. There are quite a few hurdles and the law makes it clear that surrogacy is a Bad Thing, even if it does not make it criminal.

There are half a dozen hurdles.

Altruistic surrogacy agreements are void. This means that a woman can bear the child and keep all the living and medical expenses provided by the receiving parents and then renege, keeping the child. The receiving parents have no recourse. They do their dough. Conversely, the receiving parents can walk away, and the surrogate mother is left, literally, holding the baby. Moreover, there is an irrebuttable presumption of law, in every state and territory, that she is the mother and she carries the duties that flow from it.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_column12mar”

In his retirement, Paul Keating might like to reassess exactly what “”unrepresentative swill” is in the Australian electoral scene.

Keating referred to the Senate as “”unrepresentative swill”, a phrase he must have picked up when he owned the piggery. But Saturday’s election shows that he was wrong. The tables show the picture.

In the House of Representatives the Coalition got 46.7 per cent of the vote and was rewarded with 67 per cent of the seats. Surely, 20 percentage points of those seats are “”unrepresentative swill” … about 30 MPs’ worth of unrepresentative swill.

In the Senate, however, the Coalition got 50 per cent of the vote (49.97 to be precise) and exactly 50 per cent of the seats contested … no left over unrepresentative swill.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_column05mar”

John Howard should beware of magpie clauses.

Magpies, you may recall, awakened one Ewart Smith, former deputy secretary in the Attorney-General’s Department very early one September morn in 1987. In his insomnia he realised a way to defeat the Australia Card.

It was after the double dissolution of that year. The Australia Card Bill had been knocked back by the Senate twice and Bob Hawke had used that as a trigger to call a double dissolution at which the House and all the Senate were sent to election. Hawke won the House but not the Senate. In the ordinary course of events there would have been a joint sitting at which Hawke would have had the numbers to pass the Bill because his excess in the House would have more than compensated for his deficit in the Senate. This is how Gough Whitlam got six Bills through after the 1974 double dissolution after he did not get a Senate majority.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_anal”

The ACT Labor Party did the wise thing to replace Rosemary Follett with Andrew Whitecross, according to the results of the latest Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll.

The poll was taken before the Federal election last week, when Ms Follett was Leader of the Opposition. It showed that Chief Minister Kate Carnell was the preferred Chief Minister by 48 per cent against 38 per cent who preferred Ms Follett.

The poll shows, however, that the Labor Party has a big task ahead to dent Ms Carnell’s popularity. Voters were asked to rate key ACT politicians from very bad, bad, middling, good to very good. Ms Carnell topped the poll with an average of 2.86. She easily had the highest very good rating (11). The independents came next with Paul Osborne on 2.80 and Michael Moore on 2.70. Urban Services Minister Tony De Domenico came last of those rated at 2.19.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_actpoll”