Month: September 1996

There is an old English comedy skit where the lawyer gets to his feet, peers over his glasses, and says: “”And now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, these are the conclusions upon which I base my facts.”

This week’s report of the Senate committee into the privatisation of Telstra was like that, though doubly worse.

The Labor-Democrat majority report selected its facts upon which it based its conclusion, followed by a minority Government report with the conclusion upon which it selected its facts.

Each makes sad reading.

The Labor-Democrat side won a narrow victory on points for non sequiturs and backward reasoning.
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People will always want their paper. They want to do the crossword in the dunny. They want to take it to the beach. They want to dribble their meusli or bacon and eggs on at breakfast. No-one will want to read the daily news on the screen.

I am always regaled with this argument when I talk about electronic publishing. And I always agree with it. I, too prefer to read things on paper than on the screen. And I have a very large screen with 14-point Times Roman type on it.

But personal preference … even the personal preference of the majority … does not always determine what will happen. That is only the demand side of economics. There is also a supply side.

The printed newspaper is already being eroded, and I imagine that in the next decade or two it will virtually disappear. This is because electronic delivery of news and, more importantly, advertisements over the phone line and on to computer screens at home and in the office is becoming cheaper, faster, better and more widespread all the time, while delivery of the printed version is becoming ever more expensive.
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The proposition that the Federal Government’s workplace relations reforms will create more jobs and will not lead to anyone getting lower wages has been questioned by three leading economic figures in the past week: the present Governor of the Reserve Bank, Ian McFarlane; the previous governor, Bernie Fraser; and the ANU’s professor Bob Gregory. There messages are similar, but not identical.

Mr McFarlane said of the reform, “”It is quite possible that it will have very little effect on employment and that most of the effect will be on productivity and long-run growth.” Mr Fraser went further, arguing that the Government’s constant repetition of the proposition that labour-market reform would bring more jobs was brainwashing. Professor Gregory asserted that it was likely that the reforms would result in Australian wage structures following the US pattern, with lower-paid people getting even lower pay and higher-paid people getting even more money.

Clearly there are more forces afoot than the industrial-relations regime. Deregulation in general and technological change are also affecting employment and pay. None the less, the three critics put under scrutiny at least one of the arguments in favour of industrial-relations reform, namely that it will create more jobs. But that is not the end of the argument; there are other reasons for going ahead with the reforms, but they might not have the immediate political appeal as the jobs one.
Continue reading “1996_09_september_leader30sep jobs”

Prime Minister John Howard says he will meet the Dalai Lama as a spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism when they meet in Sydney today. China, though, has reacted as if he will meet the Dalai Lama as a political leader and threatened economic retaliation, so Mr Howard may as well have gone the whole way. China sees the Dalai Lama as a political activist who has being trying to split China ever since he fled Tibet after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule there in 1959. On this reasoning, the Chinese argue, that if the Australian government received him and Australian leaders meet him, it would be an interference in China’s internal affairs. China has threatened to hit Australia where it hurts: by curtailing financial-sector access to China.

It typifies the conduct of both domestic and foreign policy by the Chinese since the communist take-over in 1949. That conduct has been a single-minded centralism. It demands the subservience of every Chinese citizen to central government on pain of retribution. It demands that foreign governments do not undertake symbolic actions that countermine China’s all-or-nothing demand that nations recognise the Beijing regime as the legitimate ruler of the whole of greater China (including Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong (from 1997) and Macao.

China’s position is a complete non sequitur. It asserts territory as its own and then replies that any suggestion that the territory is not China’s is an interference in Chinese internal affairs.
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This week the chair of the Olympic Co-ordination Committee, Jacques Rogge, said the potential for minority groups to use the Sydney Olympic Games to air grievances was high. It was an under-estimation. It is inevitable that the Sydney Olympics will be used as a political staging ground. In particular, it is inevitable that Aboriginal groups will use the event to put their grievances to the world news media who will congregate in Sydney for the Games. There is nothing any Australian Government or the Sydney Organising Committee of the Olympic Games can do to prevent it. So it should not bother trying. Indeed, it should announce that it is inevitable, welcome that it will take place and perhaps make efforts to ensure that the world’s media gets every opportunity to to report on the grievances of any group in Australia that wants to make a political point.

The NSW and Australian Government should take pride in the fact that spokespeople for any minority group in Australia are able to make contact with the world’s media and make whatever statement they want. That is the sort of society we are.

Those who have argued that getting the Games in Sydney is a great thing for Australia because of all the commercial spin off must accept that there are two sides to the spin off … positive and negative.

The main aim of the organising committee, though, is to concentrate on transport, communications and the rest of the nitty gritty in running a successful games. Ultimately the messages of those who use the games as a conduit to the world will have to stand on their own merit and not because they got wider coverage during a couple of weeks of international sport.

Laughter is the best medicine. And indeed laughter is the best antidote to the poison being spread by British “”historian” David Irving. Mr Irving has cobbled together a large amount of what he calls evidence to discount the extent of the Holocaust. Prime Minister John Howard has rightly called him a crackpot and a nutter.

Mr Irving, however, has cleverly used Mr Howard’s statement at the weekend that the Government has lifted the de-facto censorship on discussion of controversial issues and opened a new era of freedom of speech. He has said he will reapply for a visa to Australia which was denied by the previous Labor Government. That denial has been upheld in the courts. Mr Irving now has presented Mr Howard’s Government with a dilemma. If it does not give him a visa its boast that it has freed speech from the shackles of the politically correct movement is a hollow one. If, on the other hand, it gives him a visa it will incur the wrath of many in the community, particularly Jewish groups, who find Mr Irving’s view abhorrent.

Of course, a country is entitled to deny entry to whomever it wants. But Australia grants entry under the principle of equality under the rule of law. As a general principle, visas are only refused to those who present a threat to national security taken in its broadest sense. Thus people with all by minor criminal convictions are generally excluded. Those who threaten violence are also excluded. Mr Irving does not pose a threat to national security. Nor is he likely to incite violence. It is true he has criminal convictions, but they are convictions for offences related to the attempted propagation of his silly views. There are no directly comparable offences in Australia. In Australia, people are entitled to spout whatever rubbish they want.
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The Kingston Foreshore Development Authority and the National Capital Authority appear to have grasped the fundamentals of the ACT leasehold system. In the area likely to be rejuvenated as a consequence of the Kingston-Acton land swap there are several leases. On one there is an office block. The lease purpose clause is for purposes ancillary to the running of a ferry service on the lake.

Both authorities appear to have decided not to allow any speculative buying in the area. They have recommended that if the lease cannot be used for its present purpose that the purpose not be changed, but rather that the lease be resumed. An earlier “”sale” of the lease which was subject to authorities granting a change of purpose has, as a consequence, fallen through. When the lease is resumed the present lessee will be paid compensation for the value of buildings and perhaps for the value of the unexpired part of the lease.

It is clearly desirable that redevelopment at Kingston start with clean slate. The two authorities have rightly prevented any attempt for people to buy leases in the area with their present rather restrictive lease purposes in the hope that they might be changed later when they would become very much more valuable in the midst of a redeveloped precinct. Rather, the plan seems to be to have a design competition, then a plan and then for the auctioning of leases with lease purposes consistent with the plan.
Continue reading “1996_09_september_leader16sep leases”

The overturning of the election of Jackie Kelly in the electorate of Lindsay on March 2 is to be over-turned reveals a defect in the Australian Constitution. Disqualification from standing as an MP of people who hold “”an office of profit under the Crown” and those who have not taken active steps to renounce non-Australian citizenship is not warranted, particularly in these days of a large public sector and multi-culturalism. Provided a person resigns his or her public-sector job upon being elected, there should be no problem. Provided a person is an Australian citizen on election day and has not taken up the citizenship of another country after becoming an Australian citizen, there should be no problem. The present requirement that a person renounce other citizenships is technical and irrelevant. The taking up of Australian citizenship of itself should be recognised as a pledge of primary loyalty to Australia and no further step should be required.

The present requirements are couched in out-dated language and have given rise to uncertainty and unacceptable technicality. It is absurd in Ms Kelly’s case that she be deemed ineligible to remain in Parliament because she was an officer in the Australian air force at the time of nomination and had failed to actively renounce her New Zealand citizenship beyond taking out Australian citizenship which she had done.

Section 44(4) of the Constitution says: “”Any person who …
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Yesterday’s 8.8 per cent unemployment figure follows a trend of increasing unemployment which began late last year.

The figures have produced the usual round of political blame throwing. However, the greater share of the blame … insofar as blame can be placed in a domestic political quarter … must lie with the Labor Party. And if the trend continues the Labor Party must continue to wear the blame. This is because it has refused to allow through the Senate several reforms that the Coalition Government asserts are critical to turning around high unemployment … particularly youth unemployment.

The Coalition asserts that it expects small business to be the engine of employment. The most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures … 1994-95 … show that in recent times this has not been the case. Large and medium businesses have been employing more people. This fact does not put the lie to the Coalition’s case, rather it strengthens it. It means that under the conditions that prevailed in 1994-95 small business could not get its head above water to employ people in the numbers it would like. If conditions change, small business might be able to employ more people. Indeed, business in general might be able to employ more people.

However, while reform to industrial relations is held up in the Senate and while cuts to public spending are denied, employment … according to the Coalition … will be affected. It puts the Opposition in a bind: it must either test the Coalition’s assertion by allowing it to implement its mandate or wear the opprobrium for laying down anti-employment conditions in government and blocking their reversal in Opposition.

The Independent Member for the Queensland seat of Oxley, Pauline Hanson, made a very worthwhile contribution in her maiden speech in Parliament this week.

She told the Parliament, “”I believe we are in danger of being of being swamped by Asians. They have their own culture and religion, form ghettos and do not assimilate.” She called for the immediate end to all foreign aid and said that Aborigines were not disadvantaged; to the contrary they were advantaged over other Australians because dome benefits like low-interest housing loans were available to them.

And why is this a worthwhile contribution? Because it will put the lie to the nonsense that somehow there is a “”politically correct” movement in Australia that is capable of stifling debate and silencing those who disagree with the “”politically correct line”.
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