Month: October 1996

New Zealanders go to the polls in a little over a week’s time. It will be the first election under a new electoral system. In the past New Zealand has used the British system of simple-majority, single-member electorates. Voters put a cross against one candidate and the candidate with the most votes won the seats. The party with the most seats won government. It had the virtues of simplicity and stability. It was stable because it is usual for the two major parties to win all but one or two seats and for one of them to have a clear majority. Further, as New Zealand has no upper house, it has meant that governments invariably could run a full term.

But it also meant that there were few checks to Executive power. Governments could get Parliament to rubber-stamp any legislation they wanted. It resulted in widespread, sudden and major reforms: wholesale privatisation and deregulation and sweeping industrial-relations changes. For some it provided opportunity and made things more efficient and vibrant. For others it made the world less certain, cut their pay and cut government services that they had relied upon.

It made New Zealanders think that the winner-take-all electoral system required reform. They thought that a system in which, typically, a political party with 40 per cent of the vote got 55 to 60 per cent of the seats and total control of government was not such a good thing. They thought it unfair that minor parties, especially those opposed to some of the radical reforms put forward by Labour and the Nationals, got a significant amount of the votes, but very few, if any, seats.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_leader03oct nzpoll”

The Federal Government has decided against a full-scale public inquiry into media ownership in Australia. Instead it will conduct an internal departmental inquiry based on written submissions. Some will argue that this is a breach of an election promise, but the extent and nature of the inquiry was never fully articulated.

There is not a lot of advantage in a public inquiry into media ownership, or indeed any significant policy issue in Australia. Public inquiries, with their courtroom-style of witnesses and cross-examination, may be suitable for investigating malfeasance of one sort or another, but the process is too cumbersome for policy matters. Worse, this sort of process almost inevitably becomes adversary and tends to turn into examination of past conduct of individuals, rather than genuine inquiry of what should happen in the future. The previous parliamentary public inquiry into media ownership did precisely this. It was as if Kerry Packer, Conrad Black and Bob Hawke were on trial. The public, oral process tends to invite grandstanding and posturing.

The proposed process of written submissions gives ample opportunity for with a genuine interest in broadcasting law to put their views. It will also allow for the inquiry itself to see further clarification from those who put in written submissions.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_leader03oct media inquiry”

There were further signs this week that the regime in Jakarta simply does not understand the nature of legitimate political opposition. It pretends to be moving to greater democracy, but it is moving away from it. General Syarwan Hamid, the armed forces’ head of social and political affairs, has warned that opposition figure Megawati Sukarnoputri to stop making trouble, abandon attempts to run in next year’s election and regroup the following year.

“”She should not make trouble all the time, like opening a new party headquarters and then suing the government for closing it and so forth. It’s outrageous,” General Hamid said. General Hamid in effect speaks for the Suharto regime.

Local government authorities last week closed down the headquarters, saying it contravened planning laws and yesterday Megawati lodged a legal challenge to the closure. Earlier this year the Suharto regime engineered her ousting from the chair of the Indonesian Democratic Party.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_leader03oct indonesia”

The NSW Government has decided it will be an offence for a taxi driver to carry a baby without a baby capsule or a baby seat. The driver can be fined $103. Under the regulation taxi drivers will not be required to provide the capsule.

The question is whether the ACT should follow the NSW lead. The NSW regulation does not appear to have been thought through. Of course, it is safer for a baby to be restrained in a motor vehicle. That being the case, it makes sense to require babies in private vehicles to be restrained, because typically, these are driven by the parents of the child who could be expected to fit their cars with the capsules. Forcing such an arrangement means that babies will be restrained most of the time.

But taxi rides are different. Typically, they are one-off events, often not predicted. They are not parents’ usual mode of transport.

Like all safety regulations, there is a question of balance of convenience. Cars could be restricted to 5km/h will all passengers in full harness seat belts and crash helmets in order to reduce the road toll, but the cost would be too high. In the case of requiring baby capsules in taxis, it means, in effect, that parents with babies will not be able to travel in taxis. They will have to travel on buses … in which there are no restraints, or to walk, which is even more dangerous. The regulators think the choice is between a capsuled ride or a non-capsuled ride. Not so. The real effect will be to lock parents and their babies out of taxis which will be more inconvenient and unsafe than leaving things as they are.

The record of taxis in the ACT is very good. The balance of convenience suggests that the extension of the capsule requirement to taxis is unwarranted.

Now that the Taliban militia have taken the Afghan capital Kabul and are in control of virtually the whole country, many will hope that a semblance of peace will return to Afghanistan. But their hopes are likely top be premature.

The Afghan people have suffered two decades of continuous war. The nation has long been a pawn in great power plays between Europe and Asia, and little has changed. The success of the take-over by the Taliban was largely due to outside influence. In this instance Pakistani help for the Taliban and a blind eye turned by the US because it saw the previous Afghan government as getting support from the dreaded Iran, largely turned the balance of power.

Afghanistan has long been the pawn in what Kipling called the Great Game. Invaded by Mongols in medieval times and then a battleground of 19th century rivalry between Britain and Russia, this century saw it as a testing ground for the Cold War rivalry between the Soviet Union and the US. In 1979 it was invaded by the Soviet Union and ruled by a puppet communist government for 10 years which faced strong internal resistance from the Mudijhadeen. When the Soviet Union fell the Mudijhadeen fought furiously among themselves, much to the consternation of several of Afghanistan’s neighbours, especially Pakistan, which sought and end to the drugs and arms runners through the country so that trade routes could be secured.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_leader02oct afghan”

Momentum is gathering for a national tax summit of all the major political parties with all options on the table. It is not before time. The Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, made the call at the weekend. He was supported by the leader of the Australian Democrats, Cheryl Kernot. The moves from leading politicians come after leading community groups, notably the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Council of Social Service set up their own tax conference, to begin later this week, out of sheer frustration at the lack of political will to do anything to reform the tax system. That lack of will is the direct result of the Coalition’s loss of the 1993 election after it proposed a goods and services tax. The political myth is now that any party that proposes such a tax is suicidal. However, there was more to the 1993 election than the GST.

The extra-political meeting this week should go some way to dispelling the some of the fear politicians have of discussing tax. It might also help the electorate understand that government services do not come without tax and that the way tax is levied (as distinct from the ultimate size of the tax grab) is very important because it affects the efficiency of the whole economy.

There are some serious defects in the Australian tax system which need urgent review.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_leader01oct tax”

The Federal Government decided this week to support the reopening of the High Court’s controversial Theophanous freedom-of-political-communication case. This has caused outrage, or at least concern, by various freedom-of-speech advocates.

Incidentally, we do not know what approach the Government might take in court because the Federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, has exercised his freedom of speech not to say anything. We will have to wait till the case opens next year.

The Theophanous case arose when Bruce Ruxton wrote a stinging letter to the editor of the Melbourne Herald Sun about Federal Labor MP Andrew Theophanous. He saw Theophanous’s role on a parliamentary immigration committee as part of some ethnic push to undermine (white, Anglo) Australian values. Theophanous’s lawyers extracted the usual exaggerated lawyer-type imputations from the letter that Theophanous misused his position on the committee, did not conduct himself properly as a parliamentarian etc etc and sued, presumably hoping for substantial damages.

Normally state defamation law would deal with the issue. Under that law the publisher has to prove the truth of what was published. It sounds easy, but with our laws of evidence it is very difficult and very expensive. It is easier to stay silent.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_freespeech forum”

The Federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, clarified the Federal Government’s position last week on freedom of speech. He implied that people had jumped to conclusions on the announcement that the Federal Government supported the reconsidering of the freedom-of-speech issue by the High Court.

The two freedom-of-speech judges, Mason and Deane, have left the court so there may no longer be a majority on the court to support the Theophanous case which said there was an implied right of freedom of speech in the Constitution.

Mr Williams said that while the Government wanted to revisit the case, it had not decided on what side to come down.

That is a good start. Of course, it might be better for the court to reverse its finding so people could realise that there is no right to freedom of speech and we need a referendum for a constitutional change to ensure it.
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The Northern Territory euthanasia laws have been open to Federal Government veto since they were passed and there has been no need for separate legislation or a private member’s Bill to override it.

The Northern Territory Self-Government Act makes a provision for the Governor-General (which means the federal government or the federal minister for territories) to veto any law of the Northern Territory within six months of it coming into effect.

It could have vetoed the first Bill in 1995; or the subsequent amendments in February this year which were necessary to make it effective could have been vetoed; or it could veto right now the regulations, also needed to make it effective, which were assented to by the Northern Territory Administrator on June 28, and came into force on July 1.

Prime Minister John Howard says it is a conscience issue, and that for him conscience is more important than territory-states rights so that when it comes to the private member’s Bill to override the Northern Territory law he will vote in favour. Apparently, though, that conscience will not run to using his undoubted power to override the law by executive action without the need for an Act of Parliament which has the drawback (from the anti-euthanasia point of view) of requiring Senate approval, which many observers think unlikely.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_euthanasia nt law”

The Government of former Prime Minister Paul Keating made it clear just before the election that it would have blocked any attempt in the Federal Parliament to override the Northern Territory’s euthanasia law.

According to a document made available yesterday, the Keating Government’s position was opposed to any intervention.

A letter from Mr Keating’s office in February said, “”The Commonwealth Government believes that the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act 1995 is a valid law of the Northern Territory and that it is up to the people of the Northern Territory to express their views on that legislation, rather than the Commonwealth.”

This is contrary to the position of the Beazley-led Labor Opposition which makes it a conscience issue and a free vote.
Continue reading “1996_10_october_euthanasia and keathing”