Month: April 1998

The leader of “”most reformist Government since World War II” faces a grim choice. As he makes it, he must realise that he has squandered, like Malcolm Fraser before him, the best opportunity for reform (from a conservative perspective) for more than two decades.

After the vote in the Senate this week on the Wik Bill, John Howard’s grim choice is whether to have a double dissolution between July 4 and October 24, or whether to have an ordinary election sometime between July 4 and the end of April next year.

The advantage of a double dissolution is that all the legislation rejected twice by the Senate (including Wik) can be submitted to a joint sitting of the House and Senate after the election (presuming Howard wins). The legislation would then pass because any deficit in a usually fairly evenly split Senate would be more than off-set up by the Government’s majority in the House.

If there is an ordinary election, with only half the Senate up for election, there is no joint sitting and the Government is back where it started with the rejected legislation.
Continue reading “1998_04_april_wik and half-senate”

For every Lawyers’ or logicians’ Latin phrase there is a quick English translation.

Logicians talk of the “”post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy. It means “”after this therefore because of this”. Many people in the ACT have fallen into this fallacy. They think that just because standards fell after self-government, the fall of standards was due to self-government. They point to grass not being cut; the misdiagnosis of a footballer; school closures; the resealing of roads with stones; cracks in cycles paths and other manifestations of Canberra falling into a Third World abyss. It only happened since 1989, so it must be because of self-government.

But one did not cause the other. Rather they were both caused by the same thing: a determination by the Federal Government to make the ACT pay its own way. The Federal Government, both its advisers and members, were not only determined that the people of Canberra pay their own way, but that when the cut in funding came, they would also have their very own politicians to blame for it, so they could escape the blame themselves.

This was a Labor Government remember. And a previous Labor Government had lost the seat of Canberra to the Liberals in 1974 because it was seen to mistreat the town. In 1989, with three Labor seats, the Federal Government had to devise a way of escaping the blame. (Though, to be fair, there were some idealistic democrats who thought the people of the city should run their own affairs.)
Continue reading “1998_04_april_pettit inquiry oped”

Michael Moore had a wish list for changes in the structure of ACT self-government. Kate Carnell had a political agenda.

Before the last election both pushed the inquiry. Moore took an active interest in the most critical element of any inquiry — who is going to undertake it. Labor frontbencher Wayne Berry went so far as to say that Moore selected Petit and sounded him out beforehand. Berry’s suggestion goes too far, as the report proves.

Moore did not want a business-person or someone else with a hard economic rationalist approach who would favour small government. He wanted an inquirer who would make recommendations to give cross-benchers a greater role in active government. Petit as a political and social researcher might be expected to be more sympathetic to that, as against a Thatcherite get-on-with-it, small government approach.

Oddly enough, Carnell might have favoured Petit for the same reason. She might be economically dry and socially wet, but she is also aware of public opinion. That opinion, probably wrongly, thought the system of self-government, rather than the people who run it, is a problem and needs reform. Promoting the Petit inquiry was one way of appeasing that opinion. Public opinion aside, she also saw it as a way of undermining the independence of the legislature (read the minors and independents) without giving any of them the real power of a ministry. This was the idea of executive committees — where a quasi-executive turns a blind eye rather than keeps a weather eye on the executive.
Continue reading “1998_04_april_petit report forum”

Agatha Christie and the later film-makers in her mould have mis-educated their audience. Most of us think that murder is a planned and intentional killing, often for money or passion.

We think of elaborate plots to kill and hide the evidence and we think of innocent victims.

This view of murder is misguided on two counts. The first is that the law’s definition is much wider than that. It also catches people who kill who do not intend to kill their victims. These are people who cause death while committing serious crimes (the gun goes off accidentally); who only intend to injure but end up killing (pub brawling); or who are reckless as to whether someone might die (slashing about with a sword, or driving through a police roadblock).

Most people convicted of murder do not intend to kill their victim.

On this level the Agatha Christie stereotype of murder can be quickly overcome. You can quickly re-educate, say, a Year 12 student so they understand that murder is not only about intentional killing, but also about reckless killing or death caused while only intending to injure. It is easy to expunge the stereotype because the law is in fact framed that way and there are easy examples to illustrate the justice of a murder conviction of, say, someone who kills a cop while running a roadblock.
Continue reading “1998_04_april_murder osland”

ACT magistrates have kicked up a fuss over the superannuation levy. Before that, all federal judges kicked up a fuss about it and the Government caved in.

The judges argued that the Constitution says federal judges “”shall receive such remuneration as the Parliament may fix; but the remuneration shall not be diminished during continuance in office”.

It means the government has no power to cut their pay. The government agreed that the super levy amounts to a cut in pay. The super levy is 15 per cent of funds going in to a super fund, or an equivalent amount taken from the salary of people, like judges, who do not contribute to a super fund but get a percentage of salary after retirement, rather than some amount based on how much you have put in.

The Constitution prohibits pay cuts for judges because you cannot have the executive government holding a threat over judges because they might lose their independence. They have to be fearless and independent.
Continue reading “1998_04_april_magistrates sep of powers”

The pay-rise decision of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission yesterday is part of an evolving process in industrial relations. The commission still has and should continue to have a role in industrial relations in Australia. But that role should not be to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s of every employment contract in the country. Rather its role is to ensure that there is a minimum level of wages and some minimum conditions which apply throughout Australia. This seems the only practicable way to prevent exploitation of the most vulnerable and poorly paid people in the community.

Yesterday the commission awarded an increase to the minimum wage of $14 for those earning up to $550 a week. There were lesser rises for workers earning above that.

The commission rightly pointed out that this should not have a very large impact on inflation and other elements of the economy because the rise applies only to those workers who have not have an equivalent amount or more through enterprise bargaining. It pointed to the evidence that last year’s minimum-wage, safety-net increase did not have a significant impact on the economy for that reason.

The Government and employers were perhaps ill-advised to have opposed a rise in minimum wages. They have said all along that enterprise bargaining must be the principle method of dealing with industrial relations. They are achieving that quite rapidly, so it should not trouble them greatly if the few remaining in the workforce on low wages get some protection from being left behind.
Continue reading “1998_04_april_leader30apr wage case”

Michael Moore, elected as an Independent at the February election, is to join the Liberal Ministry as Minister for Health. The precise terms of his joining have not been made public, more’s the pity, but its broad outline is that Mr Moore can retain his independence on a stated list of matters, but is part of the Government on others. In his own portfolio area he must implement Cabinet decisions even if he disagrees with them. He forgoes his right to ask questions at Question Time and agrees not to use resignation threats to get his way.

Mr Moore brings to the health ministry a range of skills that are not otherwise available among Liberal ranks. He has had a keen interest in drug-law reform and euthanasia and in pursuing those interests he has picked up a great deal of knowledge and experience on a wide range of health issues, including prevention techniques, epidemiology, palliative care, terminal illness and so on. He should not, of course, use his new position to pursue those two narrow goals. Indeed, they should now go to the back-burner. He is Health Minister for the whole territory, including, it must be said, the public and private hospitals run at Calvary, where there might be a perception of bias flowing from differences over those three issues. But his pursuit of those issues and his related post-graduate studies while an independent have given him a broader knowledge that can help government.

Mr Moore, as an independent in the last three assemblies, has had to cover the whole field and he has also steered legislation and legislative amendments through the Assembly on his own. He will broaden the social and economic viewpoint of the government will be broadened. There was a danger that the Carnell Government, needing only the support of the Osborne independents, might have taken on a narrow agenda both economically and socially that was not especially in tune with broader community views. There is an argument that the electorate supported Kate Carnell personally, as much as the Liberal Party, and her views are more socially liberal than those of most (or all) of her colleagues.
Continue reading “1998_04_april_leader29apr moore”