Month: May 1998

The facts have got in the way of a good story again.

I was going to write about the outrage of the ACT charging aged pensioners more for third party insurance and registration than any other state or territory. The question arose during the week when a woman who moved from Victoria was hit for $502.50 compared to the charge in Victoria of $151.25. Victoria has the lowest charge for pensioners.

I was going to write that the aged pensioners should get much bigger discounts because they only drive to church on Sunday and are not responsible for all the death and mayhem on the road caused by younger drivers.

The argument for discounting insurance for the aged is that they are much more careful drivers. They drive more slowly. The leave greater space between the car in front. And so on. These habits, it is argued, more than compensate for any problem with reduced reaction time, poor eyesight and less neck mobility.

Alas, statistics and analyses provided by the Federal Office of Road Safety, the NRMA, the NSW Road Traffic Authority and Monash University Accident Research Centre paint a different picture.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_oldies prangs”

The ACT Liberals introduced legislation this week for citizens’ initiated referendums. It is the fourth time they have done so, but this time it stands some chance of success. Under the latest proposal put by Justice Minister Gary Humphries a group that wanted to force a referendum on a particular issue would need to first get the support (by signature on a petition subject to audit) of 5 per cent of electors, or about 10,000 people. A referendum could not be held till at least six months after an idea had been initiated, and referendums would generally be held with Assembly elections.

Independent Paul Osborne has opposed the introduction of citizens’ initiated referendums in the past, but he said he was considering supporting the Bill this time, subject to some changes, including a higher threshold of support before a referendum would be called. His offsider, Dave Rugendyke, said he was still considering the issue. The Government would still need the support of former Liberal Trevor Kaine to get the Bill through, presuming Labor, Independent Michael Moore and the Greens Kerrie Tucker oppose it.

Under the proposal ideas would have to be vetted and crafted into reasonable legislative form. Bill requiring extra money would not be allowed.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader30may cir”

The body politic of Australia is showing signs of destructive immaturity over taxation reform. The past week of shadow-boxing over the goods and services tax has been quite childish. Much of it is due to a misreading of the history of the 1993 election. In that election, the Coalition, under the leadership of John Hewson, presented Fightback, a detailed program of radical change to the Australian economy and the role of the Government in society. Part of the program was a proposal for a GST to replace the wholesale sales tax and to fund reductions in income tax and company tax. The program was launched 18 months before the election and initially received a fairly favourable response. The Labor Government, then under Bob Hawke, seemed to lose the initiative and fell well behind in the opinion polls. The Government was disliked because it was seen to be pandering to special interest groups and ignoring mainstream Australia which was suffering due to the influences of globalisation. The Government was headed for defeat. Then Labor changed leaders and the new leader Paul Keating attacked Fightback and the GST with great success and won the election. The Coalition lost the unlosable election.

Those events have profoundly affected the next half decade of Australian politics and will affect them for some time to come. Since then, political parties have been very wary of putting forward detailed reform proposals too far in advance of an election. Last election, the Coalition put very few detailed proposals up at all. It relied on a negative campaign against what it saw as Mr Keating’s arrogance. This election it has put the GST back on the agenda, but is refusing to give details even though an election is likely in the next few months or in the next nine months in any event.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader29may gst”

One of the prices to pay for democracy and liberty is that the voice of prejudice and ill-reason has to be heard. With the price tag comes the price that extremists, the ignorant and the prejudiced are entitled to stand for election. Those voices should not be silenced by force of law or any other force. Tolerance and freedom also means tolerating those whose views we detest. Thus Pauline Hanson and her One Nation acolytes have every right to speak and stand for federal and state parliaments.

But there is a corollary to this. There is a moral duty on true democrats to try dispel ignorance and prejudice and to fight extremism. There is a duty not to give aid nor succour to these views.

The Liberal and National Parties in Queensland have failed in this duty by giving the One Nation Party preferences over the Labor Party for 88 of the 89 seats in next month’s Queensland election. One Nation espouses a view that Aboriginal Australians get too much from the state and are therefore privileged when it is quite apparent that Aboriginal Australians are on average worse off than other Australians on virtually every social, health or economic indicator known to statistics. One Nation grossly exaggerates the extent of Asian immigration and portrays a view that Australia is being “”swamped” by Asians. These views are of their nature racist and should be rejected.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader28may hanson”

Senator Amanda Vanstone’s politicisation of the Christopher Skase case is unbecoming of a justice minister.

In Parliament on Monday she was handed a Dorothy Dix question inviting to compare the actions of the present government with that of Labor to get Mr Skase back to Australia. She said, “”We have had Skase’s passport both cancelled and returned to Australia. In comparison, under Labor Skase was allowed to leave Australia. They failed in their attempt to extradite him back from Spain. They even renewed his passport while he was living in Spain.”

This is an absurd view of Australia’s system of justice and executive administration. The same sort of even-handed bureaucrats were handling the Skase matters before and after the change of government. Indeed, some of the very same people would have handled the matter through the change of government and beyond, no doubt acting as diligently before the change as after it. No warrant had issued for Mr Skase’s arrest at the time of the passport renewal, so legally the renewal could not be refused. As to getting the passport document returned, so what. Presumably the passport number had been circulated to every computer screen of every immigration department in the world and so the passport was of little use to Mr Skase anyway.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader27may skase”

Despite the resounding 71 per cent approval for the peace plan in Northern Ireland, and 95 per cent approval in the Irish Republic, peace is by no means guaranteed. It remains fragile. The forces against it come from the usual two places: the Irish Republic Army and the extreme Ulster unionists.

An election is to be held on June 25 to elect a 108-member Assembly which will run Northern Ireland’s affairs. The assembly will produce an executive which will work with the British and Irish Governments in matters that go beyond purely Northern Ireland matters.

The giving to the Irish Republic some say in the governance of Northern Ireland has stirred the opposition of some unionists who see Northern Ireland as part of Britain. These unionists, headed by the uncompromising Reverend Ian Paisley are determined to wreck the assembly and any co-operation with the Irish Republic. Given the overall vote of 71 per cent and the fact that 90 per cent of Catholics would have voted Yes, it seems that about 40 to 45 per cent of unionists voted No to the peace plan. With this amount of the vote, enough anti-peace unionists could be elected to the Assembly to wreck its proceedings. The head of the Ulster Unionist Party, David Trimble, who campaigned for a Yes vote, leads a divided camp. He hopes to bring on board those who voted No last Friday. But it may run the other way. Rank and file Ulster Unionist Party members may inadvertently select No voters to stand as candidates. The election will be by proportional representation, so the party will have to be careful with its list. Mr Paisley is from a separate party whose members will all stand as an identifiable ”wreck-the-assembly” block. It may mean, that the wreckers will get more seats in the Assembly than they deserve according to their popular vote.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader26may nire”

The private-health-insurance statistices are becoming a little like the current account deficit figures — a depressing figure month after month. The difference, though, is that the Federal Goverment can do a lot more about health insurance than the current account. It has huge constitutional and fiancial powers over the health system, but month after month the drift from private health continues. The latest figures show that only 31.1 per cent of people covered. It means that less money is coming into the system and fewer people are willing or capable of looking after themselves.

bn intern atetc govt can do something about it.

The Government’s incentive scheme has utterly failed. Even taking the glossy put on it by the health-insurance industry at face value, the subsidies for low-income earners and penalties for high income earners have together kept only 200,000 in private insurance at a cost (according to the Budget) of $500 million a year. For heavens sake, for that money the Government could have pulled a million names out of the phone book and given them private insurance and been 800,000 premiums ahead. It was an indefensible and moronic piece of govenment policy that anyone with a modicum of knowledge about health insurance knew was doomed before it was introduced. That money should be given straight to public hospitals.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader25may health insure”

The wayang kulit, or Indonesian shadow theatre, lasts a long time. The performance can begin at 9pm and go to dawn. One puppeteer can play all night. The plot line is long and intricate. Though the representation of the characters is a two-dimensional shadow, the drama is very much three dimensional. Plays may be set in mythological times but they frequently make reference to contemporary events.

The resignation of President Suharto yesterday should be seen as but a small episode in a wayang kulit. For the past 30 years it has been difficult to distinguish puppeteer from puppet. Was the army running Suharto or was Suharto running the army? Part of the art form of wayang kulit, of course, is illusion. Small puppets, with appropriate lighting, cast very large shadows, which in turn become the reality of the character in the play and later when the lighting changes, the shadow shrinks to nothing.

Mr Suharto at different times changed between the roles of puppet and puppeteer and back again. He may have resigned, but the danger is that either he as puppeteer will continue control behind the scenes or, as is more likely, the real puppeteer, the army and the Golkar party, have just swapped puppets. The danger is that the shadow of Suharto is changed for the shadow of Jusuf Habibie and the show is the same. And indeed, wayang kulit plays the same plot and same themes with little variation again and again.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader22may indon”

Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge has called an early election for June 13. It was not due until February next year. It is possible that he wanted to get it out of the way before the federal election which is due before March next year. Mr Borbidge does not want the Queensland waters muddied with Federal issues. Queensland voters, however, are perfectly capable of separating state and federal issues.

Nonetheless, one of the most significant elements of the election will be a national issue: the performance of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party in its first electoral test. The Liberal Party has disgracefully given One Nation preferences over the Labor Party in some electorates. The National Party leader, Rob Borbidge, has attempted to woo One Nation voters by appealing for their preferences and saying that gun laws would be tighter under Labor than the Nationals. It indicates he has been pandering to the far right. The National Party, especially in Queensland, has more to fear from One Nation than Labor. For a start, One Nation appears to be getting more support from disaffected National voters than disaffected Labor voters — these are people who want to loosest gun laws and the most anti-Aboriginal and anti-multiculturalism stand available. It gets worse for the National Party. Under Queensland’s optional preferential system, voters need not number all the way down the ballot to record a valid vote. They can just put a 1 beside the One Nation candidate and walk away. Such a vote would be one less for the National Party and would help Labor.

One Nation is standing in about 50 of the 89 seats. It optimistically says it can gain 13. It is unlikely to get any, but if it does, the blame can be put on the Coalition for not putting it last on the how-to-vote card. The real test, though, is not whether it gets a seat, but the percentage of vote it attracts. If it gets above 6 per cent average in the seats it stands in, it means it would get a Senate seat easily in a Federal double dissolution, and have an outside chance at a half Senate election. A better result would be to see it without any voice in any Australian Parliament after the Queensland and Federal elections.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader21may qld poll”

It is too early to sigh relief over the announcement by President Suharto that there will be a new election for president and vice-president in Indonesia at which he will not be a candidate. It is too early because the announcement does not come with a timetable. The world will hope that President Suharto’s statement to the nation will be just enough just in time and not too little too late, but the announcement may be treated with justified suspicion that it is an attempt to buy time.

It appears that whereas President Suharto has lost the support of top civilians in the parliament, which elects the president, he has retained the backing of the army. Parliamentary speaker Harmoko said leaders of the four factions in Parliament would meet today to ask for the resignation of Suharto. But hours later Indonesia’s military chief, General Wiranto, indicated that President Suharto, himself a retired general, should stay in power and guide the implementation of political reforms.

The questions to be asked now are: how long will that process take; how large will the reforms be; and will the rioting students and political opposition stay their hand to allow reform to happen peacefully or will they press on with people power and riots in the streets to get more immediate action.
Continue reading “1998_05_may_leader20may suharto”