Month: February 1999

Who better to judge the TED competition than Legislative Assmebly Member and Deputy Opposition Leader TED Quinlan?

Mr Quinlan is also an amateur cartoonist, having published in Public Eye newspaper.

His selections are as follows:

Open

Winner:

“Bus”ted. Beverlee Rhys, of Holt.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_teds”

This week Queensland stole the Sandown car races from Victoria. That was another small skirmish in competitive federalism. But there is a bigger picture that will affect us more profoundly, and signs of that also came this week with the annual Report on Government Services.

A few sporting events don’t matter much, even if the state dogs are sniffing around our territorial futsal competition (as they were this week), or even around Floriade.

Queensland gloated over Sandown. Hitherto, Victoria’s Jeff Kennett was the highwayman of state Premiers, kidnapping various sporting and cultural events from other states.

Before that Queensland was the leader in beating the other states as a low-tax state to attract people and industry, first abolishing death duties and more recently cutting stamp duties on share transactions.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_state fed rels”

THE Leader of the Democrats, Meg Lees,has presented a fairly cogent argument that the House or Representatives, rather than the Senate, is unrepresentative.

She has responded to assertions by the Coalition that the Senate is unrepresentative and obstructionist and that its electoral system should be changed. Earlier this month, the Coalition’s Senator Helen Coonan argued that you should only win a Senate seat if you or you party got a set quota of first preference votes, perhaps as much as 14 per cent. That would wipe out many minor-party senators, strengthening the hand of the Executive Government.

Senator Lees chose the same forum as Senator Coonan, an address to the Sydney Institute, which she gave last night.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_senate voting system”

Liberal Senator Helen Coonan has called on the Labor Party to support changes to the Senate voting system to reduce the power of minor parties.

Senator Coonan, of NSW, said that proportional representation introduced in 1948 combined with the increase in the size of the Senate in 1984 combined with an habitually opposing Opposition had resulted in too much power for minor parties in the Senate.

The Democrats had shifted their emphasis from “”keeping the bastards honest”, to laying claim to be the “”legislative powerhouse” of the Parliament.

The minor parties and independents had become “”an obstructional competitor in the government of the country, frustrating or at least substantially delaying urgently required responses to national problems”. Continue reading “1999_02_february_senate fix”

Senator Helen Coonan has isolated the problem; but her solution misses the point.

Senator Coonan, the deputy government whip in the Senate, put forward last week a very thoughtful speech about the minor parties having too much power in the Senate. She is right. They do have too much power. As it happens, the Howard Government’s experience is the first to reveal the severe constitutional problems of the present arrangements. Proportional representation in 1948 gave minor parties the first chance to get representation in the Senate. And a good thing too. As Coonan recognised they have a legitimate role. In 1984 the size of the Senate was increased, as the Constitution requires, to accommodate an increase in the size of the House of Representatives. Since then there have been 12 senators per state, requiring a quota of 14.3 per cent of the vote (after preferences have been distributed)_ to get a seat. In practice, some candidates with fewer than 8 per cent of the primary vote have got seats.

Since 1984 minor parties and independents have always held the balance of power and under present arrangements they always will. From 1984 to 1996 the minor parties, dominated by the Democrats and Greens had a philosophical affinity with Labor, so the Labor Government was not fundamentally frustrated by them. Even so, Labor screamed about the slightest amendment to its will. Prime Minister Paul Keating described the Senate as unrepresentative swill, when he didn’t get his way. The Howard Government has had a rougher trot. Although numerically nearly all its Bills have got through unscathed, big ticket items have been knocked back, at it is the big-ticket items that count.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_senate fix”

Democrat leader Senator Meg Lees has called for a new electoral system for the House of Representatives.

She says the present system disenfranchises up to 25 per cent of voters who vote for minor parties.

Senator Lees wants 15 to 20 per cent of seats reserved as a top up to the other constituency seats. She has proposed a formula similar to that proposed by the Jenkins Royal Commission in Britain.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_reps change”

Crime rates in the ACT are falling.

Yes, that’s right, falling.

Yet police and politicians, who have a strong interest in making us feel that crime is a problem, are painting a different picture.

And it is a shame because despite the falling crime rate, fewer people are feeling safe in their homes, on the street and on public transport.

And they talk about the media creating false impressions and stereotypes.

With road deaths, though, the picture is exactly the opposite (more of that anon).
Continue reading “1999_02_february_police stats”

Usually, Budgets are all-or-nothing affairs. The trouble is that defeat of a Budget means the Government must resign. This is troubling in a polity of perpetual minority government.

Independent Paul Osborne objects to being a rubber stamp when it comes to the Budget. Because the Budget pervades so much of Government he argues that he should be able to have some input into the Budget without bringing down the Government.

Fine, but the Government has to carry the ultimate responsibility for the Budget, and wears blame in the electorate, both short-term and long-term. So minority government should not degenerate to the farce of the Opposition and minor parties being able to put up pet projects or to object to new revenue measures while the Government has to deal with the deficit which might result in later severe corrective measures.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader16feb act budget”

Oh dear, the Federal Minister for Tourism, Jackie Kelly, has upset the ACT Chief Minister, Kate Carnell, because the Australian Tourism Commission omitted any scene of Canberra in 40 30-second television advertisements to be shown overseas to attract tourists.

And ACT Opposition tourism spokesman Wayne Berry has called it a disgrace, demanding to know, “”Why didn’t Kate Carnell check with her federal colleague to ensure that the ACT featured?”

The answer to Mr Berry’s question is easy: because the chief minister has got better things to do.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader11feb tourism ad”

Planning and land use is difficult, but there is no need to degenerate to vox pop, as seems to be proposed by Urban Services Minister Brendan Smyth.

The Department has engaged a consultant to ask individual residents in 11 sections in the inner north what their long-range plans are. The theory is that a plan can emerge that will permit or prohibit development according to the answers received. Labor’s planning spokesman Simon Corbell welcomed the idea saying it would help bring certainty to residents.

The scheme’s approach is flawed. There is no subsitute for expert planning. Often people do not know what they want. Or they change their minds quite quickly as events unfold.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader11feb planning”