Month: March 1999

Treasurer Peter Costello, in the tax-purists corner, is shaping up against Primary Industries Minister John Anderson in the use-tax-for-a-purpose corner.

And the good old PAYE taxpayer is likely to cop some unintended hits – as usual.

Last week’s Ralph report on business tax suggested that company tax be cut from 36 per cent to 30 per cent but in return business would lose the benefit of accelerated depreciation.

In theory this would about balance out.
Continue reading “1999_03_march_tax oped”

The following is a potted history of government in the ACT.

1890s: Constitutional conventions compromise on a separate capital in a federal territory within NSW but greater than 100 miles (160km) from Sydney.

1900: Constitution of Australia Act passes the British Parliament. Section 125 says the federal territory shall be greater than 100 square miles and shall be “”vested in the Commonwealth”. Section 120 gives the Commonwealth parliament power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of territories.

1911: Seat of Government Act creates the territory. All existing NSW law is brought over as at that date. New law is created by Ordinances approved by the Minister for Territories with the formal stamp of the Governor-General.
Continue reading “1999_03_march_self-govt chono”

Today is the 10th anniversary of self-government.

It is also 22 years and three months since an ACT referendum on self-government voted 63.5 per cent No; 31.1 per cent Yes and 5.4 per cent for local government. (There was a very low 1.6 per cent informal vote.)

Many people still cling to that result. Surely it is a stale result now. No-one under 40 would have voted in it. About 100,000 people have come to the ACT since then.

I have been a proponent of self-government since the issue became alive in the mid-1970s. Of course, the practice has not been as good as the theory. Those exercising self-government have not been paragons of fiscal competence or social rectitude. Maybe I am in the position of Rumpole faced with a fawning Indian law clerk praising the fact that under British rule the trains ran on time but now there was chaos. Rumpole replied: “”At least they are your trains.”
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Four major attempts have been made by Federal Governments to change the constitutional base of industrial relations in Australia. All failed, mainly because they were pursued through referendum.

This week Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith proposed another major attempt. His attempt is more likely to be successful because it does not involve a referendum to change the Commonwealth’s power. Rather it goes down the path of so much expansion of Commonwealth power – artful legislation that pushes the envelope of the heads of Commonwealth power listed in the Constitution.

Reith wants to abandon the present structure built up around the industrial-relations power. That section has a sorry history. It says the Parliament has the power to make laws “”with respect to conciliation and arbitration for the prevention and settlement of industrial disputes extending beyond the limits of one state”.

The power was deliberately limited because the colonies would object to federating if the Commonwealth were given complete power over all industrial relations. The Commonwealth was restricted to “”disputes” and only interstate disputes at that.
Continue reading “1999_03_march_reith plan”

Please make sure P1 story by peake points to this and to letters.

Analysis by CRISPIN HULL (just use word byline not pic..ta)

Prime Minister John Howard does not need Senate approval to put his preamble to the people in a referendum.

This is despite huffing and puffing by the Democrats and Opposition saying they will not agree to the draft preamble.

All 42 referendum questions put to the people since federation have in fact been approved by both Houses first, but the Constitution does not require it.

The procedure for a referendum to amend the Constitution is laid out in Section 128 of the Constitution.

It says if a law for a referendum is passed by both Houses then it must go to the people after two months and before six months are up.

However, but if either House passes a law for a referendum and the other House rejects it and the first House passes it again after three months, then the Governor-General “”may” put the question to the people without the approval of the other House. There is no requirement for a double dissolution

When the Constitution uses the words “”the Governor-General may” do something, it usually means that the Governor-General will act on the advice of the Prime Minister. The practical effect is that Mr Howard can put his preamble through the House of Representatives have it rejected by the Senate and put it through the House of Representatives again and then advise the Governor-General to call a referendum.

If, on the other hand, the Senate tries to get up a preamble of its own and the House of Representatives rejects it and the Senate passes it again, the Prime Minister would simply advise the Governor-General against putting the Senate’s question to the people.

Of course, putting a preamble to the people without Senate approval would invite defeat. Or if the Senate cannot agree tot he preamble, it could be an excuse to junk the preamble referendum and possibly the republic referendum with it.

Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith proposed last week a change to the basis of Australian industrial relations law. In doing so he highlighted some of the major drawbacks to the present system. The present system grew up around what was supposed to be a limited constitutional power for the Commonwealth. Industrial relations were to be primarily a state matter except when there were instate disputes. But rather than have the Commonwealth limited to a role where there were genuine interstate disputes, ordinary industrial relations were artificially contrived to have interstate elements and elements of dispute. This was and still is done with by having federal unions and ambit logs of claims. So the ordinary amicable negotiation in a small workplace with no interstate connection could be drawn into the federal net.

This development had several drawbacks. Despite recent changes under both Labor and the Coalition, the drawbacks to the system continue. The present system requires the generation of a dispute to attract the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth. It is an unhealthy start to industrial relations which should be about co-operation in the workplace for the benefit of both employers and employees. The requirement of an interstate element has meant a system of federal unions and awards applying across whole industries. Often the awards are not tuned to local conditions, local productivity or the local economic situation. It has often meant workers miss out. Their enterprise might fail because award conditions cannot be met. On the other hand, a prosperous enterprise will be reluctant to improve employee conditions for fear of disapproval by other employers. Improvements have been made to make the system more enterprise focused, but old ways are dying hard.

Mr Reith has proposed changing the system to base it upon the Commonwealth’s corporations power, rather than the industrial relations power. Under his proposed system the Commonwealth could provide some basic conditions and employment principles that would pertain to all companies and the results of individual bargaining would be added.
Continue reading “1999_03_march_leader29mar ir”

Much might be said about the preamble put forward by the Labor Party, and indeed it might be said about many of the attempts put forward by dozens of Australians in letters to newspapers, in competitions and over talk-back radio, including some of the entries in the competition run by this newspaper in the past month.

The fact that some many attempts score an almost-but-not-quite response indicates how difficult it is for a draft to come from one individual or one perspective. It means, of course, that the Government’s draft will require further input and changes before it will be acceptable by the vast majority of Australians. And the preamble must be accepted by the vast majority of Australians and a reasonable majority in each of the various groups that make up Australian society if it is to be a success. A bare majority in a bare majority of states may well be the requirement for constitutional change, but it would be a sad thing if a new preamble did not get overwhelming majorities in all states. A preamble should unite not divide. And to unite it must distill essences common to all facets of Australian life, not be a concoction of beliefs held by some, even if a majority.

The Government’s draft has captured some critical features of Australian society that are worth expressing — the “”people from many ancestries and arrivals”; the role of immigrants; the vastness of the continent and its influence on the people; honour to the Aboriginal people for ancient and continuing cultures; freedoms of various kinds; and equality before the law.
Continue reading “1999_03_march_leader24mar preamble”

The nearest the ACT gets to a Constitution is the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act passed by the Federal Parliament in 1988 – shades of the Australian Constitution being created by a British Act. Our Act has a prosaic preamble: “”An Act to provide for the Government of the Australian Capital Territory, and for related purposes”.

The only even vaguely purposive clauses in our Act are Section 7 which provides “”The Australian Capital Territory is established as a body politic under the Crown by the name of the Australian Capital Territory” and in Section 22 (1) which says (subject to some reservations) that the Legislative Assembly “”has power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the Territory”.

Last week, Chief Minister Kate Carnell said she would like to see a preamble to the Self-Government Act. The call came in the context of general excitement about having a new preamble to the Australian Constitution and in light of Prime Minister John Howard’s determination to use whatever federal power he can to prevent a heroin trial being conducted in any state or territory. Mrs Carnell apparently believes that a preamble would be a statement of self-determination and sovereignty that would increase the ACT’s legal independence.
Continue reading “1999_03_march_leader07mar act preamble”

After the 1961 election when Prime Minister Robert Menzies was chided by a Cabinet colleague for taking up some Opposition policies, he is reputed to have responded, “”Well, 50 per cent of the people voted for the Labor Party.”

Much the same could be said now if the Government borrowed a critical element of the tax plan that Labor took into the last election – the tax credits system. But the Government should borrow the policy not because 50 per cent of the people voted for Labor, but because it is a good policy.

The tax credit system was a way of dealing with effective marginal tax rates of up to 70 per cent faced by people going from welfare to work. Typically the income earned from work results in rapid reductions in child support, dole and other welfare in addition to the tax on the income earned. These people also have to meet transport and clothing costs of going to work. It is a major disincentive.
Continue reading “1999_03_march_leader05mar tax credits”

Twice in week the defamation laws have been found spectacularly ill-suited to modern politics and the information age.

They are as out-of-place as a bewigged Jacobean in silk breeches and lace-sleeved coat at a corporate tele-conference.

Mind you, I don’t have a great deal of sympathy for Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett because he has thrown around a few defamation action in the past so he knows how fickle the roulette wheel can be. But must it cost $150,000 or more for the system to deal with what should be a straightforward privacy complaint?

Kennett lost his defamation action against The Australian which the day after the Kennetts split up ran a story citing unfounded rumours of extra-marital affairs with two named high-profile women. The women, presumably, have got more brains and guts than Kennett, treating the report with the contempt that such trivia deserves.
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