Month: April 1999

The ACT Government is moving to make clubs contribute more to charity and sport. About time, too. The clubs, which for so long with hand on heart have said they exist for the community good, should have nothing to be concerned about. They are going to be required by law to contribute 5 per cent of their poker machine profits for charity and sport. One would have thought that all clubs were doing that much at least. After all, they are getting tax-free status for their poker machine revenues and for a lot of their trading activities and they have a monopoly on poker machines in the ACT. One would have thought this legislation would have been unnecessary.

Alas, no. The legislation is necessary because over the years poker machines have had a pernicious influence on many clubs in the ACT. The clubs have grown fat on cash that flows from the machines. Many clubs lost a lot of their community spirit. Many lost their raison d’etre, opening their doors to all and sundry, charging only nominal memberships fees and for all intents and purposes being little more than businesses with an unfair tax advantage over hotels. Some have a “”membership” base so huge that they could not possibly have any community of interest (other than perhaps they are human).

Nearly $1 billion a year is poured through poker machines in the ACT every year. So you would think that sport and charity would be doing well. Not a bit of it. For quite some time people suspected this. Last year it was proved. The Commissioner for ACT Revenue issued a report following a requirement a year earlier that clubs give details of their sporting and charitable gifts.

That report made it quite plain that the clubs were giving a false impression to the community. The impression they sought to give was one of abundant charity. The fact was parsimony. Out of the $950 million that went through poker machines only $2.2 million ( 0.23 per cent) went to sport and charity, plus some more in kind. Winners were paid about 85 per cent of what went through the machines and tax and overheads took some more, leaving $86.8 million in profit. Only 11 per cent of that ($9.2 million) left club doors to the world outside and was submitted in the returns to the commissioner under the new provisions of the Gaming Machine Act as “”contributions donated to a charitable organisation; for a charitable purpose; or for an organisation declared . . . as [being for] the benefit of the community”.
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Virtually every Anzac Day is marked with some minor or major controversy that threatens to impinge upon the dignity of the day. There have been controversies in past years over whether a rugby game between Australia and New Zealand could use the name Anzac Test, over whether the march belonged to the Returned and Services League or the people as women sought to join the march to protest against rape in war, over whether Anzac biscuits were an unwelcome commercialisation, whether youngsters can wear their parents’ medals in the march, and this year over whether a public holiday should be declared on the Monday if Anzac Day falls on a Sunday and the boycott of Serbian veterans in light of events in Kosovo. On each occasion various ex-service organisations put their view, quite rightly, in a way directed at ensuring the day remains sacred. However, each year the Anzac spirit transcends whatever ephemeral controversy is afoot. The meaning of Anzac Day is too profound and too enduring to be affected.

Indeed, it seems that in the past decade, at the very time we are seeing the last original Anzacs pass away, numbers at Anzac services are increasing, especially among the young. Interest is increasing in Australia’s wartime history, particularly the events of 1915 that did so much to shape the nation.
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The Australian Democrats GST plan has some superficial appeal. The Democrats say that fresh, healthy food would be GST-free while restaurant, takeaway and junk food would be taxed.

Basic groceries such as fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, bread and cooking ingredients would be exempt, but restaurant and takeaway food as well as soft-drink, icecreams, confectionery, bakery products except bread, and prepared meals served hot or warm would be taxed. This is the Irish option. The two other options were the British option where all but restaurants and takeaway food is exempt and the Dutch option where all food including restaurant and takeaway is exempt.

The Irish model exempts the least amount of food, but would reduce the need for compensation because it made up 83 per cent of low-income earners grocery bill.
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The sentencing of euthanasia proponent Jack Kevorkian last week to 10 to 25 years in jail for the “mercy-killing” of a terminally ill patient last September, can inform the euthanasia debate in Australia. For nine years, Dr Kevorkian has defied the legal system of his home state of Michigan by aiding in the deaths of about 130 disabled and terminally ill people. Dr Kevorkian is clearly on the extreme edge of the debate. Last November, he broadcast on national television a videotape of what he called his mercy-killing of Thomas Youk, a 52-year-old Detroit man who had Lou Gehrig’s disease, a fatal muscle disorder. Dr Kevorkian dared prosecutors to charge him. And they did. That resulted in his trial and conviction and last week’s sentencing.

The trouble with Dr Kevorkian’s position is that he strayed from advocating a change in the law to actually breaking that law. Opinion polls vary in Australia, but there is a substantial body of opinion, perhaps a majority, that would also like to see a change in the law so that terminally ill people can avoid pain and bring forward their death so they can die in dignity after saying goodbye to friends and relatives before their condition has deteriorated beyond the possibility of communication. In Australia, the Northern Territory changed the law for that to happen within a framework of a lot of safeguards. That law was later overridden by the federal parliament.
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It would be a tragedy if the Good Friday agreement of a little more than a year ago failed to achieve lasting peace in Northern Ireland. There is a danger now that the agreement will not be implemented because of a dispute over the decommissioning of IRA weapons. Talks in Belfast this week have come to an impasse.

The central trouble is that the Good Friday agreement specified a date by which all weapons should be decommissed – May 2000 — but did not specify a starting date for decommissioning. Under the agreement Sinn Fein is entitled to take two seats on the Executive of the new multi-party government in Northern Ireland. It wants to take those seats without beginning the decommissioning. The Ulster Unionists, led by First Minister David Trimbole, want to see at least a start of decommissioning before Sinn Fein takes its seats. That puts the British Government in a bind. Before the new Northern Ireland Administration can begin functioning Britain must formally hand over power. It would be disastrous if Britain handed over power to an Executive which did not include Sinn Fein. That would result, presumably, in an almost immediate resumption of violence by the IRA which would spiral with inevitable revenge attacks. But it will be equally disastrous if the failure of the IRA to begin decommissioning is seen to postpone the hand over of power indefinitely.
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ACT Chief Minister Kate Carnell has put a submission to the Remuneration Tribunal that the Chief Minister and other MLAs should not get a pay rise. There is some irony in the submission. Out of all the 17 MLAs she is about the only one who could cut the mustard in the private sector and get more outside the Assembly than she gets inside.

Pay for Assembly Members presents a conundrum. If you pay peanuts you might get monkeys. If you get monkeys, the public does not want to pay them cashews, arguing that they deserve only peanuts. On the other hand, the payment for MLAs and quality of MLAs may not correlate. Good-quality people may have made enough money outside politics not to worry much about pay; their central concerns being public service, power, influence and other non-monetary concerns. Other good-quality people may not be very affluent and still not worry much about pay, regarding the rewards of public service enough – a good example of that is Sir William Deane, who upon being made Governor-General insisted on a pay reduction for the office. Adding to the difficulty is the possibility that if you make the pay rate higher it will attract people for the sake of the money not for the sake of doing a good job.
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The very foolish decision of the ACT Legislative Assembly not to permit the privatisation of the electricity retailing business of Actew appears to now be leading to further folly. The ACT Government, with one hard tied behind its back, is now negotiating a merger with Great Southern Energy which has about 240,000 customers in south-eastern NSW. Great Southern Energy is fully owned by the NSW Government. That Government, albeit a Labor one, is in the same boat as the ACT Government in that it, too, has been denied the chance to privatise, though in its case via party machination rather than legislative prohibition. Now both Governments are stuck with the grim prospect of entering a competitive electricity retailing market in the new financial year encumbered with the fetters of public ownership.

In the circumstances seeking a merger is about the best option available to the ACT Government, but the end result will be that the ACT Government will be part owner of a corporation distributing electricity in NSW. Surely, ACT taxpayers should not be involved in the business of interstate electricity distribution. And the question must be asked whether the ACT Government should be involved in retailing electricity in the ACT. Gone are the days when only government could undertake large scale distribution of utility products like telecommunications, electricity, gas and water. The private sector can do it better and pass on the fruits of competition to consumers.

Gas, which is similar to electricity, is distributed and retailed in the ACT by the private sector very efficiently.
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The NSW Premier, Bob Carr, wants to kill off the factions in the Labor Party. Fresh from his election win he has announced a desire for the Labor Party in NSW to be more like the Labour Party in Britain where Tony Blair reinvigorated the party, leading it into government.

Mr Carr said he wanted to end branch-stacking, recruit new people, and change the ethos of the party to make its programs relevant to people who’ve never belonged to a trade union.

Mr Carr’s “”New Labor” would extend the base of traditional Labor – union members – with economic policies that allowed small business to prosper without radical changes to State industrial relations laws.

The idea makes good politics. The major party that captures the middle ground invariably wins government – Menzies and Wran are good examples. John Howard’s first campaign is also an example. A major party that gets too stepped in ideology or divided by ideological or faction brawls often loses – John Hewson in 1993 and pre-Whitlam Labor are good examples.
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Many in the west were quite unnerved by the sight of Russian President Boris Yeltsin blustering about the NATO bombing in Yugoslavia. “”I’ve told the NATO people, the Americans, the Germans: “Don’t push us into military action. Otherwise there would certainly be a European, and perhaps a world war.”

But Mr Yeltsin’s statement must be put into context. He is facing impeachment by the Russian Parliament. And just a US foreign policy was influenced by an impeachment against the US President, so is Russian foreign policy. It is a fairly standard ploy for a politician in trouble at home to invent or exaggerate some external threat. In the case of Mr Yeltsin, though, it will not work. The man who stepped on to a tank unarmed in 1991 to announce the end of the Soviet Union and communism to almost universal acclaim is eight years later almost universally detested. Faced with his obvious unpopularity, the critical members of Parliament responsible for the impeachment process will not be swayed by Mr Yeltsin’s empty threats, to the contrary.

One critical count of the five-count impeachment hearing which begins this week is that he launched the 1994-96 war in Chechnya. This is the count that the democratic opposition Yabloko faction supports. Mr Yeltsin can hardly expect to change their minds with talk of engaging in another war, this time over Serbia.
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The Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett is partly right. A new official residence should be built for the Prime Minister in Canberra. But he is wrong to suggest that an official residence need be built for the Prime Minister in Melbourne as well. Perth, Adelaide, Brisbane and Hobart will join the queue.

The present lodge is “”dingy dark and out-of-date” according to Chief Minister Kate Carnell. Indeed a place fitting such a description seems ideally suited to be a residence for the Treasurer – a working residence close to Parliament House, very suited to the long haul of the Budget process. And the Treasurer should have a residence in Canberra.

The Prime Minister, on the other hand, should have a residence on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin with appropriate offices and where he or she could entertain international and national visitors.
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