Month: February 2000

National Party Senator Ron Boswell has taken a courageous stand against Pauline Hanson and One Nation. He has stated that he will put One Nation last on his how-to-vote cards. Senator Boswell, from Queensland, said he would put Labor, the Nationals traditional enemy, before One Nation. The move is not a hollow gesture. It could mean a Labor senator gets in ahead of One Nation.

Six senators, who were elected in 1996, come up for election at the next half-Senate election: 2 Labor, 2 Liberal, 1 National Party and 1 Democrat. At the last half-Senate election in 1998, One Nation got a seat in Queensland on first-preference votes, when the party was riding high. Now it might expect to need some preferences to get across the line, given that its vote has fallen since 1998 based on the Queensland state election and opinion polls.

If all major parties hold fast with a put-One-Nation-last policy, One Nation would likely not get across the line. For example, when that policy pertained in NSW at the last election, One Nation with two-thirds of a quota on first preferences lost out to a Democrat with just half a quota on preferences.
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The Indonesian Ambassador, Arizal Effendi, is concerned that the Australian media is threatening Australia-Indonesia relations. He said, “”If the Press, an influential component in public opinion-making continues to engage in mutual incrimination and stereotyped reporting, the inherent complexities in our relations will deepen rather than ameliorate”. He said that Indonesia would resist lecturing and the trend by some nations (like Australia) to use humaitarian considerations as a justification for intervention in other countries.

This approach suffers from several difficulties. First, it assumes that the media in Australia is a single institution with a single voice. In fact, there are numerous media outlets in Australia with many varying voices, some diametrically opposed on many subjects, including Indonesia. Far from there being a sterotypical view, there are many views. Secondly, the approach assumes that the media represents an official Australian view, whether a government view or a synthesis of public opinion. Not so.

If there is anything stereotypical here it is Mr Effendi assuming that the Australia media is like the Indonesian media – controlled. Mr Effendi said that unless the Australian media toned it down, the two nations could live without each other.

That should be put in the context of the recent statement by Indonesian Foreign Minister Shihab last year that Indonesia would strengthen ties with other countries in the region such as China.
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Prime Minister John Howard is in a difficult position over National Textiles. His brother, Stan, is chairman of the board of directors of the company. Mr Howard explained this week that his brother had briefed him about the company’s difficulties more than a year ago. Stan Howard said that the company might apply for government assistance. The Prime Minister had then contacted the responsible minister and, quite properly, declared his interest and said the matter should be treated on its merits. No assistance was given. So there is no issue on that score.

However, the company has since gone into administration and the Prime Minister was told about that by his brother very shortly beforehand. When the company went into administration it owed its employees several million dollars in leave and other entitlements. That immediately became a political issue. There has been concern over the past several years about the fate of workers’ entitlements when businesses fail. The arguments have split on party lines with Labor supporting the workers and the Coalition on the side of employers. True, Labor in government did nothing to change the law to give workers better protection, but there were no spectacular crashes in its term of office, such as the collapse of the Woodlawn mining company which left 160 workers owed $6.5 million in 1998 and put the Government on notice that something ought to be done.
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It is early days, but it now seems that the White House cannot be bought, or at least not bought as easily as was thought a year ago. George W. Bush, the Governor of Texas and son of former President George Bush who has raised a huge war chest of money to fight his campaign for the White House, has not done well in the first two primaries for the Republican Party nomination. Significantly, he is being challenged by a campaigner for election-funding reform, Senator John McCain.

Senator McCain beat Bush by 19 points in New Hampshire last week. This week Mr Bush beat him fairly easily in Delaware, but Mr McCain did not campaign there. On the other hand, Mr Bush visited the small state five times and was backed by the entire party establishment which organises the primaries. The establishment favoured Mr Bush by having only a few polling booths, shutting out rank and file Republicans.

New Hampshire is notorious for backing challengers to the favourite, but McCain’s victory there has nonetheless shaken up the Republican Party. Many Republicans did not want a repeat of 1996 when early squabbling among potential Republican nominees hurt the overall campaign against Democrat President Bill Clinton. Perhaps, they thought, an early cohesive backing of Mr Bush would prevent that. Many Republican members of Congress and Governors have given formal backing to Bush. And many corporate backers have funded his campaign. They backed him because he had the money and the pedigree, and because he looked like the leading contender. They wanted to back a winner. But slowly they must be feeling they have backed the wrong man. As the campaign progresses, Mr Bush looks more uncomfortable with foreign policy. He also descends into platitudes, slogans and almost gibberish at times. He is fearful of saying anything direct for fear of upsetting voters. As a result he has upset no-one, but he has also inspired no-one.
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It is the best of territories and the worst of territories. We seem to be a place of statistical extremes. That is one of the consequences of being a small, recently created territory with a unique core business: administration.

Usually, the ACT figures well in those statistics that detail things flowing from a high-education base: higher average incomes; lower unemployment; better health; better participation in sport and culture. And we do poorly in the things that smack of a decadent society: high drug-related crime; high suicide rate, single parenthood, high alcohol intake and so on.

It was therefore surprising when the Commonwealth Department of Education placed the ACT last among states and territories for many elements in a survey of computers in schools. What is going wrong? Surely, the ACT is the most highly computer-literate state or territory. The Australian Bureau of Statistics cites the ACT as having the most computers per household. Well, we should not be too alarmed. The department’s report warns us about small sample size. It choose only five of the ACT schools. Also the survey was completed in May, 1998, and since then there has been a concerted effort by the ACT Government to get more computers into government schools. The ACT Government reckons it is on the national average now, according to its audit of all schools.
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The 12-point accountability plan put by the Australian Democrats this week has much to commend it. The plan seeks to make politicians, political parties, bureaucrats and corporations more accountable and to make information more accessible.

The proposals are welcome in the light of recent rort allegations within the major parties and in the light of the Howard Government’s disillusioning performance in outdoing the Hawke-Keating Government when it comes to appointing mates and political allies to key statutory appointments and when it comes to conflicts of interest and abuse of entitlements. Unfortunately, the proposals suffer from a Catch-22. The very people they are directed at are the very people who will have to pass them into law.

Among the proposals were for greater internal democracy in political parties. Branch-stacking by parties has been rife for decades. And when Labor moved to stop it by requiring branch members to be enrolled on the electoral roll in the electorate, the stacking did not end. Rather people falsely enrolled in the electorate so they could still stack the branch.
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Regulation of broadcasting in Australia in the past two decades has been pitiful. Self-regulation has resulted in falling standards. The report by a panel set up by the Australian Broadcasting Authority into cash for comments at Radio 2UE involving and agreements between presenters John Laws and Alan Jones with large corporations shows the short-comings. Worse, Laws and Jones have continued to attract large audiences despite all the adverse publicity relating the cash-for-comments scandal. It indicates that the public needs a regulator to control the excesses of broadcasters because the marketplace is not doing it either.

The panel made recommendations to the authority which presumably it will adopt. They were little more than to slap 2UE on the wrist with a feather considering the panel found 2UE guilty of five breaches of the Broadcasting Services Act and 90 breaches of the Commercial Radio Codes of Practice. It said 2UE should institute a training program on the obligations of the holders of broadcast licences; it should disclose on air commercial arrangements with sponsors if material about the sponsor is being broadcast; it should keep a public register of those agreements on their internet; it should make sure the separation of advertising and editorial matter is clear. None of those things is beyond what would be expected in any event of a commercial broadcaster, with perhaps the exception of the public register.
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The Israeli people want peace. They just don’t seem to know who to get it. The trouble is they want peace on their terms. Every opinion poll suggests a yearning for peace and a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. But every time an Israeli leader goes into negotiation, usually in the US, he has to worry about voter backlash. Inevitably, obvious and reasonable concessions to the Palestinians are not made. The Palestinians despair. Their leaders, too, worry about their political support. Violence erupts. Israelis and Palestinians on the street become more hard-line and peace, so close, becomes even further away.

It seems that every time Israelis elect a new leader the hawk of the election campaign becomes more dovish at the negotiating table and the dove of the election campaign becomes more hawkish as he realizes the prospect of electoral back-lash at re-election time. But either way, hawk or dove, no Israeli leader has been able to secure a complete peace agreement that sticks. Ultimately, the Israeli people are too fearful of the concessions it would take: acceptance of a Palestinian state; of a shared Jerusalem; of access to holy sites for all religions; and some concession about returnees.

The election of Ariel Sharon yesterday (Australian time) is unlikely to be a mould-breaker.
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The British Government and its Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson are being reckless and short-sighted over Northern Ireland. The Government has introduced a Bill into Parliament that will come into force at the end of the week unless the Irish Republican Army begins decommissioning its weapons. The Bill would reimpose direct rule from London, taking power away from the local Northern Ireland legislature and two-month-old power-sharing Government. The British Government acted after the independent commission, led by Canadian General John de Chastelain, reported to the British Government about the state of progress in weapons decommissioning. The report has not been made public, but it is widely thought that it says absolutely nothing has happened. No weapons have been turned in or rendered inoperable.

That is a frustrating turn of events, but it should not have provoked such a sudden, tightly framed deadline which the British Government knew would not be met. The history of IRA behaviour would have made it obvious. So now after two years of enormous effort, peace in Northern Ireland is threatened. It is almost as if the British Government wants the peace framework to collapse.
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We were warned in the 1970s. When tax cases came before the High Court then, the court ran a very socially damaging line, led by the then Chief Justice Garfield Barwick. The line was that it was up to the Parliament to specify tax liability with exactitude and if a taxpayer structured his or her affairs in a way that minimised tax, too bad, the taxpayer could avoid the tax. The barren fruit of this approach was Kerry Packer’s famous line that anyone who pays a cent of tax more than he has to is a fool. The tax-avoidance industry flourished. At the time one or two judges dissented, particularly Justice Lionel Murphy. Justice Murphy warned that if the court continued with this approach, Parliament would pass wider and wider tax laws with ever more discretion on the part of the Tax Office to ensure tax was not avoided. He warned that Parliament might have to enact laws that enabled the Tax Office to set whatever tax it wanted and to chase it down for as long as it took.

He was right, as we saw in the High Court last week.

The court ruled that provision in the Income Tax Assessment Act entitled the Tax Office to revisit tax assessments for an indefinite time in the future. The court said that the tax law did not have to be fair, just certain and final. The case was about a woman who said her income was $4470 in 1987. The Tax Office said she was liable to pay no tax. Years later the office changed its mind and disallowed a $10,000 deduction. The taxpayer objected saying there was a three-year limitation against reassessment. But the court sided with the Tax Office, saying the three-year limitation did not apply in this case because an assessment of zero liability to pay tax was no assessment at all.

The case illustrates