Month: October 2001

A women’s factor appeared to be at work in yesterday’s election.

In the old Legislative Assembly there were only two women among 17 members.

In the new Assembly it appears that up to three Democrat women will be elected. In Brindabella, the woman Democrat, Jeanette Jolley was ahead of her more visible male Democrat counterpart Dominic Mico.
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Why do people vote the way they do? And do they even know why they vote that way?

These questions have arisen from some work done by Datacol, The Canberra Times pollster, along with the polling for the ACT Legislative Assembly and the Federal ACT seats.

The answers have been made more interesting and paradoxical now the vote is in.
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It is all about bums on seats.

This week the South Australian Auditor-General brought down a damning report on the plan by John Olsen’s Liberal Government to build a big stadium ostensibly to put bums on seats for Olympics soccer but incidentally to do favours to sundry construction and sporting interests who in turn would say, do and pay for nice things for the Liberal Party so it would have a better chance to gets its bums on seats in Parliament. Pity the long suffering South Australian taxpayer.

The story is familiar, except the ACT lost one Minister in the face of an Opposition and cross-bench with the numbers on the floor of Parliament; South Australia lost two: Tourism Minister Joan Hall and Cabinet Secretary Graham Ingerson.
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It is all very well the Coalition saying it will sell Telstra, but it needs legislation and therefore the approval of the Senate.

Labor and the Democrats will block it in the Senate, just as they have blocked other critical legislation in the past six years and just as the Coalition blocked Labor legislation with Democrat help before that.

The Senate looks a pretty bleak prospect for the Coalition this election. Senators coming up this election were elected in 1996, the year of the Coalition landslide. The Coalition is defending a very good result, so it is bound to lose some seats. More of that anon.
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ACT Labor’s announcement to limit dual-occupancy developments will have residents and developers scurrying to the large suburban maps issued by the planning authorities.

Labor is to limit dual occupancies to 5 per cent of the blocks in any suburban section for all suburbs across Canberra until neighbourhood plans are developed after the election. It has opened a divide between the major parties on urban development. Hitherto Tweedledeedee and Tweedledeedum were adherents of developer-driven “”planning”.

Beware, though, Labor’s 5 per cent limit is only a temporary measure. If they attain Government, who knows what the neighbourhood plans might bring.
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Labor has increased its lead over the Liberal Party in the part week, according to the latest Canberra Times Datacol poll and is almost certain to take minority government with Democrat or Green support.

The Democrats are doing much better than previous elections, and their vote is holding up as the election approaches, unlike the experience of past elections. It now looks like the Democrats will take two or three seats, the first time they will get representation in the Legislative Assembly.

Many have put this down to “”the Natasha factor” – the heavy campaigning in the ACT by the Federal Democrat leader, Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja”.
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The Coalition’s baby bonus exemplifies a mindset, rather than a sensibly policy to deal with the juggling between work and childcare. Clearly, the Coalition was not listening to the (mainly) women who are doing the juggling, whose constant cry has been for better maternity leave, more childcare places and the tax deductibility of childcare costs.

The baby bonus, announced by Prime Minister John Howard has a major plank in the launch of his policy platform, is directed at giving incentives to women to stay at home with their children for the first five years. Under the plan women who have a baby after July 1, 2001, receive a tax refund (as a refund of the tax they paid the previous financial year) of up to $2500 year for five years. If a woman goes back to work during the financial year she will lose the refund for that year. Those not in the workforce will get a flat payment of $500.

It is an absurd policy to encourage people not to work – particularly from a Government that railed against welfare dependency. Like the health-insurance rebate, it is badly directed. Many women will be in fairly high-income households and can stop work, get the rebate and still live fairly well on their partner’s income. It is middle-class welfare. It also encourages women’s dependency on partners and discourages their independence. Fortunately, the amounts of money involves are so small, that the incentives for women to give up work will be small.
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Last week Noel Pearson, lawyer and Aboriginal leader, raised a stir in the context of the election campaign when he said he would reject an apology over the stolen generation whether it came from Labor or a re-elected Coalition. He acknowledged that a Beazley Labor Government had promised an apology, “”but an apology at this stage of our national indigenous policy failure would only hide the present lack of insight and ideas among the Australian progressivist and liberalist middle class”.

Unfortunately, the media coverage over the apology tended to take the limelight from Mr Peason’s more important message. It is a message that challenges some widely held beliefs among Aboriginal groups and among Australia’s liberalist middle class. One of those widely held beliefs is a chain of causation that explains the Aboriginal condition. The chain starts with colonisation and dispossession. That lead to a breakdown of traditional ways. This troubled historical legacy results in a societal breakdown, alcohol abuse, violence, criminal conduct, poor health outcomes and so on. Under this theory, the dispossession has to be dealt with if the alcohol and substance abuse, violence and poor health is to be addressed.

Wrong, says Mr Pearson.
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The news from Northern Ireland that the Irish Republican Army has begun decommissioning weapons is welcome indeed. We do not know the exact quantity of arms and it is apparent that the IRA still has a lot of weaponry still available for use, but the step is hugely symbolic. It is also of great practical importance because it puts the peace process back on the rails.

Significantly, Northern Ireland’s Protestant politicians have agreed to go back into government after resigning because of the refusal of the IRA to begin decommissioning.

Chief Minister David Trimble resigned in July and his other ministers resigned last week. The latter resignations appeared at the time to doom the peace process.
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It is time for Prime Minister John Howard to engage in the domestic election campaign. It is less than three weeks until voting day, and it is not enough for him to wrap himself in the flag and pretend Australia is facing some major external threat and full-scale war. Australia will have a maximum of 150 soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. Our Navy will be doing some patrolling thousands of kilometres from land-locked Afghanistan and our Air Force, even if it did fly over Afghanistan, would not meet any threat. If anything the operation should be described as a police action, rather than a military one, and its running is largely being directed by the Americans anyway. The operation – if it must be run — could be run as effectively by Labor leader Kim Beazley as Mr Howard. The two parties have absolutely no difference in policy on the so-called war or terror, so it should not be a significant issue in the election campaign.

The danger for Mr Howard and the Coalition voters seem to be beginning to recognise this and are ranging their thoughts back to domestic matters. If Mr Howard plays only the war and refugee cards, he might find his absence on domestic issues costing him the election. It will certainly deprive voters of a fully informed contest.

The latest AC Nielsen poll published in the Fairfax newspapers indicates that Labor is picking up support. Just after the Tampa refugee crisis in the middle of last month, the Coalition was 16 percentage points ahead of Labor and set for an increased majority. Two weeks ago it was 15 points and now it is just six. On a two-party preferred basis the Coalition is just two percentage points ahead. The two-party preferred vote is significant. It reveals that much of the Coalition gain has come from One Nation – that is probably the anti-refugee, anti-immigration, anti-Asia vote. The Coalition appears to have won that from the refugee crisis. But the subsequent international events do not seem to be having the same effect for the Coalition. People are rightly questioning whether Australia should be sending troops to Afghanistan. It is not the automatic vote winner that Mr Howard thinks.
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