Month: November 2001

THE CLOSING down of the 6pm news service at Canberra’s Capital Television and several other regional outlets of the Ten Network in Queensland and the Northern Territory is a betrayal of the public trust given to television broadcasters in return for their access to an exclusive part of broadcasting spectrum, which is public property.

Capital was Canberra’s first and, for a long time, only commercial television channel. It ran a mix of programs from the three main commercial networks, but always had a strong local news programming and very often local current affairs programming. Then came aggregation in 1989. Under that scheme, regional stations were to affiliate with one of the three commercial networks and would be able to increase their coverage to two other adjacent regions which had original stations affiliated with other networks. The aim of aggregation was that regional audiences would get access to the full range of commercial programs enjoyed in the major cities while retaining local news coverage. It was a worthy aim.

The networks gained because they could pipe programs down the line at fairly low cost.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader22nov news cut”

Prime Minister John Howard and the Coalition have won a third term, but it was not a resounding endorsement. The Coalition picked up an increase of primary vote of just over 2 per cent and just under 2 per cent on a two-party preferred basis. Much of that primary swing came from the decline of the One Nation vote.

It was apparent that the Government was headed for defeat before the Tampa sailed towards Christmas Island and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Mr Howard cleverly exploited those issues. The election timing was fortuitous for the Government. The Coalition managed to play on people’s fears. The ploy worked – just.

It means that Labor’s strategy did not. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley slavishly agreed with everything Government did on asylum seekers and the response to the terrorist attacks. He suffered for it. Labor – despite having the edge on domestic issues before the international issues bit in – lost nearly three per cent of its primary vote.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader11nov election”

Politicians frequently portray whatever election they are fighting as “”the most important” for decades. They frequently argue that the choice voters must make is a stark one between them and their opponents. Never has this been less so than at this election. The choice Australians must make tomorrow is perhaps the least important of any election in recent times. And the choice is perhaps the least stark.

That said, it is perhaps the worst offering Australians have had at election time for 40 years.

Both sides support the immoral treatment of asylum seekers and the folly of shoulder-to-shoulder support of the United States in its ill-directed attempts to bring to justice those responsible for the terrorist attacks on September 11. Even if a voter were minded to decide on those issues, there is nothing to suggest that Kim Beazley is any less capable than John Howard in dealing with foreign policy or defence matters. Indeed, Mr Beazley’s experience as Defence Minister and Mr Howard’s hitherto concentration on economic issues and lack of interest in foreign policy would give Mr Beazley the edge. Mr Howard’s foreign policy has left Australia in a position where the leader of its nearest neighbour will not return his phone calls.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader09nov election1”

The two major parties and the ACT Greens have put the question of an increase in the size of the ACT Legislative Assembly on the agenda.

Greens MLA Kerrie Tucker wants an increase. She says, quite rightly that an increase would ease the workload and improve democracy. Labor and the Liberals also want an increase, but they want to avoid coping the flak from the typical knee-jerk reaction of the politician-hating public. So they watered down Ms Tucker’s motion in the previous assembly to a call for community consultation on the question.

As things stand, the ACT has the fewest politicians per head of population than anywhere else in Australia. Out 17 MLAs perform all the state functions as well as the functions of local government. Federally, we have just two members of the House of Representatives and two senators.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader08nov act members”

Whoever wins the election on Saturday should go back to first base with superannuation. The Hawke-Keating Government set in place some much needed reform of superannuation, but later it could not resist the temptation to increase taxes on it. The initial reform was well thought out. Before 1983 superannuation was an easy vehicle for tax avoidance. Money could be cycled through superannuation quite quickly, thus avoiding high marginal tax rates. The Keating reforms gave tax concessions to superannuation, but quite rightly applied a penalty to bring the tax up to the full marginal rate if money was pulled out before age 55. Further concessions were allowed for people who took annuities and who delayed payments out of superannuation until they were 65. The Keating reform also forced all employers to pay all employees a percentage of their wage as superannuation, ultimately rising to 12 per cent.

But the politicians could not help themselves. Here was a miltch cow. By the end of the Keating Government superannuation was taxed at 15 per cent on the way in, at 15 per cent on the earnings while it was in, and at 15 per cent on the way out. Australia became one of the highest taxers of superannuation in the industrialised world.

The Coalition was no better. First it extended the timing and cut the percentage of salary going to superannuation. They it imposed the surcharge tax on high income earners. The rationale on the latter was dubious. Treasurer Peter Costello argued that low-income earners were getting less of a tax concession than high-income earners, so a 15 per cent surcharge was imposed based on current income – not on how much income one might expect on retirement or how much one had in a fund. Superannuation should be about future income, not present income. If there was an inequity, the answer would have been to give low income earners a bigger break.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader07nov super”

Now the result of the ACT election has been declared, Labor Leader Jon Stanhope must start the serious task of forming government. Technically, he will not become Chief Minister until he is voted in by a majority on the floor of the Legislative Assembly on its first day of sitting. That is how it should be. The people’s house votes on who should lead the executive government and that leader should choose his or her ministers. There is no need for a Governor to “”call on” someone to “‘form a government”.

Mr Stanhope was in no position to do anything before now because he could not be sure who would make up the Labor caucus. Now he knows. He has the option of choosing four or five Ministers from among the eight Labor members. He should opt for five. That will leave the other three hard pushed to do all the committee work if the Assembly persists with the rule that Ministers should not serve on committees. That rule is right in principle, but as a practical proposition it causes difficulties in such a small parliament. The answer is to increase the size of the parliament. That might cause popular resistance initially, but governance in the ACT is suffering because of the smallness of the Parliament. There has been no increase in the size since 1989, despite a large increase in the number of people being represented and the size of the economy to be managed.

In the meantime, when Mr Stanhope casts around to shape his ministry, at first blush it seems that he will face a balancing act between opting for experience or opting for gender balance. The only females among his eight Labor MLAs are those elected for the first time at the election two weeks ago.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader05nov act ministry”

It is now seven weeks since the attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. Some trends in the ill-conceived response by the United States are emerging. And they are not very encouraging.

The United States has not managed to capture, or even kill, any major terrorist or Taliban leader. To that extent it has not “”brought to justice” any of the perpetrators of the attacks. It means that the US and its allies, including Australia, are engaged in war to change the government of Afghanistan rather than a police operation to bring to justice the perpetrators of a crime. And with war inevitably comes the death and injury of many innocent people.

The death toll of innocent people is now mounting. It will probably overtake the death toll of innocent people who were at the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
Continue reading “2001_11_november_leader02nov afghan”

Cycle-path rage continues.

One of the big disputes is whether pedestrians should walk on the left or right hand side of a cycle path.

Unfortunately, the law is silent on what pedestrians should do. Pedestrians are merely urged by the Traffic Act to keep a look out, but there is no penalty. Not that passing a law of itself can fix human conduct, but at least it would be a start. I don’t think we need a penalty, but it would help to have some uniformity of behaviour on cycle paths so everyone knows what to expect. Having a fair idea of what the other idiot is going to do is half the battle of avoiding collision.
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