I WONDER if the Prime Minister of an independent Scotland will be as witty as former New Zealand Prime Minister Robert “Piggy” Muldoon when bands of Scottish unemployed move across the border to pick up higher unemployment benefits in a more prosperous England.
Muldoon, you might recall, confronted by Australian journalists in the 1980s about flocks of New Zealand unemployed crossing the Tasman, said something like: “Why should Australia worry. The movement is increasing the average IQ in both countries.”
But it may not come to that – not because Scotland will fail to vote for independence on Thursday (18 September 2014), rather because it will not come to unemployed Scots leaving Scotland after independence. Let’s see why.
I get deeply suspicious when all the financial and political heavyweights unite behind a given policy. Both major parties, the City of London and the wider financial and business sector, most commentating journalists, and even Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott are against independence.
Perhaps they have got something to lose by it. Certainly British Labour has with 40 Scottish House of Commons seats against the Conservatives’ just one.
The Conservatives are beholden to big business which does not like Scottish independence – judging on the pound sterling’s fall on the news that the Yes vote has now risen to 51% in the latest opinion polls.
Usually, when a political decision is about affect the big end of town, or a segment of it, the lobbyists, spin doctors and media campaigners get to work. Witness the $22 million loose change that the mining industry threw at a media campaign to scare the Rudd Government out of an effective mining tax which would have cost it billions.
Business lobbies can buy highly educated, articulate people to marshal convincing — even if specious — arguments in their favour.
However, in this instance, these usually formidable public relations exercises have been met head on with an equally formidable economic-information team in the devolved Scottish regional government.
The message “Ignore the scare campaign from London, look at the data” seems to be having an effect.
Take North Sea oil, for example. The UK and all other developed countries – unlike Australia – feel they ought to tax resource development.
The UK tax on North Sea oil peaked at $US20 billion in 2008. But, the scaremongers warn, that has been falling since, the scaremongers warn. Whatever share of the oil Scotland negotiates, it will soon dry up.
However, Scottish Government figures point to another conclusion. If you remove oil and gas revenues, GDP per head in Scotland is about the same as for the UK as a whole ($33,120 to $33,605). With North Sea oil counted, Scottish GDP per head is significantly higher ($42,540 in Scotland and $35,960 in the UK as a whole).
The Scottish Government says there is up to $1,500 billion worth of oil left. The scaremongers say maybe less than a tenth of that at only $120 billion.
In any event, if you strip away the scare, Scotland does not need any North Sea oil to remain on parity with UK standards of living. And with existing extraction rates which will last some time independent Scotland will be much better off.
Other figures stand out. The unemployment rate is slightly better in Scotland (6.4% against the UK’s 6.5%). Population growth is the same and low at 0.6%, which augurs well for both.
More importantly, Scotland has a much lower level of personal debt than the rest of the UK. Funny that – Scots living up to their reputation. Indeed, Scotland’s personal debt is the lowest of all regions in the UK except Wales. It is just two-thirds the UK average.
Personal debt affects consumer sentiment profoundly, and so is perhaps more important than public debt (which admittedly would be higher – but not unmanageable — in an independent Scotland).
Yes, much would depend on post referendum negotiations on how much total UK public debt Scotland would have to take; on whether there would be a currency union with the UK; or whether Scotland joined the EU and Euro zone; or whether Scotland had its own currency cannily managed by Scots heading their own central bank.
In the event of independence, the case is far from England refurbishing Hadrian’s Wall or England opposing Scottish EU membership because Scots would flood across the border giving England an immigration problem on two fronts.
Rather, post independence, it is more likely to be the case of English unemployed heading over Hadrian’s Wall north to Scotland – and lifting the IQ of both countries.
DOT DOT DOT
If the UK and Czechoslovakia can sort out regional differences with referendums and peace splits (presuming London honours the referendum result), why can’t other places?
Why can’t we reignite something like the UN Committee on Decolonisation to look at the world’s troublespots. Almost all of them are caused by ethnic, linguistic, racial or cultural minorities caught within wider national borders or straddling across them – borders often carved on the map by colonial masters.
Ukraine is a good example. Why should Ukraine try to keep ethnic Russian areas if the people in them are silly enough to want to join Putin’s Russia? They should be allowed to vote for it — to stop them killing for it.
It comes down to resources, no doubt. But voting will take place on Thursday a short way inshore from those North Sea oil rigs.
DOT DOT DOT
As the first electricity bills of the financial year come in, have a look at the fine detail.
Those cunning electricity retailers are upping the fixed supply charge at a much greater rate than the charge for the electricity itself. This is in response to people making their own electricity via solar and threatening power companies’ profits.
In the past year, the fixed supply charge in the ACT (Actew) has gone up 10.4% whereas the charge for the electricity itself just 2.2%. In NSW (Origin) the fixed charge rose 16% and the electricity half that at 8.5%. In Queensland (Ergon) the fixed charge rose a whopping 61% and the electricity cost actually fell by 5%.
This is all in about four-point type on the back of your electricity bill. The various “We are cutting electricity costs” message is in about 120-point type on the accompanying flyer.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 13 September 2014.