Crispin Hull

Australia should leave security out of the argument about trade with the US. The security relationship with the US must stand or fall on its own merit. Australia has much to gain from being part of the US security umbrella and from sharing intelligence with US forces. Waving the security card will not help.

It means, therefore, that we must argue the trade card with greater force.

The US has imposed the tariff because, it argues, cheap foreign steel is being dumped on the US market from countries that subsidise steel production. That is not true of the Australia steel industry which is one of the most efficient in the world. The Australian industry has reformed and restructured and can now land steel on the west coast of the US for $40 a tonne less than east-coast US manufacturers. That point should be argued. Australia should have been exempted from the tariff. The US should be asked to either identify what subsidies Australian steel gets, or exempt Australian steel. The US says that its tariff is allowed under World Trade Organisation rules. Once again that point should be argued in WTO forums. Australian should seek whatever penalties the WTO can impose. Further, Australia needs to point out more forcefully the US hypocrisy in this decision. President Bush frequently appeals to the world to open up markets and to apply free trade. But as soon as his home market gets the whiff of some competition, he retreats to protectionism.
Continue reading “2002_03_march_leader07mar steel”

Whenever someone abuses parliamentary privilege, the cry goes out to restrict it.

This time NSW Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan has made an outrageous attack on High Court judge Justice Michael Kirby.

All four elements of the attack are laced with holes, but more of that anon.

The outrageousness of the attack is made obvious by the statement from NSW Police Minister Michael Costa that police previously had investigated Senator Heffernan’s information and found no need to continue investigations. If dissatisfied with the police investigation Senator Heffernan could have taken his information to the Police Integrity Commission. If he was still unsatisfied, a speech in Parliament was still open to him, and this is important.
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This week’s federal-state conference on the crisis over personal-liability insurance premiums came up with solutions that defied the facts, defied logic and defied morality. It was a classic of blaming the victim.

The obvious long-term solution was not even talked about – campaigns to make Australia a safer place in which to work and play.
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The property market continues to boom, but buyers and sellers in the ACT are poorly served by government inaction to improve the costly system of conveyancing.

Several factors are making property buying and selling more expensive than it should be:

Stamp duty rates have not changed for more than 20 years, so bracket creep has put the average house into a stamp duty bracket that was designed only for the very wealthy.
Continue reading “2002_03_march_convey for forum”

ActewAGL is a strange organisation. It has been set up on business principles, yet it must be one of the few businesses on earth that urged people NOT to consume its product.

It actively campaigns for us to use LESS water, when every other business is saying, “”buy, buy, buy” – more cars, more Mars bars, more Coke etc.

After weeks of no rain and now a deluge in which every creek and banker ran and dams filled over top is ActewAGL being alarmist in saying we’ll all be “rooned” if we keep consuming its product? Surely, in a land of drought and flooding rains we can always expect rain in God’s good time and not have to worry. Surely ActewAGL should be out there flogging its wares to make more profit for the ACT Government, for us. Isn’t that what corporatisation is all about.
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Our wicket was a fruit case. And there were three stumps at the bowler’s end of the pitch. The original batman’s-end three stumps were lost after my sisters borrowed them for rounders (a bizarre hybrid between cricket and softball).

The fruit case – “”taken” from an apple orchard – was put at the batsman’s end because I and my younger brother were not very good bowlers and to have any hope of getting my brother out we had to have a fairly wide wicket. Moreover, there was no lbw in our backyard cricket. But then again, we did not have pads, so if one were willing to sacrifice shins for wicket – go ahead.
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Early in the week, before the asylum-seekers took centre stage, media ownership was firmly on the Government’s agenda. No doubt it will return there.

Prime Minister John Howard explained the main aims: “” You’d get rid of the prohibition whereby a newspaper owner can’t own a television station or vice versa and you would relax the restriction on foreign investment in the media.”
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Peter Hollingworth is bound to cop demonstrations, as least for a while. It is likely new assertions will be made about sexual abuse and how his diocese responded to it. It is likely the media will seize upon this. He may well – unlike Kerr — resist it.

It has been, and will continue to be, a trial by media. This is because the Constitution provides no other way. As events showed yesterday, the fate of the Governor-General lies in the hands of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is bound by no-one and no rules in deciding whether a Governor-General stays in office. On this occasion, Prime Minister John Howard decided that he should stay. He had done nothing in office to warrant dismissal and he had done nothing in previous offices that amounted to criminal conduct.
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The Federal Government denied a report last week that it had decided to ban embryonic stem cell research, though a decision must be made before too long. Stem-cell research is the use of cells which can grow into cells of virtually any sort of human organ. Cells from human embryos in nature ultimately divide to form cells that develop into the whole range of human organs. The mimicking of this in the laboratory raises hopes of finding new treatments for the who range of degenerative diseases, particularly Parkinson’s disease, motor-neurone disease and dementia.

Some adult cells – found in bone marrow can also be used as stem cells, but more research is needed to see if they will provide the same results as embryonic cells. Embryonic cells are taken from embryos left over from IVF programs.

Three states – Victoria, South Australian and Western Australia – have banned the research. If the Federal Government decides against a ban, those states should seriously consider removing their bans.
Continue reading “2002_02_february_leader28feb stem cells”

The increases in private health insurance premiums approved by the Federal Government yesterday show just how fragile and foolish the Coalition’s policies on health have been. Since coming to office in 1996, the Howard Government has pursued a policy of private is good-public is bad – irrespective of the evidence. It has introduced massive subsidies for private health insurance after the number of Australians covered fell below the dangerously low 30 per cent mark. Too many young people were seeing no value in health insurance as premiums went up and Medicare and the public hospital system covered them against catastrophic injury. With young people leaving, premiums went up further, so more people left – leaving the funds with all the hard cases.

The Government introduced a penalty Medicare rate for high-income earners of up to 1 per cent of income, making private cover irresistible. Still the uptake did not change significantly. Then it introduced a 30 per cent tax rebate at a cost of some $2 billion a year. There was a most increase in private insurance rates. Then it introduced lifetime cover, which meant premiums for people over 30 taking out insurance would increase with every year of age they did not have private cover. This turned the trend. The number of people with insurance bottomed out at 30 per cent and moved towards 35 per cent.
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