Crispin Hull

A very high percentage of ACT voters remain undecided just a couple of days out from the election, according to the latest Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll. It indicates that many will need to do some serious thinking today and early tomorrow about who they want to govern this territory after Saturday.

Unlike the House of Representatives election, the ACT have multi-member electorates. It means all voters should decide which or the major parties they prefer; which candidates within each party they prefer and which of the minor parties or independents they prefer. To get the best value out of a vote therefore a voter should express preferences right to the end, not just five or seven. It is often the case that the last seat is a tussle between minor parties and independents can be decided by preferences flowing from voters who have voted for a major party first and marked preferences to the end.

Despite constant criticism – which is fine in a democracy – both the Liberals and the Labor Party are capable of governing. The Liberals have been careful with the finances on the large scale, but have squandered on frivolities on the smaller scale. Under Kate Carnell they were particularly fond of PR stunts and funding bonanza events. Chief Minister Gary Humphries has fortunately be disinclined to follow suit, but the baggage is there, particularly on the poor processes on Bruce Stadium. The Liberal Government’s budgetary position has also been helped by additional Federal grants.
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It is difficult to see how 1550 Australian soldiers, four fighter aircraft, two refuellers and two maritime surveillance aircraft will make much difference in the mission by the United States to capture or kill those responsible for the September 11 attack on New York and Washington by suicide terrorists in hijacked aircraft. It is an act of symbolism to say that we are an ally of the United States.

Prime Minister John Howard was coy about where the ships and soldiers would be used. He said this was for security reasons. But it may be that they are not really needed at all, in a military sense, so there is no clear role for them in a specific place. At present the activity in chasing the perpetrators consists of intelligence work and some bombing in Afghanistan which appears to date to have been singularly unsuccessful in either killing Osama bin Laden, the man the US accuses of being responsible for the September 11 attack, or killing those the US accuses of harbouring him, the Taliban leadership in the Government of Afghanistan. Australia is already contributing whatever it can on the intelligence front, so we are now going to war to join the US in bombing Afghanistan and perhaps help in a later ground invasion to capture Osama bin Laden. We are not really needed militarily. We are just giving moral support.

It is unlikely the main objective can be achieved. Winter is coming on in Afghanistan. Any action by ground forces will be fraught with logistic difficulty, even if air strikes have weakened the opposition. It is likely that the mission will become protracted. It may be that the northern alliance which opposes the Taliban will seize the opportunity and help the US overthrow the Taliban regime. Aside from the fact that the northern alliance contains a large number of thugs and criminals, even that will not achieve the objective of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden.
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The ACT Labor Party has announced a range of planning changes to be introduced if it gains government. It contrasts with the Liberal Party’s position of continuing with present policies and initiatives already announced.

The Liberals are putting much store on improving the design and siting of new dwellings under a new ACT code to be introduced next year. It will continue with the present system of using the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to hear objections to planning decisions. It will restrict the ability of third parties to engage in the objection process, leaving it to directly affected neighbours.

Labor promises to appoint government building inspectors, a referendum to protect open space, householders to get rights to sunshine, the establishment of an ACT Planning and Land Management Authority, an interim limit on dual occupancies until a system of neighbourhood planning groups can be set up to determine appropriate land uses and more revisons to ACTCode2 which regulates design and siting of developments.
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Opposition Kim Beazley won the debate against Prime Minister John Howard on Sunday night. This is according to the usual media commentator group, and, more importantly, according to a group of 80 uncommitted voters who were in a Channel Nine studio audience who voted Mr Beazley the victor 67-33.

The debate itself will probably not amount to much come election time in four weeks. However, it ahs changed the election dynamic in several important ways. First, a lot of the media will now see Mr Beazley and Labor in with a real chance having written them off a couple of weeks ago. These were the same people who wrote Mr Howard and the Liberals off several months ago. It will mean a more serious coverage of Labor’s policies because they have a prospect of being put into effect. It will have a flow down effect that there is a real contest here and generate some excitement into it.

Secondly, the debate gave Mr Beazley a chance to make it plain that he has no differences with the Liberal party on refugees and the war on terrorism. That goes some way to neutralising the “”leadership” question in relation to external security. On that point Mr Beazley did well to point out the flaw in Mr Howard’s argument that voters should stay with his Government in these insecure times. Mr Howard may not be there for the full term and key Ministers in his leadership team are retiring at the election (Defence, Finance and Health).
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Federal Labor has placed a lot of store over the past three years in saying that it would roll-back the goods and services tax and make it simpler. It might have sounded like a good idea at the time – when business was screaming about extra paperwork, the complexity of the tax and the horror it presented for cash flow. But now businesses have settled into the system. As with any new system, the first time it is used it is difficult. But it gets easier as time goes on. Even those businesses which deal with a mixture of taxable and non-taxable items have now established systems and streamlined them. In fact, the imposition of the GST has forced many businesses to upgrade their accounting and computing systems so that they have a better idea of their cash flow.

Last week Labor proposed a fundamental change in the way that small businesses pay their GST. Instead of calculating it on every item they sold minus the GST they had already paid on inputs, they would be able to simply pay a set percentage of their turnover. The percentage would be set by the Tax Office according to past experience. But if a business wanted to, it could continue with the present method. The plan is flawed. Labor claims it will be revenue neutral, but it is likely that many businesses will just pick the method that yields the lowest tax. Many smart businesses will continue to do the accounting necessary to do a monthly or quarterly business activity statement anyway because it is good business practice and the accounting has to be done and the tax paid eventually anyway. If Labor gives them an option to pay less tax, they will snap it up. It may well be that a few small businesses will like the idea of postponing the detailed accounting until the end of the year. If so, they will be losing the valuable discipline of knowing how their business is travelling.

If Australia was to have a broad-based consumption tax it necessitated a transition of business practice. Perhaps the Government could have done it better at the time, but now it is established it would be folly to change significantly the way it is calculated and paid.
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The ACT electorate has not embraced either of the major parties with any great enthusiasm, according the results from the latest Canberra Times Datacol poll. The poll revealed also a high number of undecided votes given the closeness of the election.

Perhaps it is excusable given the dominance of other events: the war on terrorism, the federal election and the refugee crisis.

It indicates that the people of the ACT should turn their minds in the next few days to local issues and who they think are best placed to deal with them. There is little excuse for not getting informed. The much-maligned media in the ACT has carried an extraordinary amount of material about the election, even if it has played second or third fiddle to other events.
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The results of the Canberra Times-Datacol poll reveal that the community is sharply divided on the questions of issuing heroin to addicts under medical supervision and on the trial of a safe injecting room for heroin users.

Originally, the ACT Government proposed to run a referendum on these very questions, but the proposal was abandoned. The proposal was flawed because government by referendum defeats the purpose of representative government. People elect a legislature which legislates and provides and executive government to govern. Referendums are a good device to settle big constitutional issues about the form and structure of government to apply in the future, but not to issues that arise from time to time. A referendum can destroy the flexibility that governments need to deal with complex issues. It can also lock a government into imposing the public’s mind-set at a particular time, rather than leading public opinion so that it ultimately changes for the better.

That is not to say that governments should not seek out public opinion and be responsive to it. But they should not be slaves to it. Members of legislatures – dealing with these issues full-time — often have broader knowledge and greater understanding than many referendum voters.
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The office of Treasurer Peter Costello has taken up the role of consumer advocate by ringing the major banks asking them (read, pressuring them) when they would be passing on to consumers the cut in interest rates announced by the Reserve Bank on Wednesday. Mr Costello then chided the National Australia Bank for being the most tardy in passing on the cut, even suggesting that consumers take it into account when choosing which bank to go to when taking out a new loan. He praised Westpac for being the first off the mark.

The tactic of getting down to that level of details carries a certain amount of risk. The NAB is waiting a whole 12 days to pass on the cut. That equals $8.22 on a $100,000 loan. It is trivial, given that the difference in bank fees and value of other services could be many times that, particularly for people taking out new loans. In a competitive environment, banks present a variety of products with different interest rates and different fees for different services with varying flexibility and varying ranges of quality and flexibility of services. There is more to choosing a bank than judging them on the speed of passing on interest-rate cuts. Governments should not be in the business of advertising the wares of one bank over another. That is a matter for consumers and the market.

With an election just around the corner, the Treasurer clearly wants to be seen as the good guy – the man who delivered interest rate cuts right now. There was really no need to get down to that level. Despite its recent profligacy, the Government can still take a lot of credit for its economic management. It has delivered four surplus Budgets. It has repaid some $60 billion in government debt. It has created a much better climate for the Reserve Bank to contemplate interest rate cuts.
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The Federal Government’s responses to both the refugee problem and the terrorist attack on the US have some worrying elements for civil liberties, human rights and passenger safety. They are the more worrying because they have the backing of the Opposition.

Putting armed guards on aircraft will only add to the danger in the skies. The guard might be over-powered and then his or her weapon becomes a weapon for the hijacker. The guard might get in a shoot-out and any shooting in a pressurised aircraft could result in sudden depressurisation and perhaps a crash. So having a gun on board is of no use – particularly against a suicidal hijacker. Prime Minister John Howard’s reaction was the wrong one. He should have reacted in the way he did to the Port Arthur massacre – seek to reduce the number of guns abroad. The guards idea should be abandoned and greater effort put into securing the cockpit and screening passengers and their baggage more thoroughly.

The Government proposes new powers for the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation. They would give ASIO agents the power to detain and question terrorist suspects for up to 48 hours on the warrant of a federal magistrate. At present ASIO has to make a recommendation to the Australian Federal Police to arrest a suspect. Giving ASIO officers the power is a flawed idea. It is essential for civil liberties that courts are capable of supervising arrest procedures and that those arrested can challenge unlawful arrest. It is difficult to see how this can be done if the arrest is made by an ASIO officer whose identity is to remain secret. Indeed, it is an offence to disclose the identity of an ASIO officer. So under the Howard plan, either civil liberties or security must necessarily be compromised. And the idea of compelling people to answer questions (even self-incriminating ones) on pain of five years jail threatens the very free society that these measures are supposed to be protecting. Like the famous village in the Vietnam war which had to be destroyed in order to save it, we are at risk of destroying liberty in order to save it.
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Australia’s superannuation industry could have either of two proverbs applied to it. The first is that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. The other is that will be no good closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Yesterday the Minister for Financial Services and Regulation, Joe Hockey, published an issues paper on the industry calling for public comment on what, if anything, should be done about changing the regulatory regime that applies to it. By and large the industry has been running reasonably well. But it would be dangerous to be complacent for several reasons. There have been some failures in the industry, including ones of major trustees, which have resulted in significant losses to funds and members. There have been some spectacular crashes in related prudential industries, notably insurance, which indicate that all is not well with the regulatory environment. No regulatory regime can prevent all failures, crashes and losses, but they can help prevent some. Nor should a regulatory regime aim to prevent all market losses. However, the spectacular nature of the HIH case indicates that perhaps the move to deregulation, self-regulation and market forces has gone far enough.

The argument in favour of some greater regulation of the superannuation industry also arises out the nature of superannuation itself. It is quite different from usual commodity markets. Superannuation has a high social element; the law requires people to put money in a fund; there is little choice about the fund for many people; the fund is tied up for a long time; there are taxation concessions so the Government has a stake; many funds put invitations out to the public; and there is great disparity of knowledge between those doing the investing and those whose funds are invested.
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