Crispin Hull

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 “2000_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 “2000_11_november_leader05nov act ministry”

Fiji is now paying the terrible price for abandoning the principles of democracy and the rule of law after the coup by George Speight in May. When Speight took the Prime Minister and other parliamentarians hostage in May, the military failed to do its job. That job was to uphold the Constitution and the rule of law. If at the time it felt it could not have arrested Speight and his gang and restored the elected Government without undue bloodshed then in the short term it could have negotiated to put an end to the immediate crisis. But after that, the army should have insisted on a return to democratic government. Instead, it conspired with the Council of Chiefs to fulfill one of Speight’s key aims: the overthrow of the elected Government purely on the grounds that it was led by an ethnic Indian. Speight himself was taken into custody, but the upshot of the military’s failure after the May has been that Speight was made into a hero and martyr. It gave succour to his followers which in turn led to this week’s bloody attempt to replace the commander of the Fijian military, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, with Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini, the man who took the soft approach on Speight after the coup attempt. The rebels attempted to seize control of the army at Queen Elizabeth Barracks in Suva. Three loyal soldiers are dead and 14 in hospital. Five rebels are dead and four were in hospital. Twelve rebels have been captured and about 16 remained on the run. The toll goes beyond the injuries and deaths. Inevitably, the incident will be a major setback to economic recovery and the restoration of democracy. That in turn will result in greater suffering, particularly among the poor in Fiji.

The lesson after the coup should have been that violence is not rewarded. The military should have restored the government of Mahendra Chaudhry when it gained control on July 13. It has Speight in custody, where he fortunately remains after the failure of this week’s attack. Alas, the lesson after the coup was that violence is rewarded. So Speight’s supporters thought they could have another crack at it.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_leader03nov fiji”

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 “2000_11_november_leader02nov afghan”

It is not so much a debate as a vitriolic slanging match. A war of words has flared in letters to the editor column like a case of shingles. And bear in mind a lot of the roughest language and abuse is not fit to print. The fury – both in the letters column and on the road itself – is hard to fathom. Or perhaps it engenders the same primal instincts of defending territory that gives rise to the violence in the Middle East or the rage over in-fill.

The claims and cross-claims have sent me scurrying for the Traffic Act, but you cannot legislate for good sense or common decency.

In the letters page the “”debate” began with a letter suggesting the bicycles should be banned from the road.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_cyle for forum”

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.

I am a motorist, cyclist, roller-blader and pedestrian, so I’ll try to look at it from all sides.
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They were at it again last week, as they have been for more than 100 years. The “”leaders” of the states were squabbling with the Commonwealth over money.

They need the money to buy things so they will look good in front of the voters, so they will get voted back into power. Once again, it is about that most basic instinct, survival.

The Commonwealth is not much better. We witnessed the petty ego of the Education Minister David Kemp this week demanding that the Commonwealth’s contribution be recognised when school buildings it has partially funded are opened. It means that he, or someone he appoints, must attend the opening and be invited to speak or do the opening depending on the funding level. Kemp was making his demands against Victoria and threatened to withdraw funding unless they were met. In short, Coalition politicians must be seen to look good in front of voters rather than state Labor ones. Labor is no better.
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The Broadcasting Services Act and the schedules and guidelines made under it, run to more than 300,000 words.

Yet nowhere in all those words is there a simple statement that a commercial television licence holder must run a news service relevant to its licence area.

We have wads and wads of worthless words.

It used not to be so. Before 1992, a local news service was mandatory.
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There were some noises at the weekend about increasing the size of the ACT Legislative Assembly from thepresent 17 to 21.

The instant public reaction would be howls of derision, hoots and boos.

Politicians are fairly fearful of the idea. The Liberals say they will do it if Labor supports it. Labor says it would like to see someone else other than MLAs make the decision. Perhaps the Electoral Commission or the Remuneration Tribunal.

Obviously minor parties would agree because, at least notionally it would increase their chances. The Greens are formally in favour.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_ass to expand”

Everyone is an architect. It is as easy as pie. You draw a box here and call it the kitchen, and another box and call it the loungeroom and so on. Any idiot can do it. Just like any idiot can write. Or teach. Ho-hum.

This message comes from a “”profession” that truly any idiot can do – be an economist.

The Productivity Commission put out a report a week ago on the architectural profession (www.pc.gov.au). It ran to 100 pages. They need not have bothered. We all know what a Productivity Commission report is going to say about anything: deregulate, let the market decide, allow and encourage self-regulation.
Continue reading “2000_11_november_architects”