Crispin Hull

Labor has increased its lead over the Liberal Party in the part week, according to the latest Canberra Times Datacol poll and is almost certain to take minority government with Democrat or Green support.

The Democrats are doing much better than previous elections, and their vote is holding up as the election approaches, unlike the experience of past elections. It now looks like the Democrats will take two or three seats, the first time they will get representation in the Legislative Assembly.

Many have put this down to “”the Natasha factor” – the heavy campaigning in the ACT by the Federal Democrat leader, Senator Natasha Stott-Despoja”.
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The traditional medal tally lists countries in order of the most gold medals (with the silver used to rank when the gold is equal, and then the bronze). Other medal tallies get more Olympic-spirited and list nations in order of the total number of medals won, irrespective of their colour.

Other medal tallies get more Olympic-spirited and list nations in order of number of medals won, irrespective of their colour. It is as important to compete (and come second or third) as to win gold.

There is, however, surprisingly little difference in the order of nations between these three sorts of tallies. The top nine countries stay in the same order either way.
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Long after Australia has hung up on the Telecard affair, our horribly inefficient industrial relations system will continue to taunt us. This week the Minister for Workplace Relations, Peter Reith, issued two discussion papers on industrial relations. At the press conference no journalist took the slightest interest in them. Pity.

For a century, industrial relations in Australia have been dogged (literally, sometimes) with unnecessary conflict, complexity, procedural madness, federal-state overlap hand high costs.

Tax, corporate law, trade practices, financial institutions and nearly all family law have been brought into national schemes, but industrial relations remains fractured between the state and the Commonwealth, with the twin sins of overlap and voids. There are four main reasons. The first is that the constitutional base is flawed. In the 1890s Australia was hit by a series of prolonged major strikes. Those framing the Constitution saw a need for a system of compulsory, independent conciliation and arbitration to avoid them. However, states rights still ran strong. The Commonwealth was not given full power. The states could have their own systems. The Commonwealth could only have power to set up arbitration bodies to deal with interstate industrial disputes. So Section 51 (xxxv) was put into the Constitution:
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Professor Neutze had worked at the Australian National University for 40 years, most recently as professor in the Urban Research Unit in the Research School of Social Sciences. He was director of the Institute of Advanced Studies and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (1989-92). Professor Neutze came to Canberra to teach economics in 1960 from Oxford where he was a Rhodes scholar.

Professor Neutze had a high international reputation in urban design as well as engaging in his local community in the debates about the development of Canberra. In addition to his intellectual rigour he brought a great humanity to his work, and well understood that the prime aim of both economics and urban design should be the well-being of people. He took on those driven by economics and the money of development, arguing strongly against rampant in-fill and higher development for its own sake. He did so in a fearless, but gentlemanly way. He cherished academic freedom in a time when commercialisation was eroding it at universities. He was a constant fighter for more untied funding for universities and a champion of the value of pure research.

His book Urban Development in Australia changed the way people thought about the functioning and economics of Australian cities – a matter of critical importance in one of the most urbanised nations on earth.
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The Coalition’s baby bonus exemplifies a mindset, rather than a sensibly policy to deal with the juggling between work and childcare. Clearly, the Coalition was not listening to the (mainly) women who are doing the juggling, whose constant cry has been for better maternity leave, more childcare places and the tax deductibility of childcare costs.

The baby bonus, announced by Prime Minister John Howard has a major plank in the launch of his policy platform, is directed at giving incentives to women to stay at home with their children for the first five years. Under the plan women who have a baby after July 1, 2001, receive a tax refund (as a refund of the tax they paid the previous financial year) of up to $2500 year for five years. If a woman goes back to work during the financial year she will lose the refund for that year. Those not in the workforce will get a flat payment of $500.

It is an absurd policy to encourage people not to work – particularly from a Government that railed against welfare dependency. Like the health-insurance rebate, it is badly directed. Many women will be in fairly high-income households and can stop work, get the rebate and still live fairly well on their partner’s income. It is middle-class welfare. It also encourages women’s dependency on partners and discourages their independence. Fortunately, the amounts of money involves are so small, that the incentives for women to give up work will be small.
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Last week Noel Pearson, lawyer and Aboriginal leader, raised a stir in the context of the election campaign when he said he would reject an apology over the stolen generation whether it came from Labor or a re-elected Coalition. He acknowledged that a Beazley Labor Government had promised an apology, “”but an apology at this stage of our national indigenous policy failure would only hide the present lack of insight and ideas among the Australian progressivist and liberalist middle class”.

Unfortunately, the media coverage over the apology tended to take the limelight from Mr Peason’s more important message. It is a message that challenges some widely held beliefs among Aboriginal groups and among Australia’s liberalist middle class. One of those widely held beliefs is a chain of causation that explains the Aboriginal condition. The chain starts with colonisation and dispossession. That lead to a breakdown of traditional ways. This troubled historical legacy results in a societal breakdown, alcohol abuse, violence, criminal conduct, poor health outcomes and so on. Under this theory, the dispossession has to be dealt with if the alcohol and substance abuse, violence and poor health is to be addressed.

Wrong, says Mr Pearson.
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The Australian economy will face a great deal of pressure in the next few weeks. It will require a great deal of skill, diligence and nerve on the part of those in power to ensure that it does not succumb to pressure that will result in many Australians suffering economic hardship. There are several inter-related points of pressure. The most obvious is the relationship between the US dollar and the Australian dollar. Our currency has fallen considerably in the past few months against the US dollar. There is some evidence that the fall has halted, but one could not be too confident about it. The saving grace is that other currencies have also fallen against the US dollar, some by more than ours. It means that our position against the currencies of other major trading partners – the euro, yen and New Zealand dollar — has held up. Also currency changes usually self-correct or at least find a new equilibrium. The price of US exports will go up so Australians will shun them and the price of Australian goods in the US will go down, making them more attractive.

The next pressure is the price of oil. It has the potential to flow through all areas of the economy as transport costs get passed on to consumers.

These two pressures have resulted in price increases, but their full effect has not been reflected in official inflation figures. However, the one-off inflationary effect of the GST has sounded in official rates with the latest figures out this week. Those figures revealed a lower rise in inflation than was expected. Nonetheless combined with petrol and import prices, there is at least an anecdotal and psychological effect among consumers and employees. It is fairly apparent that the price effect of the GST has been more than compensated for by tax cuts and changes to welfare. The danger is, however, that many will not see it that way. Rather they will see the spike in the consumer price index and point to petrol and import price rises and rises in mortgage repayments due to recent small rises in interest rates. They will then argue for wage rises to compensate. It is important that any wages rises are tied to demonstrated productivity rises and are not given because of the rise in the GST-related CPI or because of international circumstances. To do so would fuel inflationary pressure. That in turn would lead the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates. That in turn would result in lower buying power and probably to some businesses faltering and therefore lower employment growth. It is also important that executives lead by example. They should show restraint, too. A beneficial result of the changes to corporate law to force disclosure of executive pay has been some exercises in shaming that might result in more restraint.
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The news from Northern Ireland that the Irish Republican Army has begun decommissioning weapons is welcome indeed. We do not know the exact quantity of arms and it is apparent that the IRA still has a lot of weaponry still available for use, but the step is hugely symbolic. It is also of great practical importance because it puts the peace process back on the rails.

Significantly, Northern Ireland’s Protestant politicians have agreed to go back into government after resigning because of the refusal of the IRA to begin decommissioning.

Chief Minister David Trimble resigned in July and his other ministers resigned last week. The latter resignations appeared at the time to doom the peace process.
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It is time for Prime Minister John Howard to engage in the domestic election campaign. It is less than three weeks until voting day, and it is not enough for him to wrap himself in the flag and pretend Australia is facing some major external threat and full-scale war. Australia will have a maximum of 150 soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan. Our Navy will be doing some patrolling thousands of kilometres from land-locked Afghanistan and our Air Force, even if it did fly over Afghanistan, would not meet any threat. If anything the operation should be described as a police action, rather than a military one, and its running is largely being directed by the Americans anyway. The operation – if it must be run — could be run as effectively by Labor leader Kim Beazley as Mr Howard. The two parties have absolutely no difference in policy on the so-called war or terror, so it should not be a significant issue in the election campaign.

The danger for Mr Howard and the Coalition voters seem to be beginning to recognise this and are ranging their thoughts back to domestic matters. If Mr Howard plays only the war and refugee cards, he might find his absence on domestic issues costing him the election. It will certainly deprive voters of a fully informed contest.

The latest AC Nielsen poll published in the Fairfax newspapers indicates that Labor is picking up support. Just after the Tampa refugee crisis in the middle of last month, the Coalition was 16 percentage points ahead of Labor and set for an increased majority. Two weeks ago it was 15 points and now it is just six. On a two-party preferred basis the Coalition is just two percentage points ahead. The two-party preferred vote is significant. It reveals that much of the Coalition gain has come from One Nation – that is probably the anti-refugee, anti-immigration, anti-Asia vote. The Coalition appears to have won that from the refugee crisis. But the subsequent international events do not seem to be having the same effect for the Coalition. People are rightly questioning whether Australia should be sending troops to Afghanistan. It is not the automatic vote winner that Mr Howard thinks.
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Australians, particularly Canberrans, still have plenty of room for improvement on the roads. The latest AAMI insurance survey reveals poor attitudes and poor driving. Given an annual road toll of 1700 or so and an injury toll 10 times that, there would be plenty of benefits from improvement, both financially and in terms of pain and suffering.

True, the road toll has comes down in the past decade or so, though not steadily. In the past couple of years it has remained static. We should be aiming for a zero road toll. A death on the road should be a rare, not a common thing. The present road toll is to an acceptable cost of the convenience of road transport. With better attitudes and better driving the toll could come down hugely without significant loss of convenience.

The usual culprits stand out in the latest AAMI survey – males under the age of 25. They had 18.5 claims per 100 policies. Females in the same age group had a rate of 13.7. Young drivers tended to blame older drivers for causing accidents because the older drivers drove too slowly. But the truth was the opposite. Older drivers had fewer claims than younger ones. Drivers aged 51 to 64 have 7.8 claims per 100 policy-holders. Drivers over 65 had just 7.2. Sure, those over 65 might do less driving, but that cannot be said of the 51-64 age group. The message is clear: young , male drivers think they the best and in fact they are the worst.
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