Crispin Hull

The Coalition majority on the parliamentary committee on electoral matters has a recommended tightening of enrolment procedures for the electoral roll. It says people enrolling or changing enrolment details (like address) should provide some from of identification. That recommendation – like a lot of new regulation – will impose a burden on the many because of the malfeasance of a few.

Prime Minister John Howard argued that one has to provide identification in order to hire a video, so why not to enrol to vote? However, the analogy soon falls down. The main reason videos stores require identification is because without it so many videos would be stolen. Similarly with underage drinking; without ID those under 18 would obtain alcohol. But that is not the case with respect to the Australian voting system. Evidence given to the committee by the Australian Electoral Commission stated that there was no case in Australian electoral history where an election of any individual member was affected by impersonation or fraudulent enrolment. In short, there is no mischief or malfeasance to be attended to (unlike the video-store or underage drinking situations). There is simply no need to impose a system of identification.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader19jun electoral roll”

The decision by the High Court this week to uphold the constitutionality of the Workplace Relations Act has been greeted with a lot more enthusiasm on one side and disappointment on the other than the case warrants. Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith described it as a “”crushing blow” for the unions. Opposition Industrial Relations spokesman Arch Bevis said the real losers “”are the lowest-paid workers”. Neither proposition is right. The decision affected only some clauses in some awards.

In 1997 the Workplace Relations Act provided for a list of allowable matters to be included in future awards. In the future the Industrial Relations Commission would not be able to make award provisions for anything outside those core matters. It provided also that anything outside those matters in existing awards would lapse automatically after a period of 18 months. It was taken as read that the Commonwealth Parliament’s constitutional power allowed it to reduce awards to a limited list of conditions for all future cases. It could also cancel all existing awards if it were so minded. The only question at stake was its power to excise some clauses and not others of existing awards. Four judges ruled that it could. Three judges ruled that it could not.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader17jun ir”

Britain has always been ambivalent about one of the greatest geopolitical experiments in human history – – namely the drawing together of diverse European states into a unified structure that would ensure that dialogue and agreement would it replace war and conquest as the means of dispute resolution. The experiment arose out of the ruins and ashes left over after World War II. It was consummated in the treaty of Rome in 1956. But Britain remained aloof from that treaty which was between France, Italy, Germany and the Benelux countries. Britain at the time cited its obligations to the Commonwealth as the primary reason for not signing that initial common market treaty.

However, Britain’s reluctance to engage with, let alone lead, the move to European unity runs far deeper than any residual affection for its former empire. Successive British governments and many British people have had long-term suspicion of Europe. That suspicion has ranged from fear of aggression to a xenophobic aversion to funny foreign foods and habits. Much of that could perhaps be put down to the fact that Britain is an island separated from Europe by the English Channel. Other European countries share land borders with each other which makes interaction far easier and more commonplace. And with interaction comes understanding and appreciation of other people’s different ways.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader16jun uk”

One has to be immediately suspicious whenever the two major parties agree on anything. Sometimes it is a matter of obvious public importance, but usually it benefits the politicians who serve the major parties and is a disservice to politicians of minor parties or independents and the public in general.

This week the two major parties in the ACT Legislative Assembly, Labor and Liberal, have agreed on a range of changes to the electoral law in the ACT. One must be immediately suspicious. The changes to the way ballot papers are printed to ensure that there aren’t freakish flows of preferences to undeserving candidates are reasonable and were recommended by the Electoral Commission.

However, other proposed changes dealing with political donations, the nomination process and the public funding of political parties are suspect.

Changes to the Electoral Act to be debated by the Assembly today include a proposal to allow anonymous political donations up to $1,500; a plan to allow an ACT candidate to use a Commonwealth return in a full satisfaction of the ACT requirements; a requirement that 50 people to nominate a candidate, instead of the present two; a restriction of public funding of candidates to those who win four per cent, as distinct from the present two per cent, of the vote at the previous election; a plan to no longer require political parties to account in any detail for the way in which the funds they receive are spent.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader15jun act electoral”

President George Bush is getting a hostile reception in the Europe. And rightly so. The Europeans have several major differences with directions taken by the Bush presidency: global warming; the missile defence plan; human rights and trade. In each of these areas, the stance taken by the Bush Administration (away from the stance of the previous Administration) has either created or exacerbated the difference between the United States and Europe.

In that the broader historic context, the United States is following a long up running pattern of swinging slowly between isolationism an engagement with the rest of the world, and Europe in particular. Europe, on the other hand, has engaged in a major historic shift since World War II. European nations, who are members of the European Union or aspire to membership, have deliberately encouraged tolerance, human rights, protection of the environment, dialogue, and co-operation in defence matters. In the face of these historic trains, the attitudes been expressed by Mr Bush on his European tour look decidedly out-of-place and outdated.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader14jun bush”

The Australian Republican Movement used to the occasion of the Queen’s birthday holiday at last weekend to make further suggestions about how Australia might become a republic. It also used the occasion to highlight the inappropriateness of Australia celebrating the Queen’s birthday when in fact it is not at the Queen’s birthday and of celebrating even a pseudo-birthday of a person who does not live in Australia and who is regarded by many as not being our head of state at all. Members of the ARM went to Government House to sing Happy Birthday to the Governor-General as a means of highlighting the inappropriateness of the Queen’s birthday holiday.

The chair of the ARM, Greg Barnes, said that his movement wanted to seek a compromise between those wanting a directly elected president and those in favour of a president appointed by Parliament. He said the ARM was floating the idea of an electoral college. The details were not put forward. However, Mr Barnes indicated that it would be an electoral college of delegates from the eight states and territories. Predictably enough, direct electionists poured scorn on the idea. The National Convener of Australian Republicans for an Elected President and Ipswich councillor, Paul Tully, said that if the ARM continued with its approach Australia might not become a republic for another hundred years.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader12jun republic”

Of the case of Timothy McVeigh makes it difficult for even the most ardent opponent of capital punishment. Here is a man who murdered 168 people and injured almost 700 others when he blew up a government building in Oklahoma City in 1995. It was the worst act of peacetime violence on American soil. Last night (Australian timed) he was executed by lethal injection at Indiana’s Terre Haute penitentiary. He showed no remorse. Worse, he described his victims as collateral damage.

Perhaps worst cases could be imagined – – such as multiple murders on different occasions, or murders involving long and drawn-out deaths. Nevertheless, the McVeigh case must stand as one of the very worst when one considers crime and punishment as an exercise in dealing with threats to society.
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The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is under siege. This financial year its costs are expected to increase by a $774 million, a 21.5 per cent jump to $4.26 billion. that is far greater than the nine per cent predicted a year ago. Some changes are clearly necessary.

A large part of the blow-out can be put down to the cost of just two drugs, Celebrex, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Zyban, a drug which is used it to help people give up smoking. Both these drugs can be categorised as lifestyle drugs. Perhaps more significantly, both these drugs have been advertised widely in the community. Celebrex, was expected it to cost about $40 million a year when it was listed nine months ago. It has already cost $140 million. Zyban has cost $40 million against an estimate of $10 million.

It would be a tragedy for their health care of Australians if advertising by pharmaceutical companies coupled with the high cost of some drugs were it to wreck the benefits scheme, particularly if the drugs that do it the threatening are not life-saving but merely drugs that alleviate conditions largely self-inflicted by an ageing baby boom generation.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader07jun pharmacy”

The national accounts of figures published yesterday by the Australian and Bureau of Statistics will be a welcome fillip for the Federal Government which has been lagging in the polls so badly in the past six months that it has looked as if its defeat at the election due later this year is inevitable. However, the figures published yesterday can give the Government some hope of presenting a case to the electorate that it deserves re-electing.

True, it has made a complete hash of many other areas of policy – – health insurance, digital television, reconciliation, treatment of asylum seekers, to name a few. However the Coalition has always presented itself as the better economic manager of the two major parties. Three months ago that claim looked hopelessly weak in the face of a December quarter growth figure of minus 0.6 percent. Many had predicted that the March quarter figure would also be negative, which would have meant Australia was in a technical recession – – technical recession being defined as two consecutive quarters of what the economists call negative growth. At best, economists had predicted a slight increase in growth in the March quarter. They were taken aback yesterday at the 1.1 percent figure which annualised forward would mean 4.4 per cent.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader07jun eco”

Peter Andren is the sole genuine independent in the federal House of Representatives. He has been making a nuisance of himself again. Not a nuisance in the eyes of most of the people of Australia, but rather a nuisance in the eyes of his fellow Members of parliament. Mr Andren has raised the ticklish question of the generosity of the superannuation scheme for federal parliamentarians. He quite rightly points out that it is far too generous, especially when compared to the superannuation entitlements of others in the community. He is also concerned that the salary and allowances of MPs should not be out of kilter with community standards.

As far as Mr Andren is concerned, there are three areas of concern. First, parliamentarians have access to superannuation funds immediately upon it leaving Parliament, irrespective of whether they have turned 55, the age at which others in the community have to attain before they are given access to their superannuation funds. Second, the amount of their superannuation benefits is far too high for the amount of contributions they put in and the length of service needed to qualify. Third, Mr Andren disputes claims by some of his fellow parliamentarians, including Prime Minister John Howard, that MPs are quite poorly paid compared with the private sector.
Continue reading “2000_06_june_leader06jun mps super”