Crispin Hull

Violence in society is a major issue requiring action by governments and individuals to eliminate. It is particularly odious when directed at the most vulnerable in society: women and children. It has been an important step, for example, for the ACT to legislate to prohibit corporal punishment in schools. It might not be possible to legislate against all violence, but its deliberate application by people in authority can be legislated against.

With respect to women, it is appalling that so many women must fear going alone on to public transport or into public places at night. It is appalling that in the home some women are subjected to domestic violence. Governments have acted on that problem with domestic violence orders and other measures.

Last week the Australian Bureau of Statistics published the results of its women’s safety survey. On its face it presents a terrible picture of increasing violence against women. But on closer analysis, it seems the violence picture is not as grim as the bureau and its sponsors for this research would have us believe.
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At last New Zealand has a government. Nine weeks after the election under the new mixed-member proportional system the National Party of Prime Minister Jim Bolger has been returned to office in coalition with Winston Peters’ New Zealand First Party. It will mean a complete change in New Zealand politics.

The previous cross-in-box, single-member-electorate system invariably delivered majority governments. It was winner take all, often with one or other the major parties taking government with 40 per cent or so of the vote. And in the absence of the constraints of and upper house or state parliaments, as in Australia or Canada, it meant the New Zealand Government could do what it liked. It has meant for New Zealand a decade of quite radical changes: deregulation and privatisation; virtual elimination of tariffs; an unfettered labour market; the removal of currency and other financial controls and rigid statutory constraints of fiscal and monetary policies that have put low inflation (below 2 per cent) as the be-all and end-all of government financial management.

The radical economic changes had radical social consequences. There have been many benefits, but there has also been great dislocation and uncertainty. Reduction in the public-sector deficit, reduction in overseas debt, greater economic opportunity and more jobs have been counter-balanced by redundancies, cut-backs in government services and job insecurity. It caused New Zealanders to demand and get a change in the electoral system to bring some tempering influences into the political system.
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The pendulum swings back. Twenty years ago the ACT education system began an experiment to separate Year 11 and 12 from high schools to create separate colleges. They worked on the presumption that the students would be young adults, and indeed some not so young adults, rather than children. The colleges would provide an atmosphere somewhere between school and university with greater emphasis on individual responsibility and freedom to be educated, rather than coercion.

In tandem with greater student freedom and responsibility came greater freedom and responsibility for the colleges in developing courses, in setting the standards to be used in presenting results in the Year 12 certificate and in setting the patterns of the teaching year.

The system had success on several fronts. It greatest success was that the ACT has by far the highest retention rate for Year 11 and 12 in the country, but that might be as much due to the general higher education and economic status of parents the ACT inculcating a view among children that education is something of great value. Its other success was to permit mature-age students and those who had dropped out for a couple of years after Year 10 to return to the final two years of secondary schooling in an environment not possible under the old high-schools system.
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The Federal Government’s position on putting trade ahead of human rights is giving the country a bad name in Europe and the United States, and rightly so. The Government refuses to sign a wide-ranging trade agreement with Europe because the treaty contains a commitment to human rights and Australia is opposing the US and European position at the World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting in Singapore this week linking free trade with labour rights.

Both objections are difficult to understand.

In the case of the European Union, under European Union law, the section on human rights must be included in all EU agreements. The section says: “”The parties reaffirm the importance they attach to the principles of the United Nations charter and the respective democratic principles of human rights. Respect for human rights and democratic principles is the basis for the cooperation between the parties and for the provisions of this agreement and it constitutes an essential element of the agreement.”

Under international and contract law “”essential element” means that if that element is breached the other side can repudiate the agreement.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer says that the Australian objection centres around allowing the Europeans to unilaterally repudiate the agreement according to the European view of Australian performance in the human-rights area. It is a legalistic objection. All other countries concluding trade and cooperation agreements with the EU have signed the clause, including South Korea. In fact, the clause is poor a broad statement of principle about which Australia should have nothing to fear, rather than a clause the EU would trigger on a minor issue.
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The proposal by the Federal Minister for Industry, John Moore, for a “”second board”” on the Australian Stock Exchange has merit. Many small and medium companies find it far too expensive to meet the stringent demands of the Australian Securities Commission to list on the present exchange and so are denied the chance to raise money from the public.

Mr Moore argues that there is a market for high-risk money. People seeking high returns in speculative investment … often in hi-tech areas … should have that avenue.

But there is a snag. Too often unscrupulous people are all too willing to take money from mugs. This is why the disclosure rules were originally put in place. However, a lot of those rules have gone too far. Moreover, the very detailed prospectuses that arise from them are often not read, let alone understood by many public investors. Mr Moore’s plan has the advantage that a second board of itself would be a prominent “”buyer beware” message.

The essential problem, though, may not be in the Stock Exchange or Securities Commission rules. A decade after the bursting of the speculative bubble of the 1980s, prosecuting authorities and the courts are still dealing with the wash-up because of tardy court processes. The quick apprehension, conviction and punishment of corporate criminals would do far more to instil confidence among investors than any amount of rules on the provision of information to public investors. Investors in a second-board market will accept losing their money upon business failure through misjudgment of the market, but they still want to be protected from outright dishonesty.

The ACT Government has come up with what seems an acceptable compromise on the method of charging rates, but there is a small time-bomb in the proposed system and a bizarre piece of money shuffling.

. The system before the last election was based on the previous unimproved valuation. It meant, however, that rates could fluctuate quite markedly immediately after a valuation. It was not a good system. As an interim measure the Government, adhering to an election promise, applied a blanket CPI increase to every rates bill. The Government wanted to continue with this system, but in the long run it was untenable. Rates could not be based on 1994 values plus CPI indefinitely.

Two rates reviews recommended changes. One, in 1994, thought rates should be adjusted according to the average value of the last three valuations of a property. This would iron out large changes in rates based on a single value. The Government, sensibly, has adopted this approach, but has added some bells and whistles.

Another later review called for a system of a fixed charge to generate half ACT rate income and the rest to be based on property values. That had the drawback of seeing less-well-off people paying much more and people who owned splendid dwellings paying less. The Government has rejected this, but has taken up some of the flat-fee idea.
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There is just enough time. There could be a high-speed rail link between Canberra and Sydney before the 2000 Olympics. It is not that the Olympics should drive the whole project, but it is true that the Olympics and the associated euphoria mean that a high-speed rail link could be built several years before it would otherwise be due because of the Olympics. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood lead on to fortune.

The decision by the Commonwealth Government this week to join the ACT and NSW Governments in seeking expressions of interest in the project is welcome. The ground rules are fairly sound: no drain on public finances; reasonable conservation requirements; and a level playing field for all tenderers. The several governments should look at all with an open mind.

Several consortiums have already indicated that the project can be made economic. The fast train project has a lot of merit. It will relieve the congestion at Sydney airport and provide a cheaper and more convenient link between Canberra and Sydney. Passengers will get a link between Canberra and the Sydney CBD for a fraction of the cost of the present air and taxi option. Moreover, it is likely to take about the same amount of time but be more convenient because travellers will not have to change between taxi and air and air and taxi. They will be able to use their telephone the whole way and be able to plug their computers into the phone network and get useful work done on the train where they will have more room. The interrupted airline and taxi journey does not afford the same sort of opportunity.

The train should go past Canberra airport which should be upgraded to take international freight and passengers.

The Belconnen Remand Centre is out-dated, poorly designed and expensive to run. That does not mean a jail should be built in the ACT as recommended by the discussion paper on ACT correctional services issued this week.

There are competing social and economic issues in the question of whether the ACT should have its own jail. As a single polity with its own law making body and judiciary there are arguments for ACT authorities taking full control over the whole correctional process, rather than surrendering control over prisoners to NSW. As a single community there are good grounds for having a jail here where prisoners can be closer to their families where it is easier to maintain the social contact so necessary in any process of rehabilitation.

On the other hand, the ACT could not build a cost effective jail here that could cater for the whole range of prisoners from maximum security prisoners who are a danger to prison warders, the community at large, other prisoners and themselves down to short-term prisoners who pose little risk and other prisoners who are at risk from their fellow inmates. The trouble is that the ACT produces criminals of all kinds from multiple killers with pre-meditation to driving offenders but there might be only one or two prisoners in each category.
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The haste with which the Government has returned the Bill on migrant eligibility to the Senate indicates a double dissolution is still an option.

The possibility remains, despite Prime Minister John Howard’s tipping of cold water on double-dissolution hints a week ago by his deputy, Peter Costello. Mr Howard has himself resurrected the hinting process with his statement that the Labor Party was making a huge political mistake in opposing the tougher rules for migrant welfare. Mr Howard did not elaborate, but the hint is that Labor would be enabling a double dissolution trigger.

If it is an option, the Government must be careful in its exercise. Usually, the twice rejected Bills that form the constitutional basis for the double dissolution form little or no part in the ensuing election campaign. Arguably that shows a corruption of the system. It indicates that double dissolutions are use not for the proper constitutional purpose of breaking a legislative impasse between the Houses, but to seize electoral opportunity to extend the life of the Government. In this instance, however, it would be a destructive thing for the election campaign to be fought on the merits of the rejected Bill, because that Bill is about migrant benefits. It would have the potential to unleash more divisive “”debate” on race and migrants.
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John Howard and the Coalition are putting the cart before the horse over the republic. It is a waste of time and money to have a constitutional convention about constitutional reform and whether Australia should become a republic and then to have a vote on some sort of consensus. It should be now obvious that a majority of Australians do not want the British Head of State to be the Australian Head of State and that a majority does not want the Queen (or, worse, King Charles III) to open the Olympic Games, or indeed any other major event in Australia. Australians want an Australian citizen whose primary loyalty is to Australia as Head of State.

It would be better if there were an advisory referendum with the next election on the issue, asking a simple yes-no in favour of an Australian Head of State and an Australian republic. When that inevitably returns a yes vote, the whole of Australia, monarchists and republicans alike, could then devote itself to the question of what sort of republic. Only then is a convention of much use.

As it is, a convention will achieve nothing … perhaps that is what it is designed to achieve. If it is all or partially elected, the money and effort that goes into that election would be better spent on an advisory referendum. But that might be too revealing for Mr Howard who wants to cling to the constitutional monarchy against the wishes of an increasing majority of Australians. If the convention is all-appointed it will mean nothing other than a talkfest that will generate no ideas that are not already in circulation.
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