Crispin Hull

President Bill Clinton has been treading on egg shells in Asia. In Japan he has called for a greater role for Japan in security beyond Japan’s borders. He meant not only a greater role for Japan in countering low-level threats like terrorism but also in continuing with US bases in Japan to maintain the strategic balance in the area. He said that if the bases were to go, it would allow North Korea to upset the balance. When he cited North Korea upsetting the balance, there was a clear implication that he meant China as well. Japan has agreed, putting aside the popular dissent against US bases, particular in Okinawa where a teenager was raped by three US servicemen. Japan signed a new security arrangement called “”an Alliance of the 21st Century”. It leaves the level of US troops in Japan at 47,000 and acknowledges that the US should keep about 100,000 troops in the Asia-Pacific region … presumably to contain China. China, of course, does not like the implication.

In the meantime, Mr Clinton’s Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, has been looking at China in a different light. He has been coaxing China to become an agent of peace in the region. He wants China to join four-party talks on a Korean peace agreement. The other three parties would be North and South Korea and the United States. Mr Christopher has used a stopover in the Netherlands to meet the Chinese Foreign Minister, Qian Qichen, to persuade him to help set up the talks.
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The Federal Government should seize the opportunity given by Australia’s peak welfare body that would not oppose the introduction of a goods and services tax (GST) as part of a comprehensive review of the tax system. This week the president of the Australian Council of Social Service, Robert Fitzgerald said the council had never rejected the concept of a consumption tax, but rather the style proposed by the coalition in its 1993 Fightback package.

Mr Fitzgerald’s comments widen the horizon for the Coalition. After it lost the 1993 election, a GST in any shape of form was off the political agenda. No-one dared go near it. On the two occasions when oblique references were made to it by the GST, Labor attempted to rerun its scare campaign. It was a shame that the GST was so comprehensively damned, because despite its politically unacceptability at the time, it is a better and fairer tax than has been painted. The main fear in 1993 was that any new tax is bad because history shows us that new taxes are rarely replacements for existing taxes, they are usually additions. However, as it turned out, Labor’s increase in the overall tax take between 1993 and 1996 was greater than would have been taken by the GST.

Mr Fitzgerald rightly suggested that a GST must be part of overall tax reform. He pointed out that his body opposed the Fightback package which contained a GST, not just because of the GST, but because the overall package would have resulted in substantial decreases to welfare payments and community services. He said that widening the tax base to include taxes on goods and services would be acceptable to his group. The Coalition might agree with that, but it would oppose any overall tax increase.
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It was important, symbolically, for the new Government to apply some of the “”end of days of waste and sloth” to itself. It has done this in two ways. The first was to cut the pay of Ministers outside Cabinet by $10,000. The second was to reduce the number of ministerial staffers from 455 to 379.

It seems that since 1988, a form of Parkinson’s Law has applied … the number of people employed has increased by the amount of extra space available for them in the new Parliament House.

The $10,000 pay cut is quite justifiable, even though the saving is a modest $130,000 a year. Different work should attract different pay, and it was important for the Government to reduce the pay of the outer ministry rather than increase the pay of the inner ministry.
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It is welcome news that the High Court will rule on the Wik and Thayorre land and native title claims without them first going to the Full Federal Court. Delay adds to uncertainty and costs which is not helpful to the claimants or to those who assert existing title. Ever since the Mabo judgment in 1992, there has been uncertainty as to whether an existing pastoral lease was enough to extinguish the common law native title that the High Court in that case. The Commonwealth’s Native Title Act two years later did not resolve the issue. It deliberately put it in the too-hard basket, leaving it for the courts to decide.

The upshot is bound to be unsatisfactory. For a start there are several types of pastoral lease and a myriad of facts, circumstances and legal provisions that apply differently to each. The High Court cannot and will not give a definitive, overall view. That is not its role. It can only rule on the facts of the cases before it. And what pertains to a 19th century lease in Queensland may not pertain to a post-war lease in Western Australia.
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Greg Cornwell has floated the idea of increasing the number of members of the Legislative Assembly at a very inopportune time. Of course, it is never opportune to think of increasing the number, salaries or conditions of politicians.

As it happens the ACT elects the fewest number of politicians per head than any state or territory, by far. The Assembly covers both state and local-government functions.

Mr Cornwell argues that the small number of MLAs and the small ministry is not good for government, and that $700,000 would be money well spent on four more MLAs and increasing the ministry from four to five. The advantages of a fifth ministry would be to spread the portfolios among more MLAs. The difficulties of multiple portfolios have been seen by both sides since self-government. Health and Education were difficult for Gary Humphries; sport, health and industrial relations were hard for Wayne Berry and now Treasury, Health and Chief Minister are a handful for Kate Carnell.
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Canberra is facing interesting times. The new Federal Government seems intent on cutting the Public Service substantially. Federal Public servants comprise about a third of Canberra’s workforce. It would be naive to imagine that the cuts will be prevented by some Sir Humphreyesque juggling as in the early years of the Fraser Government; the experience in Victoria shows what might happen.

Figures suggested have been as high as 20,000. As about a quarter of the service is in Canberra, that might mean around 5000 jobs here. Then there is a multiplier effect on the private sector that supports those public servants.

It is not a pretty picture. It means Canberrans must look at what we have got in the city and how to develop it to cushion the blow and to ensure that as many young people as possible will be able to find work here.
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The Prime Minister, John Howard, will have a difficult time making changes to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission following allegations of financial irregularities against various state Aboriginal Legal Services, and a damning report by the Commonwealth Ombudsman.

At present the body has 17 elected members and 2 appointed by the Minister. The Minister can appoint to chair from among them. But the amendments to remove the ministerial appointments to make it an all-elected body which elects its own chair come into force on July 1 and take practical effect from the first ATSIC election after that. They are, to use the words of the former Prime Minister, L-A-W law.

Mr Howard, and his Minister for Aboriginal Affairs, John Herron, have announced that want to continue to appoint the chair. They also want an overriding ministerial capacity to suspend the board and appoint an administrator if the Minister thinks the board is being mismanaged and a special audit process for ATSIC spending. To achieve the first two the Government must get amendments through the Parliament, and in the face of a hostile Senate some compromise will be needed.
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The Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, has given an uncharacteristically moderate response to the report of the Drug Advisory Council, chaired by Professor David Penington.

The report says despite extra resources, greater penalties and greater in-roads to civil liberties over the past two decades, authorities have not cut the supply of drugs. It called for different approaches, notably decriminalisation of marijuana for own use and treatment of heroin addiction as a health problem, not a criminal one. Mr Kennett called on Victorians to tells their MPs what they thought over the next month and that there would be a conscience vote on the issue. Importantly, he did not dismiss the change of policy out of hand. His approach is markedly different from the Federal Minister for Health, Michael Wooldridge, who said he was not optimistic about the proposed ACT heroin trial (to provide heroin under supervision to addicts), because of resistance in Victoria and NSW.
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The Kingston foreshore-Acton land swap project is likely to a big test for the ACT Government, Opposition, cross-benchers, federal and ACT planning authorities and the new federal minister for territories, Warwick Smith.

It is a large project involving a lot of public money and public assets. It is also going to engage a lot of private investment. Such projects have often been recipes for financial catastrophe, and there are any number of examples in recent Australian history. It is usually the long-suffering taxpayers who miss out. But with care, good management and planning, there is nothing wrong with the grand vision and public and private sector partnerships.

But the warning signs are there in Kingston. While the public-sector bodies are shuffling about the private sector has sniffed the wind of opportunity. The lease of one parcel of land has been sold and there are others nearby. The present lease purpose clauses are for ferries and buses. The new owners have bought subject to approval for a change in lease purpose … to a much more profitable purpose, especially in light of all the projected public investment in the area.
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If 24 people had been killed in an earthquake, cyclone, air crash, fire, industrial accident, mine or virtually any other way, news media would go berserk. As it is they were killed on the roads at Easter. If anything the deaths got slightly more attention than usual, because the holiday period has been otherwise fairly quiet.

The great tragedy is that nearly all the 2000 or so deaths each year on Australian roads (and the 20,000 or so injuries) are largely preventable.

It is true that the toll has dropped from a decade ago. It is difficult to say precisely why … probably a combination of better cars, better roads, higher penalties for breaking the law, more certainty of being caught and more compulsory safety requirements. The reduction in the past decade, improvements in accidental deaths and a general reduction in risk-taking activities such as smoking show it is possible to change human behaviour for the better and it shows that the effort is worth it because of the avoidance of human suffering and the economic advantages.
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