Crispin Hull

The Government’s Innovate Australia statement was like the curate’s egg _ good in parts. This means, of course, that as eggs go it is a bad one. Various industry representatives have praised the statement for the sprinkling of goodies that come their way, but the approach of the statement is fundamentally flawed. It is so because it assumes that government can successfully play a significant role in the application of technology in industry.

It would have been better if the Government had concentrated on that part of research and development that industry will rarely if ever do _ expensive pure research and concentrated on creating a better environment for business to apply the technology in a better way. On those counts the few grants to pure science are welcome, but in a general environment of cut-backs to hard science and the theoretical edge of engineering at Australia’s education institutions, it is window dressing while the shelves inside are poorly stocked.
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After a decade or more of acrimonious and increasingly divisive debate, conservation groups and the forest industry now have something in common … a lack of credibility among the bulk of Australian people. That has been very helpful for the Government. Having received opprobrium from sides, the Government says it must have struck the right balance.

That is yet to be shown, but it is at least clear that the Government’s forestry strategy this year is an improvement on the fiasco last year which was almost an open slather for wood-chipping. Now there is greater emphasis on plantations and value-adding through encouragement of paper production in Australia to replace imports.

Australia’s forest industries have not been very cleverly managed in the past. The trend has been away from saw logs to woodchip. The woodchip industry has not been a high-value added industry and has had to compete with other nations who have been even sillier than Australia in under-pricing or misusing a major natural resource. In some of those countries there has been an absence of management and extensive corruption, unlike in Australia, making the competition more difficult (at least in the short-term until their resource is squandered). In short, we have sold some of our forest too cheaply and sold some of our forest that should not have been sold at all. We have sought short-term gain and ignored long-term interests … like a profligate youth blowing the family fortune.
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The NSW Roads and Traffic Authority has strongly advocated reducing the speed limit on local roads from 60km/h to 50km/h. Some trials will begin in North Sydney and Mosman later this month. The reaction of most people would surely be … lucky people of North Sydney and Mosman.

The question should be asked, when will the ACT follow suit. Australia has among the highest speed limits for local roads. It was increased in 1964 from 30 miles per hour (48km/h) to 35 miles per hour (56km/h) as a recognition of the improvement in both roads and cars. Cars could stop more quickly. With metrification in 1974 it was round up to 60km/h.

The changes have been shown to be misguided. It may be that roads and the performance of cars have been improved and that has resulted in a fall in the accident rate, but a greater fall would have been achieved if the speed limit had remained lower. Denmark lowered the limit 10 years ago and the death rate fell 24 per cent. About 70 per cent of accident happen on local roads.
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The first experience in New Zealand of a citizens’ initiated referendum was not a happy one. It shows, however, that the direction of citizens’ referedums in the ACT has avoided much of the folly evident in the New Zealand model. The weekend vote in New Zealand was 87.3 per cent Yes to 12.7 per cent No in favour of retaining a high number of fire-fighters.

Several things went wrong. The turnout was a very low 27.7 per cent. The cost of the equivalent of $9 million was too high for the nature of the issue involved. The implementation of the result is open to interpretation, unenforceable and largely motherhood. Of course, people want more and better fire-fighters … and teachers, and police and doctors and every other service provider in the public sector. Sensible New Zealanders saw the farce and did not bother to vote, or voted No.
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The ALP will bemoan the fact it did not implement the Access to Justice report much earlier. The report recommended dozens of ways to reduce legal costs. Now the ALP and Carmen Lawrence cannot shift her $243,000 legal bill to the taxpayer, they will see first hand how lawyers have priced justice out of reach.

The total legal bill for her appearance at the Royal Commission and the earlier challenges to it came to more than $800,000, but the Senate refused to endorse payment by the taxpayer of the amount attributable to the challenges.

The amounts show that the cost of legal representation in Australia has reached absurd proportions. And in this case it did not seem to be very good advice. The huge sums were charged for failed challenges and representation at the Royal Commission which resulted in adverse findings.
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The saga over the Government’s attempt to deal with the loss-making Australian National Line is a vignette of the wider sorry picture of industrial life in Australia. The Government had planned to sell ANL to the British-based shipping company P&O, but announced last week that it would retain it in public ownership until it had been restructured and turned into a viable commercial enterprise.

The decision will temporarily head off strife with the waterfront unions, the main stumbling block to a sale. The unions had threatened strikes unless it got guarantees on Australian crews, jobs and conditions.

Treasurer Ralph Willis says it is difficult to sell a enterprise that is making losses and has high debt. Wrong. Such enterprises can be sold if the buyer sees potential in them. But there will never be potential in ANL or any Australian-based shipping line while the mill-stone of expensive, inefficient, unjustifiable union-enforced work practices remain.
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Northern Ireland moved closer to a state of permanent peace last week. The catalyst was the visit of US President Bill Clinton. It was not that Mr Clinton himself did anything. Rather the thought of him just being there was enough to garner the British and Irish Prime Ministers to move the peace process one step … any step … further. The exact nature of the step was of much less importance than the fact it was taken. It means that the peace-seekers have obtained a little more of the most precious element in achieving lasting peace in Northern Ireland … time.

After 25 years of bloodshed, it is a difficult task to change a society from a state of virtual war. In that time enormous suspicion, fear and hatred can build up. The underlying causes of the violence … economic discrimination against minority Catholics, especially in low socio-economic groups … remains as a significant fear even if less as a reality. Further, in the 25 years of violence, many people have a vested interest in the status quo. Some make their living from the abnormally violent society, whether they are glaziers, counsellors, funeral directors or weapons brokers or power-brokers in the para-military organisations on both sides. There are many with a keen interest in continued violence; whereas those who dearly want peace are sceptical or at best luke-warm in support of the various proposals put forward to achieve it.
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One cannot imagine him giving up his role as public speaker on a wide range of topics, yet many of us expect our judges to be silent ciphers of a mystical law written in stone tablets in the sky that only those versed in the law are permitted to read.

We do not have a free-speech ethos in Australia. We are shocked when the Governor-General says something other than obvious platitudes. We do not like our judges saying things out of court and conversely judges do not say things out of court, except rarely.

Only recently have doctors and lawyers, for example, come out of their silly “”professional” rules of not being named in public comment. We have an Australian ethos of “”It’s not for me to say”.
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The unexpressed third role of the High Court is becoming more important. Justice Michael Kirby’s appointment can only reinforce it. The text books and the words of the Constitution tell us that the High Court has two roles: to interpret the Constitution and to be the highest court of appeal in the land.

The former usually requires arbitration between the Commonwealth and the states; the latter between citizens of Australia.

In the first 25 years of federation, the court gave the states supremacy, arguing that they had reserve rights to which the Commonwealth must bow. This was the states rights phase of the High Court.
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Will they never let up? The extreme sides of the planning debate have both launched such intemperate attacks on the Stein report that they leave themselves open for intemperate replies.

Paul Whalan, former Labor Deputy Chief Minister and now a BMW-driving convert to developer-driven capitalism, referred to the report as the “”stain” report. (Converts proselytise far more vociferously than originals). He said “”you will find quite a strong Marxist flavour running right through it”. I can hear the rumblings at Highgate cemetery from here.

Whalan would like to see freehold land, fewer planning controls, and less or no betterment tax for developers wanting to put up higher density housing or convert to commercial leases. Noel Mc Cann, a property valuer, said he preferred Stein Lager rather than Stein logic.
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