July 2005 Archives

It's too early to say if Morris Iemma will be Barry Unsworth revisited, but, on the surface the situation is similar. A long standing NSW state premier resigns at his own time and on his own terms, and gets replaced by the Labor party machine's candidate.

For those too young to remember, Unsworth was elected (anointed?) leader in 1986 after Nevile Wran retired mid term. He took over a government in decline, and lost the following election by a landslide. The feeling this time round is much the same.

I take my hat off to Bob Carr. In my lifetime, he's only the fourth Australian political leader to retire on his own terms. The other three were Henry Bolte, Robert Menzies and the previously mentioned Wran. All the others either resigned under a cloud or for health reasons, were replaced by their own party, or lost an election. Just shows how addictive the power game really is.

Update: Apparently Sir Charles Court, Premier of Western Australia, resigned at his own time, according to this morning's paper. I'm not sure of the exact circumstances in which he left office, a quick Google didn't find the answer, only that he departed in 1982. So that makes five leaders in 50 years to choose their own time to leave. Not many.

Not only has Steve Vizard managed to avoid a criminal trial for insider trading, he now has the prosecution QC arguing in his favour.

From the ABC News Website:

The barrister representing ASIC, Neil Young QC, told the court Mr Vizard had deliberately committed serious breaches of his duties.

But on the matter of a penalty, he said Mr Vizard's genuine and comprehensive admissions should result in a significant reduction in penalty.

Mr Vizard admitted to all three transactions, he did not try to pick and choose and for that he deserves credit, Mr Young said.

He urged Justice Raymond Finkelstein to take into account Mr Vizard's contrition and the public disgrace he has experienced.

In the absence of those factors, Mr Vizard would face a ban from managing a corporation for between seven and 12 years, and fines of up to $600,000.

Instead, Mr Young recommended a lenient penalty, including a fine of no more than $390,000 and a ban from managing corporations of up to five years.

This would have to be the first time I've ever heard of the prosecution not going for the maximum penalty. Just what is it about Vizard that has the Melbourne establishment protecting him?

At least the judge doesn't sound all that impressed by the pleas on behalf of the accused.

... Judge Finkelstein leaned forward and said he was struggling with the relevance of Mr Vizard's past good behaviour. What is important, he noted, was the nature of the offence and its consequences, not the character of the offender.

Mr Judd [Vizard's defence QC] then noted how Mr Vizard had lost money in the share dealings. Justice Finkelstein replied that that was an argument for the tax commissioner, not him.

Hopefully, the judge will take the view that Vizard should have been in front of a criminal court rather than a civil one, and base the severity of the sentence with that in mind.

Snippets from the ABC's PM program, aired yesterday:

From Paul Keating ...

Why would you want to push ordinary people out of the safety net into individual workplace agreements so you pay them, you know, dumb them down to pay them six to eight bucks an hour.

I mean, Australia has one chance and one chance only. That's to sell our creativity, not our time.

In those couple of sentences, Keating has summarised the essence of the issue. Unfortunately, it's a nuance that eludes most people. Australia will not prosper if it relies on export industries that survive by keeping labour costs low. We can never compete on that basis. Australia must keep on developing capital intensive industries that sell value added products.

So, you know, the fact of the matter is that, you know, that you cannot get ... people who are pushed onto individual workplace agreements will ipso facto be taken out of the enterprise bargaining stream. And what's more, they will not get the benefit of the safety net because the safety net adjustments are going to go to, now, this Fair Pay Commission.

And the Liberals and bodies like the ACCI should understand this. If they believe the corporations power of the Constitution can be used to set up a Fair Pay Commission, well a Labor Government in the future, once this precedent is established, will use the same powers and the same commission to legislate wages.

Now, I would have thought the Liberals would have wanted to run a thousand miles away from that, and the ACCI with them.

So would have I. Robert Menzies must be spinning in his grave.

They want to hop into some poor little character on six to eight bucks an hour. I mean, the stock market, the profit share and the economy are at a record high. The stock market is at a record. No. They still don't want to pay someone $12 an hour. They want to take them down to eight. You know, it's all the old Fightback Policy.

Well, the changes are based on ideology, not need. The government has the keys to the Senate. Only a sustained public backlash, clearly showing in the opinion polls will derail the government's intentions. Hence the scandalous government funded party political adds in recent newpapers before the legislation has been drafted.

Keating may well mention the 'Fightback Policy.' He knows all too well the power of the electorate's fear of change that threatens their lifestyles. He won the 'unwinnable' 1993 election on the back of the voters' concerns about John Hewson's economic proposals.

I expect that the coming legislation may not be so onerous if the electorate resists being swayed by the government's propaganda campaign.

The age old addage of investment is "the more risk, the greater the potential return."

On ABC TV's 'Stateline' (NSW) program last week, there was a report on a group of land owners who bought large blocks of land in the backblocks of western Sydney with the hope, sometime in the future, the land would be rezoned for subdivision. When this happened they'd make a significant profit.

Well, things haven't gone to plan, with the government deciding that certain tracks of land in these areas would not be rezoned. Instead, they are marked to be retained as naturally vegetated land under the current zoning conditions. The government would encourage the owners, using some sort of financial incentive, to maintain or restore the land to its native condition.

Not surprisingly, the effected land owners are not happy, and have formed a lobby group to pressure the government to change its decision. Hopefully, the government will resist.

Buying an asset, in this case land, where it's ultimate value is dependant on a government rezoning decision, has to be classed as a risky investment. The unfortunate thing with risky investments is that sometimes you lose out.

These land owners are no different from any other investors who've lost due to unforeseen circumstances.

When John Howard says something like this ...

We haven't made a decision to have an ID card in this country, but it should properly be on the table ...

... we can take it that it's damn near a certainty.

Remember similar comments about our involvement in the original invasion of Iraq, the extra troop deployments at the beginning of this year, and the commitment of the SAS to Afghanistan. There are certainly others that I can't exactly recall.

Howard is a master of the 'haven't made a decision yet' ploy. A proven tactic for softening up the public.

It's been another hectic week with no time for the blog. Have been rearranging the IT at home, installing a new, faster Linux box for me, and upgrades for the server, the kids and SWMBO. Lots of software reinstalls accompanied by a few problems, now ironed out. Fingers crossed.

The shocking events in London have been dominating my reading this week. It's all the more poignant as I lived in the city for three years during the late seventies and early eighties. Since then I've been back several times for business and pleasure. Must have ridden the Underground hundreds of times. The thought of a large explosion in those narrow, deep tunnels fills me with horror.

It's predictable that after an event like this there are calls for ever more draconian measures to keep the fanatics in check, countered by a less noisy crowd warning of the dangers of impacted personal freedoms from those measures. It's the usual conservative vs liberal thing ... the conservatives feel that the correct response is to show no weakness, that person privacy and freedoms should not hinder the authorities in policing terrorism, and brook no thought that terrorist actions in London or elsewhere have anything to do with international events.

This weekend, I moved the blog onto an bigger hard drive, and, as so often happens, there's a bug in the new installation. My anti-spam plugins refuse to work.

As a temporary measure, I've had to turn on comment authorisation to keep the muck at bay.

Hopefully, things will be working again in a couple of days.

Update: Fixed! For the tech heads among you, the problem was with SE linux (I'm using a flavour of Red Hat) that seemed to be stopping the plugins from working.

Everything seems to be working as it should. If you notice anything strange (other than the usual things) please leave a comment.

Back from a camping trip - heard the London news, had to throw in my two cents. Tony said the attacks were 'a nasty reminder of the risks of holding international events on home soil' and while that may be the case, I think that more poignant is that it highlights the risks of holding international events - such as invasions, liberations, or whatever you want to call them - on foreign soil. Perhaps also we should remember Afghanistan in our list of possible sources of outrage, though Iraq and the G8 are poignant enough.

I add my sty cry of sympathy and hope as i wait to hear from all the friends I made in London over the three years I was there that all will be well. I also become nostalgic for the days when the kings of opposing armies would challenge each other to a duel in order to resolve conflict, avoiding senseless slaughter. Or did that just happen in the books I read as a child.

Heard this driving home last night (before the news of the terrible events in London) and was gob-smacked by some of the interview. The link's worth a look. Highlights below ...

When asked about how much the upcoming government IR advertising campagne would cost ...

JOHN HOWARD: A reasonable amount.

REPORTER 1: How much would that be?

JOHN HOWARD: (laughs) Oh look, I can't tell you. A reasonable amount.

We can take it that this 'party political' at taxpayer expense will cost a bucketload of money.

When asked whether workers would be worse off under the new IR regime, Howard answered ...

JOHN HOWARD: The current evidence is that people on AWAs are better off than people on awards.

JOURNALIST: That's because of the no disadvantage test which you're abolishing.

JOHN HOWARD: Yes, but there are ... would be other factors that will bear on what people get. You're asking me whether I believe, generally speaking, people will be worse off as a result of these changes, and I'm saying no, I do not believe they will be worse off.

REPORTER 2: So you're saying some will be, but most won't?

JOHN HOWARD: No, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that generally people won't be worse off.

REPORTER 2: But what does that mean?

JOHN HOWARD: It means exactly what I said it means.

Pity more reporters can't ask pointed questions like our unnamed hero.

The answers fill you with confidence, don't they?

A set of terrorist bombings on public transport in London is a nasty reminder of the risks of holding international events on home soil, and is particularly poignant the day after city was awarded the right to stage the 2012 Olympics.

It's likely the outrage was aimed at the G8 meeting in Scotland and the UK's continued involvement in Iraq.

We at the Pigs are shocked by this event, are thinking of the victims and sincerely hope the casualty numbers are small.

It's so nice to see the conservatives at each others throats after opinion polls have shown the proposed IR changes are a dead cat to the electorate.

Business leaders yesterday pressed the Government to launch immediately a publicity campaign to counter the ACTU's $8 million media blitz attacking the plan. But Government sources have expressed impatience at the failure of businesses to launch their own ad campaign.

Just how they're going to sell a system that will, in time, disadvantage a large section of the workforce is beyond me. Expect a backdown by jellyback Howard if thing get really tough. Keep in mind the past backslides regarding petrol excise, pollies super and the relaxation of rules for those in immigration detention.

In the meantime we have the Employment Minister, Kevin Andrews, claiming the move to reduce annual leave by two weeks is acceptable because it's done in certain mining industries in Western Australia. What he fails to mention is that this is used by employees that work shifts of two weeks on, two weeks off. Hardly applicable to most of us.

Expect to see other proponents for change wade in with statements like ....

Australian needs a simplified, unified system. We should grab this opportunity to improve the country's competitiveness with both hands.

and

We are not concerned about a poll from time to time. We are concerned about ensuring the economic future of Australia, so that Australians and their families can have the living standards that they want.

and

No government in a Western democracy wants to be overriding the fears and concerns of its citizens. But we need to act and we need to persuade the electorate that these changes are absolutely necessary to make Australia a dynamic and effective industrial democracy.

They couch the issue in terms of 'increased living standards' and 'increased competitiveness,' but it's really about cutting costs rather than increasing efficiency and value adding. You'd think from listening to them that we're on the edge of economic disaster.

Strange really. I thought we were doing pretty well under the current system.

Reading this today about the Catholic church seeking sponsorship, I had the irresistible vision of the Pope, done up like a Rugby League State of Origin player complete with logos on the cassock, presiding at the shindig in 2008.

As I have the artistic talent of an ant, Flute took up the challenge. See it here.

An article by Michael Duffy in yesterday's SMH drove home why the unions are so unpopular with a large proportion of the public, and why they should tread lightly when formulating their response to the government's upcoming IR changes.

His observations about the NSW Teachers' Federation are all too true. All parents with kids at school are aware of how disruptive teachers' industrial action can be.

Let's start with the stopwork meeting, for which teachers were not paid. The big question is why it was held in school time. Clearly it wasn't to put pressure on the Howard Government: no one could believe the event would make the slightest difference to the proposed laws. Was it because teachers are too busy to hold meetings in their own time? Unlikely. Most teachers stop work by 3.30pm: why wasn't the meeting held at 4pm? Or next week, when teachers will be on holidays? Why not take a few hours from there rather than inconvenience parents?

It's a good question. Many people have issues with the government's proposals, so why piss these same people off by unthinking industrial action?

The Teachers' Federation aside, unions as a collective body have realised that the strike weapon is no longer effective. Besides not having the workforce clout to pull off a meaningful general strike, they know that inconveniencing the public will not help their cause. Hence we have a media campaign with clever adds bringing the issue into peoples' homes.

The Australian Workplace Agreements (AWA), the government's preferred vehicle for IR change, has been unpopular, with only 2.5% of the workforce covered by them. The unions need to increase the public's awareness of just what's involved with AWAs. With the scrapping of the 'no disadvantage test,' the employer is now free to rewrite employment conditions that cut standing work conditions. Good economic times won't last forever, and, during the inevitable event of a downturn and higher unemployment, workers will be without any meaningful safeguards in place to prevent the lowering of wages and conditions.

The smart way to get the message across is to ignore calls from the more militant sections of the union movement for industrial action. Better to keep the workers at work, step up the advertisments and hold public demonstrations during the weekend. Keeping inconvenience to a minumum is the key to keeping the public onside.

Update: It looks as though common sense is prevailing within the Union Movement. John Quiggin spotted unionists handing out information at the Brisbane AFL game last night.

Good to note JQ's an AFL follower. Lucky for him that his team did better than mine.

You have to hand it to Peter Costello. He has an innate ability to present believable [to the uninformed] spin to any newsworthy event. Speaking about the government taking control of the Senate ....

Well if the Government hadn't have got a majority in the Senate there'd be no tax cuts today because the legislation itself hasn't gone through, but it's the reality that when the new Senate assembles in August, that it can validate these tax cuts that means every Australian is going to get a tax cut.

So this actually shows the good things you can do for the Australian public with a majority in the Senate.

Bollocks!

If the government did not have control of the Senate, it's likely that the vast majority of tax payers would have had a larger tax cut. The government would have needed to negotiate to get them through, and it in all probability would have compromised towards the opposition's position.