What a great night! Who would have thought that staring at numbers and graphs for six hours could be so exhilarating! The Howard era has finally ended.
I must say that Howard's concession speech was both dignified and gracious. He has (finally) accepted the responsibility for the Libs' woes. And, to be fair, a political career spanning a third of a century must be acknowledged and honoured, no matter how repugnant one considers his policies. Howard should also be given credit for remaining in his long-held, but somewhat marginal seat of Bennelong, rather than seeking a safer harbour. He looks likely to lose that seat, which would be symbolically appropriate - a captain going down with his ship.
Personally, I am not a Rudd fan (Gillard is closer to my end of political spectrum), but he deserves enormous credit for turning around the Labor party when it was drifting aimlessly in the political seas and leading the party to a decisive victory in a way somewhat reminiscent of Tony Blair. One can only hope that the party will be able to stay true to its principles and to its promises. We must also hope that the Labor government will repair some of the damage done to our values and our political institutions under Howard. That it will put a higher value on accountability, transparency, fairness, responsibility and intelligent public discourse. Eleven years is a lot of damage to repair and I'm not sure that Labor has the will to do it. But here's to hoping.
Having taken a bit of a break from writing, I'm now back, presently turning purple from holding my breath and typing very slowly with crossed fingers. 11 years of Howard's regime may just end tonight and it looks like Howard may be losing his seat (one does have to give him credit for having the guts to run in a fairly marginal seat though).
We may have no more Howard, no more Workchoices and no more idiotic election campaign ads screaming about fanatics and extremists (I was wondering how long it would be to escalate to "terrorists", but then came the little stunt in Lindsay and it became clear that the Liberal party desperation has reached a critical point. Hopefully, tonight their desperation will prove warranted and Mr Howard will be able to go into a long-deserved retirement.
I'm heading back to the TV screen to continue watching the coverage and to see whether I can walk with crossed toes.
It is doubly annoying having to listen to yet another Liberal party ad about how interest rates will be higher under Labor because of "union fanatics" "environmental extremists" and learner leaders, when we have now had yet another interest rise (the sixth since 2004) and the prediction is that the rates will keep on going up. Howard's solution is to boast about strong economy and bleat about his economic management credentials. Given that both the interest rates and prices for essential goods are growing at an alarming rate, those of us not earning $300K a year may think that an overheating economy is not so great.
And what is Howard's great plan to stop interest rates hitting 10% or more? Give people more tax cuts. That's right, create more inflationary pressures so the interest rates go up even further and for each dollar we get by virtue of tax cuts we have to shell out ten dollars to cover the additional mortgage repayments.
In the interests of fairness - Labor is not necessarily better. Rudd adopted Howard's plan for tax cuts. If they are elected and implement it, they would be just as much to blame for the subsequent rise in interest rates as Howard. The fact that Rudd keeps on reminding us about Howard's broken promise that he'll keep interest rates low is all good and well - we need a little dose of reality to counteract the blatantly misleading election campaign strategies of the Libs - but pointing the finger at Howard is not good enough. Rudd must be able to show why his party would be an improvement. Admitting that the planned $32 billion in tax-cut would put further pressure on interest rates would be a start. Ditching the plan would be even better, but I wouldn't bank on it in an election year.
As one might expect, in the leadership debate, Howard made a few claims about the IR "reforms". Lets examine the veracity of some of these claims, remembering of course that one does not need to tell an outright lie to be untruthful. For example, when Howard was asked whether, under his WorkChoices laws employees could be deprived of all their redundancy entitlements, he didn't tell an outright lie - he did not say "no". He also didn't tell the truth (ie "yes they can be and the so-called fairness test won't help them"), instead he launched into an irrelevant tirade about some old reforms to preserve entitlements of employees whose employer went into liquidation.
So what about some of the less obvious untruths? Let's take Howard's statement that Australia has the second highest minimum wage in the developed world. There are several ways that one could measure how high the minimum wage is. A raw dollar value is not particularly useful as the dollar will have different purchasing power in different countries. Wage adjusted for purchasing power ("purchasing power parity") is a better measure, as is percentage of average income.
Let's take a look at the OECD figures of minimum wage as a percentage of average income:
The first thing that is obvious is that in 2000 Australian minimum wage was indeed the second highest in the OECD. In 2006, this was no longer the case. While, at about 53% of the average wage, Australia's minimum wage is higher than the OECD average, it now ranks fifth, with NZ and Hungary following closely behind it. Another thing that cannot escape notice is that Australia is one of only 5 countries where the minimum wage has fallen vis a vis the average wage, and one of only 3 countries where this fall was quite significant. The other two countries are US (whose IR system Howard seems keen to emulate) and Mexico.
Lets look at the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) adjusted wage:
It is the same story - Australia was second, or maybe even first, in 2000, but slipped to fourth place by 2006. Minimum wages have been getting lower, not higher under Howard government.
If Howard had been truthful he should have said "in 2000 Australia had the second highest minimum wage in the OECD, however the last six years of my government saw a fall in the minimum wage, putting further pressure on low income families". But perhaps Howard wasn't trying to mislead - perhaps, as has been his habit, he was looking wistfully to the past rather than facing the present and planning for the future.
And while we are on the subject of the IR untruths. During the debate Howard told the nation that he believed unions had a legitimate role to play. This may have been comforting to those of us who don't think a teenager looking for her first job can effectively bargain with an employer, if it wasn't for Hockey saying completely the opposite just a few days earlier. In an interview on AM radio on the 18th of October Hockey stated that the role of unions in Australia is "essentially over". It is not quite clear whether it is meant to be a statement of fact or of Howard government aspiration, but it does not sit easily with Howard's statement in the Leadership debate.
Well, it was certainly exciting watching the leadership debate, worm-free though it was. I must say that on the whole, I think Howard blew it big time - it is doubtful that he'll want a repeat closer to the election. Howard confirmed one of the most damaging perceptions of him and his government - stuck in the past, retrospective, with no new ideas. None of the policies he put forward did anything to displace that impression. His emphasis was on preservation, maintenance and restoration. The vision of the "future" of education was to restore "education standards" (bit hard to do, if you keep cutting funding), fix the mistake made 30 years ago of abolishing technical schools (what a novel idea!) and restore our teaching of history. There was nothing prospective about his plan.
On the history point, his "vision" of restoring the teaching of history was not one of development of analytical and critical thinking about history or of ways to make the study of history more appealing to students - it was to renew the "pride" in Australian history and in who we are - it is a good recipe for nationalism, but not a great one for learning from our past.
His vision on the economy was more tax cuts and that's it. The universal remedy to rising interest rates, rising food prices, rising education costs, decreasing housing affordability and increasing inflation! I'm sure a few hundred bucks will go a long way to alleviating the burden of an extra $10K in interest repayments on a $300K mortgage thanks to the interest rate rises in the last term of the Howard government.
Rudd performed better, although his emphasis on himself, constantly saying "I" rather than "we" (given that he is a spokesperson for the Labor party and a shadow front bench) was a bit disconcerting. Howard on the other hand placed a lot of emphasis on his new team strategy (which would have been more comforting if the various members of that team didn't stab each other in the back on regular basis).
I hope to do a couple more posts on what emerged from the debate, but it is hard to avoid the overall impression that the only thing that Howard was prepared to offer in terms of the future of Australia are more tax cuts (which are likely to increase inflationary pressures and most of which are, unfortunately, supported by Rudd), a rabid fear of unions and a lot of boasting of past achievements (not all of which can be attributed to good governance). There's going to be a lot of disappointment in the Liberal party circles tonight.
It is almost amusing that every time an election rolls about, the government promises substantial tax cuts. I wonder whether, if elections were held every year, we'd pay no tax at all. Wouldn't that be an attractive prospect? Perhaps not. If Oliver Wendell Holmes was right to say that taxes are what we pay for a civilized society, then the pre-election tax cut bribes may not be such a positive thing.
Attractive though the idea of having more cash in your pocket is, tax cuts come at a price. The 2007-2008 budget foreshadowed a $10 billion surplus. The government is now promising $34 billion in tax cuts. Assuming that the government doesn't intend to push the budget into a $24 billion deficit, where will the money for tax cuts come from? Sure, the government may save a few billion by wasting less money on advertising itself, but that will hardly cover the outstanding amount. In order to give the tax cuts and balance the budget the government will have to make cuts to services - health, education, aged care, child care, welfare. The enrichment of the individual (and more specifically, the wealthy individual who pays more tax) comes at the expense of impoverishment of society. The Howard government is once again showing its inability to think of the forest rather than the trees. It is concerned only with rewarding, or rather bribing, the individuals within society, without caring about how these individuals will be harmed through impoverishment of society as a whole. A few extra bucks in your pocket is great, until you can't afford to pay for basic health or dental care, until your kids can't afford tertiary education or your elderly parents can't get a half-decent standard of living on welfare. When your "social wage" declines more than the benefit you got from tax cuts, you lose out.
Milton Friedman (a neo-liberal economist and definitely not my favourite theorist!) says that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Similarly, there is no such thing as a free tax cut. We pay for the tax cuts that impoverish society and degrade essential services. We pay when our government is more concerned with electoral advantage than with the services it is supposed to be providing to the electorate. We pay when we fail to consider the future because we just want a few more bucks in our pocket in the present.
A little while ago the Howard government quietly changed electoral laws so that the electoral roll closes when the election is called. Those who are not enrolled at the time that the election is called immediately become ineligible to vote at the election. Needless to say that persons most likely to find themselves in that situation are young people who only recently turned 18. There are presently some 400,000 young people who are eligible to vote but have not yet enrolled. As soon as Howard calls an election (which can be any day now), these young people will be disenfranchised.
Why would the government pass such a law? They aren't telling, but young people are on average less likely to vote for the Coalition than older voters. I'll leave it to my readers to draw their own conclusions.
So if you are eligible to enroll to vote, please don't delay and enroll now - don't let the government to disenfranchise you. Remember - your vote counts!
The Howard government knows its in trouble. The polls aren't looking good. Despite the millions of taxpayer dollars the government is spending advertising its unfair WorkChoices laws, the electorate isn't convinced. The interest rates have risen 4 times since the last election in 2004, when the government ran a scare campaign against Labor and promised that interest rates will stay low under the Libs, and it looks like they will rise again, housing affordability is at the lowest level since records began and prices on food and essential items are are rapidly increasing.
To top if all off, leaked government-commissioned research by Mark Textor revealed that Howard is seen as "old and dishonest". If the results of the research are accurate, the only surprise is that it took the voters 11 years to cotton on to Howard's dishonesty. But that is not the theme of this post.
The same research report advised the government to "emphasise the commonwealth is bailing out ineffective and inefficient states"
Given that all States and Territories are presently governed by Labor, that explains a lot. If you can't shake Rudd and can't win on merits because the electorate realised that your merits are much more limited than you've been putting on, attacking Labor-governed States is a great way to go. At least now we know the true explanation for some of Howard government's recent conduct - it was following advice on an electoral strategy!
In recent months the Howard government has been aggressively interfering in State affairs. It sent troops into Northern Territory (not quite a State, but close) to deal with sexual abuse problems in indigenous communities - problems that the Howard government ignored for the last decade. It threatened to do the same in WA. It is planning to take control of the Murray-Darling basin with its water management plans. The Howard government's explanation for its actions adopted the Textor report recommendation to "emphasise the commonwealth is bailing out ineffective and inefficient states" to the letter. In an announcement posted on YouTube (trying to counter the "too old" image, no doubt), Howard stated "my Government only intervenes in those areas where state or territory governments have not fulfilled their obligations and local communities feel let down." One could ask why the government did nothing about these issues for 11 years, but the Textor report doesn't require that attacks on States have actual merit.
More recently, the government interfered in Tasmanian government health reform plan, promising funding for Mersey hospital services which were to be transferred to another hospital (and leading to a senior doctor at the hospital resigning in protest). And of course, consistently with the Textor recommendations, Abbott warned States that the "Commonwealth cannot rule out future interventions if state governments fail their constituents." There does not appear to have been any analysis about the pros and cons of the Tasmanian government health reform plan or about whether the intervention is likely to cause more harm than good, Howard government just followed the formula - "emphasise the commonwealth is bailing out ineffective and inefficient states" - and made sure its action was advertised all over Tasmanian newspapers. At least throwing Tasmania's health reform plans into disarray is not as morally objectionable as sending troops into indigenous with the primary aim of electoral advantage rather than achieving a positive outcome for the people concerned.
The latest Howard government tactic is to blame the States for anticipated interest rate increases and, consistently with the government strategy "when in trouble, spend lots of taxpayer money advertising", new TV advertisements are about to be aired blaming the Labor State governments for rising interest rates. The fact that the same governments ruled the States when in 2004, Howard took credit for low interest rates and strong economy does not seem to have struck the government as a bit of a contradiction. Either in 2004 Howard alone could not claim the entire credit for strong economy and low interest rates, and so he was lying then, or the current rising interest rates are not the fault of the states, and he is lying now. Either way, the perception of dishonesty appears to have sound basis.
Hopefully, the voters can remember the government's hypocrisy as they are bombarded with more misleading advertising, paid for by their hard-earned dollars.
Update: please see the excellent comment by Marek Bage in comments to this post regarding the Mersey hospital.
I was very interested to read an article in the Australian by Professor George Williams about the impact the next election will have on the composition of the High Court of Australia. With the political focus on WorkChoices, Iraq, indigenous affairs and the non-exploding car bombs in UK it is quite understandable that even those of us who usually pay attention to such things would forget that the winner of the next election will get to appoint two out of three High Court justices as Callinan, Gleeson and Kirby retire before 2009. Howard will get to replace Callinan who retires in September. Let's recall that in its first term the Howard government appointed Ian Callinan in order to begin the process of stacking the Court with "capital-C conservatives". The apparent motivation was the Wik decision, which the government (with its habit of defining justice as a decision in its favour) maligned as an example of impermissible "judicial activism". Those of us who read the decision of course know that it was backed up by solid reasoning and in no way endangered people's backyards. But I digress…
Throughout his 11 years in power Howard seized his chance to stack the Court with conservative appointees (that is not to say that any of them are in any way incapable or undeserving of appointment). Of the seven judges on the present Court, only two were appointed by a Labor government and one of them (Justice Gummow) is no less conservative that most Howard government appointees. Of course, as Williams points out, predictions about a judge's ideological leanings may prove wildly wrong. The prime example - Sir William Dean - appointed by a Liberal government and expected to be a conservative jurist, proved to be one of the most progressive (as well as one of the most brilliant) High Court justices in Australian history.
However, Williams is undoubtedly correct that the High Court after 11 years of Howard government is a very different Court to that at the start of Howard's rule. It is little wonder that Justice Kirby is fast approaching a 50% dissent rate, not through any errors of legal analysis but because of genuinely different (and I'd say often superior) perspectives.
A further term in government for the Liberal party will doubtless entrench the ideological lean of the Court for many more years to come. As Williams points out - in US this would be an election issue, in Australia it barely rates a mention. It should be an issue - we are talking about the highest court in the land, the ultimate guardian of the Australian common law and the Constitution. It's important. Even if you are not a lawyer.
A few weeks ago I posted a video made by "killerspud" about John Howard's search for a scapegoat for the next election. Now there's a second installment as the search continues.
Thanks to killerspud for his permission to use the video on this site. Hope you enjoy watching it.
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it. - Robert Frost
Wyn: The Age sucks. It is basically the Herald Sun for the other side of the political fence.
Wyn: Only problem is that if the judge threw the book at them, the same critics would decry the high incidence of aboriginal incarceration and the splitting up of indigenous communities. If you...
Dave Bath: I haven’t ever noticed IPA types defending hard-won freedoms (that have no-one’s “chin” nearby) like the right to a trial, the right to know the evidence against...
Dave Bath: The CIA factbook which lists countries and GINIs is here. It’s last Oz GINI is 1994 (pre-Howard, funny about that!). It’s also worth noting that unlike many other indicators...
Dave Bath: You might like to look at the GINI co-efficient (defined by The Economist here and discussed on Wikipedia here) which is a measure of inequality. It’s low in places like Sweden,...
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