Catallaxy Files

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cFkae0j_Ns

• Have you checked the difference in the cost of promises made by Labor in the lead up to the 2007 election and the actual cost when implemented? If so, what is the difference?
• Does the fact that an average of 3.9 per cent of electors in your three electorates gave their first preference votes to the Greens compared to the national average of 11.5 per cent give you pause in considering support for a Labor-Greens government?
• Which Government is likely to put less strain on the Budget: a Coalition or a Labor-Greens government?
• Can you point to past statements you have made where you think a Labor-Greens government would be in Australia’s national interest? Can you point to previous comments you have made in support of Greens’ policies?
• With a Labor Government relying on Greens support and with the Greens holding a balance of power in the Senate, is it more or less likely that Greens’ policies will be implemented under a Labor or Coalition government?
• How high a price on carbon do you support?
• Is a Labor-Greens Government likely to be more left wing or right wing compared with the 2007 – 2010 Rudd/Gillard Government?

Catallaxians – do you have any more questions for the three independents?

UPDATE

• Does it give you pause that Labor has nominated as its representative for negotiations with you Bruce Hawker from Hawker-Britton which is at the epicentre of Labor spin-central? While the Coalition has nominated former Treasury economist and former chief of staff to Prime Minister Howard Arthur Sinodinos? May this not be an indication of style versus substance?
• Is it surprising that since Labor had its costings undertaken by Treasury and Finance before the caretaker period that they now match the costings by Treasury and Finance?
• Which Party first proposed a Parliamentary Budget Office to improve the operations of the charter of budget honesty? (Yes, the Coalition in 2009).

The days of the Senate representing the states have long passed. It is difficult for many to comprehend that it was originally established as a States’ house and senators were supposed to represent the interests of their state, not a political party.

So reform of the Senate is overdue.

The House is selected by preferential ballot by electorate, where each electorate is as near as possible equal in population. This seems reasonable – after all it is about representing constituents in the Parliament.

Yet the Senate has a proportional representation system corrupted by a fixed allocation across States.

I propose that the Senate continue to be selected by proportional representation – but across the country. That is, there would be 76 senators selected across Australia according to total votes. If you get 27 per cent of the votes, you get 27 per cent of the seats in the Senate.

As near as possible, using data from the AEC, here is my calculation of the composition of the Senate that would have been elected under this proposal. When the final results are in, I should be able to list the names of the Senators that would have been elected under this methodology.

Coalition: 29

Labor: 27

Greens: 10

Family First: 2

Australian Sex Party: 2

Liberal Democratic Party: 1

Australian Shooters Party: 1

Democratic Labor Party: 1

Christian Party: 1

Democrats: 1

One Nation: 1

Total: 76

Is this better than the status quo?

Most commentators assume that Wilkie will support Labor. After all, the Howard Government was very critical of his actions as a “whistleblower” concerning the Iraq war. (It should be noted that Tony Abbott apologised to Wilkie for the vilification).

Anyhow, Wilkie’s principal policy interest is poker machines. He stood as an independent candidate in the 2010 Tasmania election on a platform of removing poker machines.

Labor is hopelessly conflicted on the issue of poker machines. State Labor Governments – NSW for example – are addicted to poker machines, not only for gambling tax revenue, but also for support to the Labor machine. The Labor Club in Canberra, for example, is a major donor to the Labor Party.

Clubs are a very powerful lobby group in the Labor fold.

The Coalition would be wise to adopt the recommendations of the Productivity Commission’s Gambling Inquiry which the Labor Government has effectively shelved. They are sensible recommendations and would act as a brake on the worst excesses of poker machine gambling.

That would be a powerful reason for Wilkie to support the Coalition, if not in a formal agreement, at least in guaranteeing supply and not supporting no confidence motions except in extremis.

The ACT Auditor-General has released a damning report into Canberra’s bus network the former ACT Internal Omnibus Network (ACTION).

ACTION consistently runs at a huge loss – an estimated $77 million in 2010-11. It has 8 per cent patronage and runs at an 80 per cent subsidy.

Canberra is not suited to public transport, no matter how efficiently run. Canberra covers a huge geographical area and has a small population. Some people find that a bus schedule would involve 2 hours compared with a 15 minute drive (the longest distance between any two points is an ACTION bus route).

It is time to implement a modest proposal.

First, close down ACTION entirely. Donate (or sell) the buses to Sydney Transport.

Second, open up all bus lanes to cars and other vehicles.

Third, deregulate the taxi industry – driving the price of taxi licenses to zero.

The focus on improving public transport should be in the large cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.

Canberra does not need public transport. It needs a good road network and flexible and inexpensive taxis.

The ACT Government today announced a target of CO2 emissions reduction of 40 per cent by 2020 (compared to 1990 levels). That is, in 2008 CO2 emissions were estimated at 1.2 Mt in the ACT. The “business as usual” estimate is 1.62 Mt in 2020 (a 40 per cent increase over 1990 levels). The ACT Government’s target is now 0.695 Mt in 2020 (a 40 per cent reduction on 1990 levels).

Compared to “business as usual” this means a reduction of 58 per cent in 2020.

The ABS projects that the population of the ACT will grow from 339,800 in 2008 to 416,500 in 2026 using its middle series “B”.

That implies an annual growth rate of 1.08 per cent.

Therefore the projected population in 2020 is 390,600.

And that’s a 62 per cent reduction in per capita emissions in the ACT to 2020.

Here are the implications of this target:

• it will not be achieved – unless there is a nuclear power station providing energy to the ACT; or if it is achieved
• there will be a dramatic de-industrialisation or depopulation in the ACT.

With current technology and the emphasis on “renewable” energy such a target will be a huge impost on the ACT and will spike energy prices compared with the rest of the country. Perhaps, because the ACT is relatively small, there may be scope to import all of the electricity via “renewable” generations in NSW etc.

Once again, the ACT is a great natural experiment for policy.

With this policy, Queanbeyan can expect to do very well.

And it won’t make the slightest different to climate change – the ACT’s emissions are 0.22 per cent of Australia’s emissions and 0.0039 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions.

To put this in context, the ACT Government’s target will reduce the world’s emissions by 0.003 per cent in 2020.

To put this in perspective, that is the difference in height between someone who is 1.8 metres exactly and someone who is 1.79994536 metres tall. Can you tell the difference?

The three independents have requested the Opposition to have its election commitments costed by Treasury and Finance under the charter of budget honesty.

This cannot happen – the Charter of Budget Honesty Act 1998 does not provide authority for such costings.

Section 3 of the Act states

caretaker period means, in relation to a general election, the period starting with the issue of the writ for the election and ending at the close of the poll on the polling day for the election.

Section 29 of the Act provides

(1)  During the caretaker period for a general election:

(a)  the Prime Minister may request the responsible Secretaries to prepare costings of publicly announced Government policies; and

(b)  the Leader of the Opposition may, subject to subclause (4), request the responsible Secretaries to prepare costings of publicly announced Opposition policies.

(2)  A request is to:

(a)  be in writing; and

(b)  outline fully the policy to be costed, giving relevant details; and

(c)  state the purpose or intention of the policy.

(3)  A request by the Prime Minister is to be given to the responsible Secretaries.

(4)  A request by the Leader of the Opposition is to be given to the Prime Minister, who may then agree to refer it to the responsible Secretaries. The responsible Secretaries are not obliged or authorised to take any action in relation to the request unless the Prime Minister has referred the request to them.

(5)  The Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition may, at any time, withdraw a request that he or she has made. A withdrawal by the Prime Minister is to be by notice in writing given to the responsible Secretaries. A withdrawal by the Leader of the Opposition is to be by notice in writing given to the Prime Minister, who is to notify the responsible Secretaries of the withdrawal.

Since the close of poll on the polling day has passed, the Charter of Budget Honesty Act provides no ability for the costing of Opposition election promises.

Theoretically the Opposition could provide its material to the Government with a request that Treasury and Finance undertake costings, but there would be no protection for the Coalition from abuse of the process by the Labor Government.

This is why a Parliamentary Budget Office needs to be established – accountable to the Parliament.

Treasury and Finance are accountable to the Government.

The Greens Adam Bandt won the seat of Melbourne with Liberal party preferences. The Liberal party how-to-vote card put Bandt at 6 above Labor’s candidate Cath Bowtell at 7.

Bandt received 26,420 first preference votes, Bowtell 28,795 and the Liberal’s Simon Olsen 15,059.

A similar story can be seen in the Tasmanian seat of Denison. Here Labor’s Jackson received 19,985 votes, Andrew Wilke 12,071 and Liberal Cameron Simpkins 12,270. The Liberal how-to-vote card had Wilke at 2 and Jackson at 3.

These sensible recommendations appear to have been crucial in allowing the Coalition to win more seats than Labor.

With postals flowing to the Coalition, I predict the Coalition will end up with 73 seats, Labor 72, independents 5. However, there is a chance that Corangamite might fall to the Liberals which would give it 74 seats, Labor 71 and 5 independents.

These are the most probable results and would give Tony Abbott the advantage in taking Government.

If so, the Coalition will have been put across the line by Tasmanian and Victorian voters.

(Votes shown above are sourced from the AEC website this morning)

If the Coalition and Labor both end up with 73 seats, then the three country independents should look to their own seats to decide which way to jump – the voters have indicated their preferences clearly. Here are the results on the AEC website this morning.

In New England, the Nationals got 20,337 first preference votes against Labor’s 6,472. In Lyne, the Nationals got 25,994 first preference votes against Labor’s 9898. And in Kennedy the LNP got 17,309 first preference votes against Labor’s 13,659. In all three cases the preference distribution shows that the Nationals and LNP ran second.

In all three cases the voters of those electorates have CLEARLY spoken and it is up to Windsor, Oakeshott and Katter to listen.

The composition of the Senate should bear no relevance to whether independents support one government or another. After all, if the Coalition or Labor had 76 seats or more in the House of Representatives no one would dispute their right to form government. It is a fundamental principle of the Westminster system that the Government is formed by confidence in the House, not the Senate.

However there are a number of reforms that should be pursued to improve the functioning of the legislature.

First, the Speaker of the House should be more independent. He or she should resign from his or her party and act totally impartially. Whether this means that we should go as far as in the United Kingdom and for the incumbent Speaker not to be challenged in his or her seat is debatable.

Second, question time in the House should be a genuine forum for holding the Executive to account. This should allow for follow up questions, limits to the time for an answer (and question) and the elimination of dorothy-dix questions.

Third, a well-resourced Parliamentary Budget Office should be established which would provide independent advice to the Legislature on budgetary matters and provide its own estimates of economic growth and the fiscal position. The Office would also undertake costings – both revenue and expenditure – for Senators and MPs.

Fourth, as a savings measure, the number of electorate officers in each MPs’ and Senators’ office should be reduced by one each. For most of Australia’s history Senators and MPs managed with three or fewer full-time electorate officers – they don’t need four. That would save 226 FTE.

Finally we need to make the Senate a genuine house of review. There are currently 76 members of the Australian Senate – 12 from each State and two from the ACT and NT. The Senate currently has 5 Greens Senators, 32 ALP Senators, 37 Coalition Senators and 2 independent Senators.

In the last Parliament, the ALP had 10 Senators in the Executive (Ministers or Parliamentary Secretaries) and the Coalition had 15 Senators in its Executive. So there were 25 Senators out of 76  in the Executive.

One of the core principles is the separation of power: executive, judiciary and legislature. Also, the Senate prides itself as a house of review.

Yet there is a fundamental conflict in having Senators variously being in the Executive and then holding the Executive to account as a house of review. For example, how many Senators are seeking to join the Executive? 69 out of the 76 Senators (91 per cent) could join the Executive as members of the Government and Opposition parties. So we have 25/69 (36 per cent) of the major party Senators who are in the Executive (and this will increase as the proportion of Greens in the Senate rises after 1 July next year).

We need to reform this if the Senate is to act as a proper house of review and fulfil its functions properly.

I propose that Senators be ineligible to join the Executive (Government/Opposition).

All Minister/Parliamentary Secretaries and Opposition Executive members would be drawn from the House of Representatives.

We could go further – allow up to say 1/3 of the Executive to be drawn from outside Parliament. They would become Ministers without being in Parliament but would be required to testify to Parliament and otherwise hold themselves to account to the Parliament.

At present only Members of Parliament are elgible to be Ministers. This is a constrained optimisation problem: by allowing members of the community to become Ministers there would be a broader pool of talent available and by definition we would have better quality ministers (since we can choose the from the present MPs PLUS other people). Under this reform proposal, the Prime Minister should of course be an MP.