Tag Archive for 'infrastructure'

The budget is not the economy

Published
by
Mark
9 months ago
in Economics, Media, Politics, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 16 Comments

I think there are quite a few self-inflicted political problems for Queensland Labor in the presentation of the budget handed down on Tuesday afternoon. But Anna Bligh and Andrew Fraser certainly aren’t helped by the ubiquity of the ‘debt is evil’ theme. Witness George Megalogenis’ front page column in The Australian yesterday:

QUEENSLAND has replaced the usual suspect of NSW as the nation’s sickest state and threatens to drag Australia into a prolonged recession.

Queensland has by far the worst budget position of all the states, and its citizens face the sharpest fall in living standards as unemployment is forecast to almost double in the next two years, from 4.25per cent to 7.25 per cent.

In fact the budget projections show Queensland below the national average in unemployment, and contracting less than the national economy. It is certainly legitimate to question the Bligh government’s economic strategy – and also to question why more wasn’t done in the Beattie years to build up infrastructure and public services. But Megalogenis’ argument conflates the state’s fiscal position with the health of Queensland’s economy in a false and unhelpful way… though it’s probably less unhelpful to Bligh than the “85 billion on the credit card” front page in the Courier-Mail yesterday. Perhaps she can take some comfort from the fact that the C-M’s overt bias towards the LNP had no discernible impact on the March election result.

New LNP leader John-Paul Langbroek delivers his reply in Parliament today. No doubt it will be all about debt and deficits. The ALP is more interested in beating up stories about a leadership challenge, part of a move to wedge and split the LNP on the privatisation bills. It’s a mystery to me why Labor Ministers would be chortling about the prospect of LNP (probably former National) members voting against a firesale of state assets.

Ps: For those interested, the Queensland budget papers can be found here.

What’s with Anna Bligh?

Published
by
Mark
9 months, 1 week ago
in Government, Policy, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 54 Comments

In the wake of the unnecessary firesale of state assets, the Bligh government has continued down its merry path of trashing Labor policy. Last week we had the refusal to take any action over the charges laid against a 19 year old Cairns woman for “procuring an abortion” by using RU486. Now, it seems, we’re going to see Bligh “muscle up” and take on the public sector unions by reneging on a promise made for pay increases of 4.5%, 4% and 4% over the next three years of enterprise bargaining agreements. The government has already been slashing casual and short term employment across departments and state agencies. Tomorrow’s budget is rumoured to contain cuts to public sector superannuation entitlements and we know that it will place a cap of 2.5% on pay increases.

The state election campaign was a shambolic affair, and it was almost lost. Despite an inept performance, Labor was re-elected primarily because the “jobs” theme and the promise to continue to invest in public infrastructure despite the economic crisis touched a chord with voters. Anna Bligh made much of standing up to credit rating agencies.

So why the turnaround? A couple of factors are at work. The first is Bligh’s inability to set her own direction, adopting rather the path of least resistance recommended by right wing apparatchiks in her office. Let one grumpy voter in a focus group whine about debt, and, well, forget the election promises. Secondly, there’s the misplaced obsession with “strength”, driven by the same advisers. This apparently means tossing Labor policy out the window and pursuing supposedly popular brawls with unions.

This mob have an inability to understand that Labor governments always need to pursue a direction contrary to that favoured by the big end of town to be a success. Talk of ‘reforms’ in the context of short-sighted privatisations is quite risible in this context.

Nor is Bligh apparently capable of learning from the past. Wayne Goss’ government was defeated not by the ‘Koala road’, but in large part because years of managerialist lunacy alienated the public sector vote. Similarly, the slashing of services in outer suburban and regional areas and decisions such as the one to close down the QR workshops in Ipswich in the midst of a recession and deep structural economic change had a lot more to do with the rise of One Nation than some innate Queensland redneckism.

Peter Beattie knew all this.

The irony – or rather, one of the many ironies – is that the government and top bureaucrats have recently been pontificating about the need for public sector spending to create demand in a sluggish economy. That seems – insofar as it means anything – only to apply to bricks and mortar and roads and bridges and to completely eschew people’s livelihoods. All ‘Bligh the Builder’ is paving the way for at the moment is her own defeat.

Cultural policy in NSW, or $1 billion to renovate the Sydney Opera House

Published
by
Ben Eltham
12 months ago
in Art, Culture, Music and Policy
. 68 Comments

Both Marcus Westbury and Nick Pickard lead their blogs with strongly critical posts about recent reports that the NSW government is about to commit to spending $1 billion to renovate Joern Utzon’s iconic Sydney Opera House.

As Westbury writes, “this decision is one that is so staggeringly out of touch with the realities of cultural policy at the moment that it is scary.”

As usual, I find myself in agreement with much of what Marcus writes (more of that below). However, I think there is every reason to be far more optimistic about this decision than the initial outrage from the various unfunded parts of the arts community suggests. It may be that this decision will actually materially advance the cultural policy debate in Australia, by motivating the various forgotten voices in the arts community to finally coalesce into a coherent movement for change.

Continue reading ‘Cultural policy in NSW, or $1 billion to renovate the Sydney Opera House’

Where’s the money coming from? …The Feds

Published
by
Mark
1 year ago
in Economics, Markets, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 5 Comments

The Fin Review today published a big feature article on the financial plight of the state governments. And yes, Virginia, they’re all in a bit of a hole, with Victoria possibly an exception depending on whether the VTC head’s claims either hold water or won’t start sinking soon. Unsurprisingly, Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser has written to Wayne Swan asking for federal help, and handed the letter to the Fin. No doubt Fraser would like the help before March 21, which, of course, is when Queenslanders vote.

There’s currently a spread of 136 points between Commonwealth bonds and the bonds issued by the Queensland Treasury Corporation. NSW’s spread is 120. The normal spread is around 30 base points.

Earlier this year, there was a bit of chat about whether the Australian Office of Financial Management could invest in state bonds, and/or structure things such that effectively it offers state debt to the market as sovereign debt. Legislative authority for this strategy already exists. While there are a number of options for assisting the states to borrow for infrastructure, this is the neatest. A number of worthies from the big banks and financial market types are urging the Feds to go down this route. Andrew Fraser and Anna Bligh will be hoping for a quick decision from their Queensland Labor colleague Wayne Swan.

Cross-posted at Pineapple Party Time.

The impending Queensland election and the state of the debt

Published
by
Mark
1 year ago
in Economics, Queensland and State/Territory Elections
. 15 Comments

Various newspapers described Queensland Treasurer Andrew Fraser’s budget outlook review on Friday as providing a “trigger” for an impending poll. That’s something of a misleading formulation. But the budget position does give state Labor – perhaps paradoxically – a political theme to develop and run on.

The Labor Party won’t want issues such as health, which remind voters that it’s had eleven years in office, to be central to the campaign.

Rather, the ALP will want to differentiate its economic approach from the LNP’s. Anna Bligh will be arguing that the state government is doing all it can to kickstart the slowing economy – an argument previewed by Fraser when he pointedly observed that the government had chosen to continue to borrow for infrastructure spending rather than cut its borrowing cloth to the demands of Standard and Poor’s. Jobs above all else was the message.

Graham Young’s polling for the National Forum shows infrastructure still in first place among voter concerns, but the economy rocking up the charts. There’s an obvious connection to be made between the two issues, and the Borg’s constant mantra about debt and the evils thereof boxes the LNP in and prevents them from making big ticket announcements. If they do, they’re destroying their own claims about public debt, and suggesting there’s tons of interest at the moment in public-private partnerships is hardly going to be credible in this economic climate. Labor ends up with a twin focus on the economy and leadership, and it’s hard to see this favouring the opposition. From the point of view of where governments’ political support goes when put to the test in an economic downturn, this will be an interesting campaign.

Continue reading ‘The impending Queensland election and the state of the debt’

Xenophon amendment – on its merits

Published
by
Robert Merkel
1 year, 1 month ago
in Economics and Water
. 43 Comments

Political machinations to one side for a moment , it’s worth considering whether Xenophon’s proposed amendment is a good idea. While it’s clear we’re collectively not doing enough to protect the Murray-Darling basin, that obviously doesn’t make any random throwing of cash at it in the name of a “stimulus package” a great idea. You can read the text of Xenophon’s amendment here. There appear to be several issues with it.

Continue reading ‘Xenophon amendment – on its merits’

The opposition unravels

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Politics
. 44 Comments

It’s been a shocker of a week for Malcolm Turnbull. We’ve had the Julie Bishop shenanigans, the missing deficit as a yardstick line, second guessing the Reserve Bank to argue that interest rates rises tanked the economy (which is an arguable point, but politically worthless when interest rates have been rapidly falling), a Nationals revolt, losing Fiona Nash from the frontbench, the embarrassment of Christopher Pyne’s arguments being repudiated by the private schools sector and a major win for Julia Gillard, and the revival of Howardism on mandatory detention and border protection – which created its own ripples and waves of internal dissent.

And it goes on.

Stoushing on the government’s infrastructure bill revolved around Coalition claims that it would enable a slush fund for porkbarrelling. A last minute about face by Shadow Cabinet recognised the reality that opposing it, with the House rejecting Senate amendments, might be a bad look – as such opposition could easily be painted as frustrating the desire to stimulate the economy. But the Nationals had drawn their own line in the sand – basically, because they wanted to ensure that the principle of porkbarrelling for rural and regional electorates endured! The result? Malcolm Turnbull was exposed as unable to enforce any sort of discipline on his own party:

There were another two hours of debate before the bill was brought to a vote. And when it was, only Senators Johnston, Ronaldson, Brandis, Coonan, Mason and Troeth from the Liberals voted for the unamended bill, although Mason missed the division on the sale of Telstra funds. Senators Eggleston and Ferguson voted with the Nationals in favour of the amendments. This was the second time in a week that Eggleston, from Western Australia, has stood apart from his colleagues, having joined Petro Georgiou earlier this week in backing changes to the mandatory detention of asylum seekers.

Johnston, Ronaldson, Brandis and Coonan are all shadow Cabinet members and thus are bound by Cabinet solidarity. Mason is a Parliamentary Secretary. According to the ABC, there was confusion within the Coalition over who was required to vote and who was allowed to abstain, and reports of Coalition senators trying to bolt the chamber before the doors were locked for the vote.

The mass abstention was a poor look for Turnbull, especially with his Senate leader being amongst their number.

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Continue reading ‘The opposition unravels’

Bligh’s big water backdown

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Brisbane, Climate change, Media, Queensland, Science, State/Territory Elections and Water
. 40 Comments

Even if you’re not a local, you might have noticed that it’s been raining in Brisbane a lot recently. Anna Bligh’s taken advantage of fuller dams to execute a backflip on recycled water and to delay the Traveston Dam. These were two issues that the LNP had been making some running on lately, in the first instance aided and abetted by a quite disgraceful campaign about the supposed dangers of water recycling in the pages of, you guessed it, The Australian.

I think the first is bad policy – and it doesn’t give us much hope that Bligh is capable of either holding her nerve in the face of political shenanigans or of practising what she preaches about infrastructure and long term planning. It’s certainly not difficult to envisage the dam levels dropping back down in a few years time, and the whole point of this plan was to ensure continuity of water supply in such an eventuality. The work that has already been done has effectively been wasted.

Traveston is a different kettle of fish. In my view, it was always ill thought out and I’ve long thought it was mainly there to serve as a wedge between Brisbane voters and the Nationals before the 2006 election. I was surprised that Beattie ever went ahead with it after it had played its political purpose. In theory, the change to the scheduling of environmental mitigation measures is a good thing, but environmental concerns as well as its dubious contribution to water supply should actually have seen it canned rather than delayed.

Writing in Crikey today, Richard Farmer appears to think Bligh has executed a cunning political maneouvre. I can’t see it. Continue reading ‘Bligh’s big water backdown’

Rudd one year on

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 3 months ago
in Government, Howardia, Policy and Politics
. 111 Comments

Well, having opened a thread that perhaps proves that Ute Man is still out there but not actually supporting Emo Man, it behoves me, I guess, to have a bit of a say about the tenure of the Rudd government to date. To some degree all these sorts of anniversaries are somewhat artificial, as you can easily see in the United States with the fetish of the “first hundred days”. Governments will eventually be judged by the electorate in due season, as Kevin Rudd would say, and as almost all politicians intone (particularly those who are dissatisfied with their contemporary popularity), in the end they will be judged by history – whose verdict is perhaps as mythical as the Judgement of Paris, but never mind that. However, as I was suggesting, if politics and public discussion is cruelled by the vagaries and obsessions of an ever shorter media cycle, a year really is a long time in government, and it is worth taking stock.

It can also be interesting to compare first term governments at this stage of the electoral cycle, and here the obvious contrast – despite all the media beatups – is the absence of major scandal and ministerial resignations compared to both the Hawke and Howard governments. That doesn’t, of course, imply that all the Labor ministers are fabulous, but it is worth observing.

One of the things that’s interested me in the discussion that had already began quite a while before we reached the actual milestone is that in both comments on this blog and in conversations with some friends I’ve seen the sentiment expressed that simply avoiding hearing a daily litany of horrors from the Howard crew is Rudd’s greatest achievement. It might, and no doubt will, be objected that – “lefties would say that, wouldn’t they?” But I think there are a couple of points here. First, there is no doubt that a government with a more humanitarian tinge and an appreciation of propriety and ethics is to be welcomed, and that sentiment – along with the promise keeping – will be a contributor to Labor’s continuing lead in the polls. Secondly, I think The Howard Years has been interestingly timed to stimulate some comparison and to reinforce the whole sense of relief that we don’t have that turgid mob to kick around any more.

But, again, one thing that wore out the Coalition’s welcome with the electorate was the constant “rabbits out of the hat” and the whole bag of divisive tricks, along with the internal ructions and the cockiness of ministers. I agree that the Liberals are still playing at the same game in many ways. John Howard was elected in 1996 as a safe pair of hands and the Libs were “the party of order”, if you like. By the end of their fourth term, they looked like the risky and unsafe proposition and Kevin Rudd’s calm demeanour undoubtedly contributed much to Labor’s victory. WorkChoices was also probably the biggest single mistake the Coalition made, and the related apprehension that worse would follow and more leadership instability also condemned the Howard government to defeat.

But what of policy, and that shibboleth beloved of the punditariat, “the narrative”? Continue reading ‘Rudd one year on’

Don’t mention the Nationals (or the Liberals, or the environment)

Published
by
Paul Norton
1 year, 4 months ago
in Advertising, Authoritarianism, Brisbane, Climate change, Environment, Politics, Queensland, State/Territory Elections and Transport
. 11 Comments

This morning the Queensland Liberal-National Party’s latest television advertisement hit the airwaves, jostling for our attention with Amber Higlett’s early news show on Channel Nine. The ad can also be viewed here.

The ad features Laurence Springborg declaring his pride in presiding over the formation of “the LNP” as the first step towards “change in Queensland”. Said change will include things to do with schools, employment, housing and hospitals, and also making Queensland a place “where roads are planned for future growth”.

Two interesting things strike me about the advertisement.
Continue reading ‘Don’t mention the Nationals (or the Liberals, or the environment)’

Stormy weather!

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 4 months ago
in Brisbane, Climate change, Disasters, Government, Life, Photography and Sociology
. 26 Comments

I’m no climatologist, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen storms with as much force as we’ve now experienced in Brisbane and South East Queensland three times in four days, most recently about an hour ago, and with another one also accompanied by severe hail and dangerous winds apparently on the way yet again later on tonight.

Here are some images licenced under Creative Commons from flickr. Two aren’t actually of the most recent storms, but for those who aren’t used to a classic Brisbane storm, they might provide a bit of a lightning flash of illumination. Over at Circulating Library, there are also some contemporary photos to look at. Taking photos might be a tad risky, actually, as one of the two deaths from the storms has been a young man who unwisely tried to photograph a stormwater drain at Chermside on Sunday night. Via Stilgherrian, you can also have a squizzy at archived radar images of last night’s storms here. When I checked at around 5pm it was impossible to get on to the BOM site to check tonight’s storms on their way, and the site also couldn’t cope with the traffic just after the ABC weather at the end of the news.

courtesy of Garry’

courtesy of supernicko

courtesy of Michael Henderson

Continue reading ‘Stormy weather!’

Labor states on the nose!!!

Published
by
Mark
1 year, 4 months ago
in Federal Elections, Media, Polls, Sociology and State/Territory Elections
. 58 Comments

I’ve written before about why I think that the “media narrative” masquerading as psephological analysis that there’s some sort of automatic fall in support for state Labor parties because of some putative desire among voters to have different parties governing at different levels. I suspect the proximate origin of this meme is actually the “wall to wall Labor” scare the Liberals ran in last year’s election. As Kim was suggesting the other day, this is a political tactic that normally indicates despair among incumbents, and it’s completely wrong to assume it reflects some sort of psephological law or reality in voting behaviour. Anyone familiar with the political science literature knows that attempts to demonstrate any posited strong correlation between state and federal partisan choices over time falls down very quickly – even in New South Wales where it’s long been political myth that the strongest case can be made. In part that’s because there are two few cases of actual partisan change in elections over much of the postwar period – something that becomes immediately apparent when you think about the fact that the federal government didn’t turn over at all between 1949 and 1972.

There was another outbreak of this guff on Monday in The Australian, apropos of quarterly newspolls in New South Wales and Victoria. There was the usual news story and two op/ed pieces to ram home the point. It was intriguing to see the frame applied to the comments of ABC election analyst Antony Green: Continue reading ‘Labor states on the nose!!!’