Archive for the 'NSW Government' Category

NSW Budget: The Housing-Led State (with new letterheads!)

Published
by
Mercurius
2 weeks, 4 days ago
in Economics and NSW Government
. 13 Comments

If NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal’s first budget (and NSW Labor’s 15th) confirms anything at all, it’s that NSW public finance is at the mercy of the property market.

The fiscal picture is a $1.3 billion deficit for the current year, $900 million for 2009-2010 and a surplus next in sight during 2011-12 on the back of a projected recovery in stamp duty receipts.

Three stimulatory measures are directed at driving property activity. One is for existing home-owners — a halving of stamp duty for home sales under $600K until December 31 (but since homes under $500K already have no stamp duty, this is a narrowly-target fillip). Another is a $3000 bonus to first home buyers for newly-constructed homes. Finally, there’s $200 million of interest-free loans to local councils to fund infrastructure projects.

There’s also $2.7 billion for a proposed new CBD metro (NSW citizens have lost count of the number of major infrastructure projects this government has announced and then rescinded). But almost all the new infrastructure money in this budget comes from a $5 billion transfer payment out of Federal funds from phone-a-friend Kevin Rudd.

Apart from these property-dependent maneuvers, there is one glimmer of actual governance taking place, in a proposal to create 13 super-ministries from the current melange of over 150 NSW government agencies.

However, restructuring seems to be this government’s #1 activity. Friends of mine in the NSW service have been through no less than 8 departmental mergers and de-mergers since 1996. Perhaps Roozendaal is hoping for a stationery-led recovery?

Sydney loses

Published
by
Robert Merkel
1 month, 3 weeks ago
in Elections, Federal Elections, NSW Government, Politics, State/Territory Elections, Sydney and Transport
. 23 Comments

From today’s Crikey email, The University of Western Sydney’s Phillip O’Neill makes a fascinating point about the infrastructure announcements in the budget, and, specifically, a very odd omission:

Finally, there is the curious case of Sydney. For once in modern political-economic history, the Emerald City is looking on. Whitlam’s city, Keating’s city, Howard’s city, Labor’s homeland city, got nothing from the infrastructure announcement. There is much untold about this extraordinary snub. On post-budget morning NSW Treasurer Eric Roosendaal explained the Rudd-Swann brush-off by claiming his state was already spending big on infrastructure, and that the other states needed federal assistance more than his state.

The only thing stopping Sydneysiders collapsing with mirth at the Roosendaal statement is that they stopped being amused by NSW Labor ministers a long time ago.

Continue reading ‘Sydney loses’

A good news story about public hospitals and public healthcare

Published
by
suz
2 months, 1 week ago
in Health, Medicine and NSW Government
. 86 Comments

Last week I had surgery as a public patient in a public hospital in NSW. I’ve lived to tell the tale. Continue reading ‘A good news story about public hospitals and public healthcare’

Sub-editing FAIL

Published
by
tigtog
3 months, 1 week ago
in Crime, Media and NSW Government
. 8 Comments

AKA How the addition of a single word results in a headline that doesn’t provoke the Laura Norder crowd to clutch their pearls.

Sub-editing-fail

Assuming, of course, that one doesn’t want to confect a controversy via a plausibly deniable misrepresentation.

Saluzinsky’s article is actually fairly well balanced regarding the proposed privatisation of some NSW gaols, and the objections from both the left and the right to some of the proposals on different grounds. Pity about that headline.

Whichever way the decision comes down on staying public or going private, the idea of allowing prisoners in low and medium security prisons to have duplicate keys to their cells, so that they can have privacy from other inmates as desired, seems to be simply humane; if the experience overseas is that such measures reduce violence as well then all the better.

Unsurprisingly, breakfast TV took the reactionary approach on Sunrise, with Kochy talking about how we are mollycoddling prisoners and why not just give them the keys to the front gate as well? The goal of reducing violence was shrugged aside, as if violence in prisons is only inmate-on-inmate and can therefore be disregarded. Prison personnel deserve to have the safest work environment possible, you know, even if that means that prisoners aren’t sufficiently brutalised to give the Laura Norder mob their vengeful jollies.

Mandatory reporting to be overhauled in NSW

Published
by
Robert Merkel
4 months ago
in Health, NSW Government and Parenting
. 10 Comments

The New South Wales government has announced reforms of the child protection system in that state, in response to the findings of the Wood commission. Notable amongst the reforms are a shift of some activities to NGOs (supported by considerable extra government funding), plans for better integration and information-sharing amongst the variety of government departments and NGOs, and a change in the threshold for mandatory reporting of children being abused, or thought at risk of abuse.

The current laws in NSW require the reporting of children suspected at being risk of harm. The new rules, based on the Wood inquiry’s recommendations, would change that threshold. From the government’s report:

The Inquiry recommended that the threshold for both mandatory and voluntary reporting to the Department of Community Services should be where there is a ‘risk of significant harm’, so that only those children who are likely to need the protection powers of the State under the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998 are subject to it being exercised. This means that concerns about children will be addressed earlier and the right services put in place to meet their needs.

Continue reading ‘Mandatory reporting to be overhauled in NSW’

Jørn Utzon passes

Published
by
Robert Merkel
7 months ago
in Art, NSW Government and Sydney
. 11 Comments

ABC News reports that the architect of the Sydney Opera House died of a heart attack in his sleep at age 90.

Whatever else he did in his long career – as usual, the Wikipedia has more – it’s almost impossible to imagine Sydney without that building. Indeed, it’s almost impossible to imagine an Australia without it. It’s driven Melburnians mad for decades trying to find a similarly iconic building (a quest that has been thankfully abandoned).

Hopefully, the process of renovating the Opera House, which was proceeding with the cooperation of Utzon and his son, will result in a building whose interior – and acoustics – match its astonishing exterior. As a further memorial, perhaps state governments (and this seems to apply particularly to the NSW state government) can find a way to encourage better architecture, not just for icon buildings but across the board. Utzon, whose career also included work on low-cost housing in Denmark, would surely approve.

So we won’t have to say “BHP Billiton Rio Tinto” then…

Published
by
Robert Merkel
7 months, 1 week ago
in Education, Health and NSW Government
. 8 Comments

BHP Billiton has decided to abandon its plans to buy Rio Tinto. Aside from the antitrust concerns of customers and regulators around the world, a major reason for BHP’s decision involves another acquisition:

A big factor in the decision was the size of Rio’s debt, which blew out to about $US42 billion ($65.8 billion) after the ill-timed acquisition of Canadian aluminium group Alcan last year. BHP carries only $US6 billion in debt. “It is just not the right time to be taking on the debt that is on Rio’s balance sheet,” Mr Kloppers said.

Chinese steel mills, which were concerned that a BHP-Rio combination would be able to control prices for iron ore and other raw materials, were also pleased the offer was dead.

Continue reading ‘So we won’t have to say “BHP Billiton Rio Tinto” then…’

The NSW government, the media and four year terms

Published
by
Mark
7 months, 3 weeks ago
in Elections, Media, NSW Government and Politics
. 37 Comments

The Sydney Daily Telegraph, a newspaper which likes to see itself as some sort of courageous voice of the people, has been losing readers hand over fist, and more recently, an editor. The paper is also running a campaign for the NSW government to sack itself. It’s impossible to read any article in the online version on state politics without intrusive links in the middle of the story directing readers to its petition, and a plethora of other anti-Rees widgets, rants and commentary.

But in the parallel world where the fixed four year term is decried as the fountain of all evil, it seems to me something odd is going on. Paul Kelly traces the constitutional change back to the Greiner regime, but downplays the fact that the movement towards fixed terms in the early 90s was part of a range of managerialist measures and an overarching approach to governance which argued – reasonably explicitly – that political accountability was an annoying obstacle to “reform”. This was an era when all manner of measures – privatisation, purchaser/provider splits, downsizing the public service, closing schools and hospitals and competition policy – were trumpeted by elites as necessary but largely rejected by public opinion.

Indeed, there’s a residue of this managerialist politics apparent in the Rees government’s fetishisation of the state’s AAA credit rating.

However, the managerialists of yesterday are the populists of today. But I’m completely puzzled by Paul Kelly’s logic here:

He means a device to enable an election to be held mid-term to save NSW from a truly disastrous government, such as the present administration. The point is that in a globalised world, guaranteed political tenure is a fatal flaw. The NSW experience shows that the fixed four-year term model is a fraud on the public interest.

We are losing the political culture that surrounds the Westminster model. Its flexibility, depicted as a problem, is a virtue. It means that pressure can mount on bad governments for an election and that strong governments, when they need a new mandate to confront a crisis, can seek that mandate.

The inability to procure an election in NSW at present does not help the people of NSW. It assists only the Labor machine that tries to run the state in its own interest.

Continue reading ‘The NSW government, the media and four year terms’

Could somebody tell Nathan Rees we’re all Keynesians now?

Published
by
Robert Merkel
7 months, 3 weeks ago
in Economics, NSW Government, Sydney and Transport
. 44 Comments

Governments spending money to stimulate the economy is all the rage nowadays. The Federal Government’s just done $10 billion of it. Obama is being urged to do it on a gargantuan scale. The Chinese have apparently promised 800 billion dollars of it over the next two years.

So what’s Australia’s most incompetent state government decide to do? Raise taxes, cut services, and cut back planned infrastructure spending. You’d swear Rees, and NSW Treasurer Eric Roozendaal, are taking their tax policies from Herbert Hoover.

To be fair, there are some good ideas, most notably peak-hour congestion tolling on the Harbour Bridge. But in the large, this is pushing NSW into recession, not out of it. And it’s probably going to be the Federal Government’s job to tip more money into NSW to make up the difference. Thanks, Nathan, for helping to make Malcolm Turnbull look prescient.

The growth of The Greens: Two hypotheses

Published
by
Mark
8 months, 2 weeks ago
in By-elections, Federal Elections, Media, NSW Government, Polls, Sociology and State/Territory Elections
. 109 Comments

William Bowe, aka The Poll Bludger, has an interesting take on the pro-Greens trend apparently evident in recent elections, about which there’s been a bit of talk around the traps. It’s been most evident in the ACT election on the weekend, where The Greens secured a 6.6% swing in their favour. I wonder to what degree this might be an artefact of the ACT’s election system, where there’s a much more transparent representation of voters’ preferences, and thus, conceivably, a greater incentive to vote for a non-major party.

Of course, the ACT isn’t exactly a population representative of Australia. Nevertheless, there may be, as Bowe suggests, some tea leaves to read for inner city Labor held seats federally and in states where Labor is really on the nose. (I’ve qualified the statement about the trend with “apparently”, largely because I think that far too much can be made of comparable results in distinct jurisdictions and similarly, I don’t accept that all the remaining Labor state administrations are in as much trouble as the NSW government. I suspect there’s a significant degree of error – something like the ecological fallacy – committed by NSW-centric media and political commentators extrapolating far too readily from what’s around them locally to other parts of the country.)

The two explanations for The Greens’ increased success in vote gathering tend to be posited – that they hoover up “disaffected left-wing votes” and that there are largely positive reasons based around issues and the party’s own profile and image which are attracting more voters. The two, of course, aren’t necessarily incompatible, though political journalists tend to present them as if they are. I strongly suspect there are some soft Liberal and swinging votes going to The Greens, and for a range of reasons. Here, it would be very useful to have some good focus group research rather than endless voting intention polls. So while I know we’ve got our share of both Labor and Green partisans around here, I’d be very interested in hearing from people who feel less identified with either the ALP or The Greens about what might sway their voting choices, and also from those who are more directly involved in party politics in anything they’re picking up from campaigning (without the partisan hats on!)…

Update: A post on this topic from Andrew Bartlett.

SMH Death Spiral – Emissions Trading Edition

Published
by
dk.au
8 months, 3 weeks ago
in By-elections, Climate change, Developing world, Howardia, International, Markets and NSW Government
. 32 Comments

Oh dear. Anyone who’s still getting their ‘news’ from SMH needs their head examined:

Subsidy for bulbs wasted:
THE flawed scheme to cut greenhouse gas abatements by giving away lightbulbs has squandered an estimated $60 million of NSW taxpayers’ money, the State Opposition says….

An assessment of the scheme by the Opposition has found that NSW Greenhouse Abatement Credits issued by the Government have been largely wasted. It was claimed initially that as many as 80 per cent of the lightbulbs given away were installed. But later surveys found most households never installed them, and that only four out of 10 of the lightbulbs were ever used.

‘Later’ being the operative word there, rather than ‘recently’. The changes to the installation rate occured after an audit in 2006, sending all the businesses operating under the Demand Side Abatement Rule to the wall. Despite insistent pleas for transitional arrangements until a national scheme could be brokered, none was given and around 1000 people lost their jobs in companies like Neco and Easy Being Green. Some forms of structural adjustment are more equal than others…

The real story here is the upcoming ‘Super Saturday’ of by-elections. (Guy Beres has an excellent analysis). Continue reading ‘SMH Death Spiral – Emissions Trading Edition’

The Costa Diaries

Published
by
Kim
8 months, 3 weeks ago
in Books, Writers & Writing, Economics, Media and NSW Government
. 41 Comments

Michael Costa has taken a leaf out of Mark Latham’s book… Forced out of office and Parliament? Write op/eds attacking your former party!

LISTENING to Kevin Rudd at Council of Australian Governments meetings as he tried to connect the global economic situation to the more mundane items on the national reform agenda was often excruciating.

Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics would have quickly concluded, as I did, that the Prime Minister didn’t have a good understanding of these issues.

Can a tell all book be far behind? Would it need to be a three volume set to contain slurs on all the people Michael Costa doesn’t like?

Here’s a suggestion for the under-employed former pollie – why not join the Liberal Party? You’ve already got News Limited Columnists eating out of your hand (you actually are one too!)… And your right-wing views should see you fit in nicely. Perhaps with your added ruthlessness, you could spark endless speculation about Malcolm Turnbull’s polling and leadership and unlike the Great Pretender seize the top job by the power of the Word!

Climate Change and Electoral Politics – Local Edition …?

Published
by
dk.au
9 months, 3 weeks ago
in Climate change, Economics, Energy, Environment, Law, Local Elections, Markets, NSW Government and Technology
. 41 Comments

Take note owners of Loy Yang, Munmorah et al. Greenpeace activists admitted causing £30,000 damage to the chimney of coal fired plant in protest at plans to construct another one1 but were acquitted by a jury on the grounds that “they were legally justified because they were trying to prevent climate change causing greater damage to property around the world“. The decision has reverberated around the world, particularly down here. Continue reading ‘Climate Change and Electoral Politics – Local Edition …?’

  1. Yeah weird choice huh. In short, nuclear is still dealing with some legacy issues, gas supplies are hostage to the vagaries of Russian intimidation and the EU ETS carbon price is pointlessly low meaning that they don’t stimulate renewable deployment.[back]

Michael Costa sacked [Update: Iemma Resigns]

Published
by
Kim
10 months ago
in NSW Government
. 49 Comments

The only question is why it took Morris Iemma so long to see what everyone else could see plainly. Apparently Paul Keating had a hand in the decision.

Update: Trevor Cook:

Costa is a loud-mouth political bully who screams and screeches like a two-year old when he doesn’t get his way. He held several portfolios without distinction. He is basically a blow-hard and ineffective politician who has spent his miserable career doing damage to the union movement, the NSW Government and the people of this state.

Update: Via Amanda in comments, there’s speculation that Iemma will be toppled too when caucus meets.

Update [dk.au]: Iemma resigns. Daily Telegraph

Privatising democracy

Published
by
Kim
10 months, 1 week ago
in Economics, Energy, Ethics, NSW Government and Politics
. 20 Comments

So, Barry O’Farrell and the Coalition rained on Morris Iemma’s privatisation parade. Now, the Dilemmster announces that he can still privatise the retailers and generation sites without parliamentary approval.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Iemma’s original argument some high sounding blather about the sovereignty of the people’s representatives in Parliament assembled and governing in the people’s interest not those of the unions and the party machine? Internal ALP democracy was supposed to give way to parliamentary democracy.

Pathetic. Contempt for his own party, the people of New South Wales and democratic institutions.

Hat tip: Chookie in comments.