Centre for Policy Development's Blog, page 102

Eva Cox | Women on the Front Line

Australia has gradually got over the idea that women are not as capable in some jobs as men, the simple mantra "you can't do this because you're a women, you can do this because you're a man" is outdated.

However there still remains some resistance to gender equality, particularly in the military. CPD contributor Eva Cox was on ABC Radio recently to discuss the prospects of women in the front lines of our armed forces.

Elite units such as the SAS should "make use of the best talents, it doesn't matter whether they are male or female".  Eva argues that the biggest barrier to equal participation is cultural, not legal or physical, however she remains confident that with good leadership and tactful handling, change will come a lot faster.

Listen to the full interview with Eva on ABC 936 Hobart here

The wrong approach to public services

During the nineties a third of the public sector in Australia was retrenched. Right now in NSW the new O'Farrell government is pushing through at least 5,000 public sector job cuts. It's being mirrored around the world to offset debt and budget blowouts.

It's curious thing to do though isn't it — to make cuts before driving efficiency measures? Yet it seems attempts at driving efficiency often fail. The reason, says John Seddon from Vanguard Consulting in the UK, is because too many public sector departments are governed by command and control thinking. The alternative approach is covered in his book Systems Thinking In the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime … and a manifesto for a better way.

Listen to this interview in full on BNet >

CPD co-hosted a seminar with John Seddon during his recent Australian visit.

 

 

Public sector cuts will hurt in times of crisis

Premier Barry O'Farrell communicated his intentions before the state election: we could expect to see fewer ''back room bureaucrats'' but rest assured that this wouldn't mean fewer public servants to deliver ''frontline'' services like health, education and policing.

In developing this platform, the Premier took advice from John Howard's adviser Max ''the axe'' Moore-Wilton, who described the NSW public service as "a mess" and urged "real surgery".

The NSW Coalition is following a well-worn Liberal path. In 2007, then opposition leader Peter Debnam promised to cut 30,000 public service jobs. While Debnam's public service policy was considered one reason for his electoral failure, John Howard promised to wield an axe through the Australian Public Service and, in fact, retrenched about 10,000 public servants each year during his first three years in office. After five years, one third of the service had been retrenched.

Read the full article in the Newcastle Herald online >

Jennifer Doggett | Nothing Complementary about Pharmacy Guild's Corporate Deal

First published in Crikey here

The recent deal between the Pharmacy Guild and complementary medicine manufacturer Blackmores has raised the ire of both doctors and consumer groups.

The Pharmacy Guild has signed a deal with Blackmores to include an automatic prompt for pharmacists dispensing specific medications to suggest that customers also purchase a particular Blackmore's product targeting their condition.

For example, you go in to fill your prescription for a cholesterol-lowering medication and come out with a herbal concoction designed for people with high cholesterol.

Of course, the AMA's objection is simply sour grapes because doctors aren't able to cash in on the growing market for complementary medicine.

However, the deal does raise some genuine concerns for consumers.

No doubt there are some people who would welcome – and benefit from – the advice from a pharmacist to take a complementary medicine designed for their particular condition. Many consumers have an interest in complementary medicine and are frustrated that their doctors are focussed solely on conventional therapies.

However, the context in which this advice is provided means that most consumers will not be able to make informed decisions about whether or not these particular products are right for them.

It is important to remember that complementary medicines are (in general) not tested for efficacy by the TGA. As low risk products they are simply required to meet certain safety and manufacturing standards.

Of course this does not mean they are NOT efficacious but it does mean that consumers can't be sure that a complementary medicine will have the effects claimed for it on the label. This is crucial to informing decisions consumers make about whether or not to purchase these products.

It's already difficult for consumers to tell the difference between identically-packaged medicines that are registered (and therefore tested for efficacy) and listed (not tested for efficacy).

Having a pharmacist recommend a complementary medicine while simultaneously dispensing a prescription medicine will no doubt confuse the issue even further.

It's one thing for a consumer to knowingly choose to purchase a complementary medicine aware that there is a fair chance it won't do anything and quite another for someone to feel compelled to buy an unproven remedy because a health professional in a white coat tells them they need it.

Also, many of these products are not cheap because unlike prescription medicines they aren't eligible for PBS subsidies. If someone on a low income – which is many people with chronic conditions – spends $50 on a complementary medicine it may reduce their budget for food, electricity or other essentials.

Other possible issues of concern are the potential for side-effects and inter-actions between complementary and prescription medication. While pharmacists should be aware of this and ask the appropriate questions before recommendation a complementary medicine, we all know that in a busy pharmacy this does not always happen.

The separation of prescribing and dispensing is an important feature of the Australian health system. Consumers would be concerned – and justifiably so – if they knew that their doctor had a vested financial interest in recommending particular treatments. It would undermine the trust we have that our doctor is giving us their unbiased advice about the best treatment option for us.

However, this separation is increasingly becoming blurred as pharmacists seek to expand their role in the health sector, occupying the primary care space being conveniently left open by the medical profession which has failed (in general – there are many individual exceptions) to meet the changing health care needs of the community.

The Pharmacy Guild has done a much better job of recognising and adapting to community (and Government) needs for a primary care sector focussed on more flexible, individually-targeted and coordinated care.

For example, the Diabetes MedsCheck program, currently being piloted, gives consumers the opportunity of having their diabetes management and medication reviewed in a local pharmacy.

While the AMA has the highest profile of probably any lobby group in Canberra it would be a mistake to assume that it has the greatest power. The Pharmacy Guild has been far more successful in pushing its own agenda with its behind-the-scenes lobbying and smart moves which help the Government deliver on its policy agenda.

In return, it's been able to maintain its monopoly on the dispensing of prescription drugs and continue a protectionist regime for its members that makes the waterfront of the 1990s look like a paradigm of free-market efficiency.

A former high profile Labor politician used to describe the Pharmacy Guild's expansionary agenda as wanting to turn pharmacies into "everything but a pizza joint and a knock-shop".

He may have been right on one count – but I wouldn't rule out the pizza joint option just yet.

Ben Eltham | Transparency Please! Why the Tax Breaks for Pokies Clubs?

First published in Crikey here

Has there ever been a more self-serving public campaign than the one being mounted by Clubs Australia?

Clubs have long justified their gaming activities due to their value to the community. As Clubs Australia's website says on its home page: "Clubs are not-for-profit community-based organisations whose central activity is to provide infrastructure and services for the community."

And if there's one thing that hard-pressed Labor parliamentarians have been stressing, it is that they value the important services and benefits to their local communities that clubs provide.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland was spreading the message in his local electorate this week. "Clubs are a big employer and play an important role in the St George area as they do in many communities," McClelland apparently told the St George and Sutherland Shire Leader. "I am a big supporter of clubs and I also support action to deal with problem gambling."

McClelland even argued that clubs contribute to national security. "In my national security role, I think the support clubs give to sport is great for the community," he told the Shire Leader's Murray Trembath. "The Dragons team, for instance, brings together residents from different backgrounds into one cohesive mix."

McClelland has since clarified his support for the government's mandatory pre-commitment policy, but there are plenty of backbenchers in marginal electorates in NSW and Queensland feeling the heat.

But how seriously should we take the argument about the value of clubs to local communities? Not very. Clubs may have a legal structure as not-for-profit entities, but even a cursory glance at their operating activities and their financial statements shows they are essentially gaming operations with a philanthropic sideline.

A glance at the 2010 annual report of one of Australia's largest clubs, the Panthers Group, shows how hollow the argument about community benefits really is. Panthers raked in $91.7 million from gaming in 2010, or 60% of its operating revenue. Against this, the amount Panthers spent back in its local community was relatively small: $617,000 in junior development, $2.9 million in member promotions, $1.4 million in donations, $698,000 in sponsorship, $2.4 million in artists and entertainment expenses for its members and $2.2 million in "other promotions". Panthers also paid out $47 million in wages and employment benefits and paid the NSW government $28 million in poker machine tax. All told, the amount that Panthers could reasonably be said to be "returning to the community" still adds up to less than the amount it extracts from gamblers.

Or examine the Rooty Hill RSL, also in Sydney's western suburbs. Its 2010 annual report features a prominent drop quote from none other than Donald Trump: "As long as you're going to be thinking anyway, think big." The club is certainly thinking big when it comes to poker machines: it enjoys "Australia's largest non-casino installation of electronic gaming machines" with an amazing 726 gaming machine licences. Poker machines raked in $43.2 million of the club's total operating revenue of $64.7 million — a neat two-thirds of its revenue. Against this, the club spent $5.7 million on entertainment, marketing and promotional costs, $1.8 million on members amenities and a miserly $601,000 on donations. $13.1 million was paid out in poker machine taxes and wages and staff costs accounted for $18.6 million, but the club was still able to record a healthy operating surplus of $5.2 million for its 2010 financial year.

For some clubs, the equation is even more imbalanced. In McClelland's own electorate, poker machine revenue accounts for an amazing 81% of the St George Leagues Club's total operating revenue of $39 million. Only $3.3 million found its way back to what the club calls "football clubs and community development and support" expenditure.

Clubs have of course long enjoyed support from local sporting communities. But these days the gambling seems to be taking over the sport. Perhaps that's because gambling represents an ever-increasing share of many football club revenues. If you watch football in 2011, it's hard to escape the hard sell pushed by the gaming and betting industry. The AFL club St Kilda  is sponsored by Centrebet to the tune of millions (how much is not disclosed), while Hawthorn makes $4.6 million a year, or about 20% of its revenue, from pokies — only $300,000 less than it makes from its match day receipts.

The pokies push by big sporting clubs is nothing if not brazen. Fairfax's Phil Lutton has a fine piece of long-form reportage in the Brisbane Times today about the Brisbane Lions' new social club, called LIONS@Springwood, located in Brisbane's southern mortgage belt of Logan. It's an elegant exploration of the reality behind the debate about poker machines and clubs. "It's exceedingly clear what the owners see as the biggest selling point," he wrote. "As you drive towards the car park, the signs declare you are entering a promised land of '200 pokies'. Just in case you missed it, the message is repeated in bold lettering on the club's facade."

Let's remind ourselves that the Productivity Commission has already examined the beneficial aspects of gambling in clubs in some detail. An entire chapter of the 2010 gambling inquiry report is devoted to assessing them. The Productivity Commission found the "claimed benefits of gambling revenue on sporting activities and volunteering do not appear strong" and that "the [gross] value of social contributions by clubs is likely to be significantly less than the support governments provides to clubs through tax and other concessions". In other words: far from clubs subsidising the community, the rest of the community is subsidising clubs

It's true that clubs do spend considerable sums on sporting and recreation facilities in local communities. But are they necessarily the best organisations to perform this community service? As the Productivity Commission notes: "Even if it were accepted that clubs might have superior local knowledge about where to spend money for sport and recreation, the conventional government outsourcing model when hundreds of millions of dollars were at stake would involve appropriate budgetary controls, public scrutiny and transparency."

The Rooty Hill RSL featured in the 2010 election campaign with a leader's forum in which citizens were able to ask questions of Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, but perhaps its time our nation's leaders started to ask some hard questions of the clubs industry

First and foremost among these should be this: why should clubs that are essentially medium-sized suburban casinos continue to pay no company tax as "not-for-profit" entities, and their substantial tax concessions on gaming taxes compared to commercial bars and hotels?

The clubs lobby has opened up a broad front in its assault on government policy. Perhaps its time the government and the community demanded some extra transparency and scrutiny from clubs themselves, in the form of an inquiry into whether large clubs with hundreds of poker machines should be stripped of their tax-exempt status.

John Menadue | Rethinking Asylum Seeker Policy

The toxicity of the current asylum seeker debate has left both sides of politics lost at sea. Whilst the opposition exploits our fear of foreigners, the government fumbles from one policy to another, afraid of making progress and appearing soft. CPD founder John Menadue featured on ABC Radio National to discuss the fallacies of this parliament's approach to the issue of refugees.

He states that the current policy is "inhumane, ineffective and expensive". Detention costs run at around 800 million dollars a year, a figure that could be reduced to roughly 200-300 million by adopting fairer, more balanced measures. John, senior author of CPD's recent report 'A New Approach: Breaking the Stalemate on Refugees & Asylum Seekers', maintains that by addressing the problem at its source, in troubled countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan, the entire process would be safer and more efficient.

Yet the issue of migration and refugees was not always in such shambles. One of the most frustrating aspects of this debate, John argues, is that we've tackled it so well in the past. 700,000 refugees have been accepted into Australia since World War Two but success stories like these often go overlooked in the climate of fear and misinformation. Now, like before, we need to "embrace the better angels of our natures". Can Australia, by treating refugees in a humane and sensible manner, pass the litmus test of a decent country?

Listen to the full interview with John on Late Night with Phillip Adams featured on ABC Radio National, here

CPD Needs a Research Assistant

We are looking for a Research Assistant to work on both our Public Service Research and Sustainable Economy research programs.   Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates who want to pursue a career in public policy research and development. The position is part time (4 days a week) Sydney based on a temporary contract of 10 months

Roles & responsibilities:

Conduct research and project management activities under supervision of a research director
Generate, collect, manage, interpret and present research data
Write reports in plain English
Participate in fora where public policy issues are discussed and debated
Participate in internal CPD meetings and processes
Performing any other reasonable tasks assigned by the Research Manager or Director

Selection Criteria

Demonstrated ability to rapidly and accurately collate, interpret and communicate qualitative and quantitative data (experience with economic data would be an advantage)
Demonstrated ability to work in a small team
Excellent project and time management skills including the capacity to work under tight deadlines
Excellent written and oral English communication skills – able to produce spontaneous, coherent and persuasive writing for a general audience
Strong interest in and understanding of current policy and political debates
Academic or work experience relevant to the public service, economic and environment policy
Demonstrated strong skills in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint

Conditions

Four days per week, $47,000 per year (plus 9% employer superannuation)

This is a ten-month contract position, during which period the incumbent will be guided and supported by senior staff in the organisation, and will participate in the various activities of the organisation, especially those related to research.

To apply, submit a statement addressing the selection criteria and a CV to admin@cpd.org.au

Closing date for applications October 2oth

 

 

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Public Service in the News | An insightful analysis of privatisation and 'choice', inspiring examples of community activism and collectivism & UK councils struggle under cuts to Public Service

What Real Choice Have I Got? > while we're all out here seeing quite clearly that privatisation made everything worse, they're busy arguing for more private companies and greater individual choice. It's so market-eager, so decentralised, so big society. And it's a handily neat example that the principle doesn't bloody work.

Amid all the incoherent 'big society' talk, consider Christiania, a democratic Danish community celebrating 40 years of autonomy > If you really want to emotionally engage and energise people – the raw materials out of which social solidarity is made – then give communities access to land, property and other assets before the developers get there. It is simply incredible what energy, skills and visions people can collaboratively mobilise when they have the chance to experiment with their communal and living space.

People's Supermarket revolution spreads > What started as a small volunteer-run co-op in central London has attracted worldwide interest > "The Big Society is trumpeted by the Government, but large businesses with financial clout are still not buying into it and continue to seek unrealistic returns."

More questions than answers as our schools face new examination > Since May 2010, UK Education Secretary Michael Gove has barely paused for breath in pursuit of reform, including the rapid expansion of academies and the introduction of so-called "free schools", and a far bigger role planned for private providers. Judith Blake, executive member for children's services and deputy leader of Leeds Council states "To be honest, I do not see enormous appetite for the 'go it alone' model. The overwhelming message from schools concerns the importance of collaboration. Tear it all up and you disrupt all our good work done so far".

Hard-pressed councils set to miss cuts target by over £50m > In the past six months a total of 16 libraries, one leisure centre, two swimming pools, four tourist information centres and two homeless hostels have closed across Yorkshire.But despite the unprecedented scale of the ongoing cuts, the reality is that the majority of Yorkshire's councils are still failing to balance their books.

Ben Eltham | Arts Policy Converging into a Government Hash

First published in Crikey here

The government this week released one of the most important discussion papers about the arts and culture in years, and almost no one in the arts sector noticed.

It might be because the arts and cultural industries have stopped engaging with the government's tortuous process of developing a National Cultural Policy. After all, Peter Garrett announced the government would develop a cultural policy in 2009, and current Arts Minister Simon Crean is now promising to deliver one in 2012, a mere three years later.

Perhaps people are confused. You can hardly blame them, given the content-less gobbledygook served up by Crean's office in its latest national cultural policy discussion paper.

Or perhaps people have simply stopped listening. When the Office of the Arts released its Strategic Digital Industry Plan in August, almost nobody noticed. Believe it or not, this plan was actually one of Garrett's 2007 election promises, but the final document, entitled Creative Industries, a Strategy for 21st Century Australia, is neither a plan nor a strategy. It contains no recommendations and no funding or regulatory announcements. Instead it simply collects together a grab-bag of current programs and initiatives, many of them only vaguely related to each other, as though listing them all in the same document somehow suggests a way forward.

In arts and cultural policy, it is ever thus. While the Arts Office issues a series of glossy brochures, the big decisions about the big industries and the important policy questions are made elsewhere in the government. And right now, some big questions are being asked by the Convergence Review.

This week, the Convergence Review released  an entire series of discussion papers that pose major questions about the future shape of Australian cultural policy. The discussion paper about "Australian and Local Content" ranges all over the cultural policy landscape, examining everything from media ownership and the decline of local journalism to Screen Australia's funding levels and the performance of the Producer Offset.

For those who read closely, there are plenty of potentially exciting proposals hinted at. For instance, the discussion paper asks: "Whether there are forms of content that should receive access to an indirect incentive from government but currently are ineligible, such as interactive entertainment." Translation: should the gaming industry also get tax rebates? Even the long-neglected community broadcasters get a mention. The discussion paper pointedly asks: "What should be the role of community broadcasters in producing and delivering local content?"

Other issues canvassed by the various discussion papers include doing away with much of the current system of local content regulations, the possibility of introducing a fourth commercial TV network (this columnist says "Yes! Do it!") and introducing a public interest test for media mergers in order to protect what little diversity the Australian media still retains.

In summary, these papers represent a wide-reaching and incisive arm's-length analysis of much of Australia's current cultural policy settings. The contrast between them and the guff coming out of the Arts Office is telling. On current indications, the Convergence Review risks making the National Cultural Policy process irrelevant.

If that's the case, then Australia's established arts sector will largely have itself to blame. For a long time, the Australia Council and many other parts of our local arts sector have turned their backs on new media and digital culture — indeed, most forms of popular culture — instead pulling up the drawbridge to try and keep the barbarians at bay.

But digital convergence means that approach is becoming untenable. We seem to be nearing a moment of truth for government policy in regards to the arts and culture. All of a sudden, Australia's cultural policy settings are up for grabs. Perhaps most interestingly, the legitimacy of the Australia Council as a key policy-making body has begun to be questioned (and not just by Crikey).

Just yesterday, for instance, respected and influential Adelaide Festival director Paul Grabowksy delivered a speech to the South Australian Press Club in which he attacked the current programing of of the symphony orchestras and bluntly stated that the Australia Council has failed artists.

"Something is wrong, there's a lack of mettle," Grabowsky said, according to The Australian's Rebecca Puddy. "It could also be a defensive posture taken by the entire culture, trying to protect itself in a more competitive, less cosseted financial environment in which they need to be seen balancing their books and forcing them into the grotesque kind of organisations in which they have to be backing bands for rock'n'roll stars."

Grabowsky is here describing the common practice of the state orchestras to play concerts with acts such as Deep Purple or Roberta Flack. He's also right to point to the defensive posture that the Australia Council and many of the organisations it funds seem to have adopted in recent times.

The contemporary music industry has also started to organise itself to lobby against the current distribution of music funding, overwhelmingly weighted towards orchestras and classical music.

Culture is changing. So, finally, is the atmosphere of cultural policy.

Town Hall Meeting Oct 13th. Mandatory Detention: the realistic alternatives

The immigration detention network is at breaking point.

Policymakers are so wrapped up in political hubris they have missed the opportunity the High Court decision presented to be a circuit breaker.

CPD and ChilOut invite you to join CPD Founder and former Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs Head John Menadue, AO in a clear-headed discussion of the recommendations made in the recent CPD paper,  A New Approach: Breaking the Stalemate on Refugees & Asylum Seekers

When: THURSDAY 13 OCTOBER, 6 for 6.30 Sharp – 8.00 pm

Where: Council Chambers, Sydney Town Hall*