Centre for Policy Development's Blog, page 111

Ben Eltham | Flood Report Favours Better Practice Over Blame

The inquiry into the Queensland floods has avoided scapegoating and concentrated on the systemic issues of disaster response. Ben Eltham looks at what went wrong last summer.

First published in New Matilda here.

Another natural disaster, another commission of inquiry, another report handed down.

Only two and a half years since the Black Saturday bushfires, another state is examining how it responded to a terrible natural disaster, and asking whether more lives could have been saved.

Yesterday, the Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry handed down its Interim Report. Commissioner Catherine Holmes and her team have delivered a long and thorough document that describes the unique weather conditions affecting Queensland last summer, the terrible floods that ensued, and the response of Queensland state and local authorities.

Naturally, much of the mainstream media reporting has focused on whether anyone was to blame.

The report sidesteps the thorny issue of culpability, instead delving into the systemic and managerial issues that led to confusion and in some cases errors. But it also praises the dam operators at Wivenhoe, stating that they followed their manual appropriately and were "diligent and competent and acted in good faith throughout the flood event".

The Floods Commission's key recommendation is that Wivenhoe dam levels be lowered to 75 per cent "if the Bureau of Meteorology makes a similar seasonal forecast to that made for the 2010/2011 wet season." This would increase Wivenhoe's flood mitigation capability and potentially save houses downstream. It also recommends that the existing flood manual at Wivenhoe be torn up and a new one written.

Much of the media commentary has focused on whether Wivenhoe operators let too much water out of the dam during the January floods, inundating more of Ipswich and Brisbane than was necessary. The report found that while the dam operators might have technically been in breach of their manual, they acted in good faith and in general did all they could with limited information.

Interestingly, the report also tries to dispel the myth that had grown up after Wivenhoe was built that the dam would prevent another flood on the scale of 1974. In fact, as the report argues, "whatever the source of the apparent popular misconception that Wivenhoe Dam would contain all floods emanating in the upper Brisbane River, it is certainly not any of the engineering investigations conducted in connection with the dam during the past four decades."

It continues:

"It is trite to say, yet important to note, that the capacity of flood mitigation dams to contain floods is subject to the volume of rainfall experienced in the dam's catchment. The ability of operators to manage a flood is very limited when the volume of rainfall run-off greatly exceeds the volume of the available flood storage within the dam."

In other words, Wivenhoe was never likely to contain January's flood. It wasn't built for such an eventuality. Indeed, in a future flood of 1893 levels, Wivenhoe would have to release even more water — a sobering thought for downstream residents.

That's not to say the Interim Report is a whitewash. Far from it. Justice Holmes has identified some serious shortcomings with the current arrangements. The dam operators at Wivenhoe, for instance, lacked detailed hydrodynamic models that would allow them to forecast the impact of water releases on downstream urban areas — particularly for Ipswich and the Bremer Valley.

The relevant Minister, Stephen Robertson, also comes in for veiled criticism. Robertson apparently had a chance to lower water levels in Wivenhoe in late 2010, and made a number of enquiries to put that in train. But he didn't adequately follow up on the issue, and when conflicting advice came back from the department and the various water agencies, he postponed a final decision on the matter.

In this section, the report describes levels of bureaucratic confusion and blurred lines of responsibility that will be familiar to students of other natural disaster responses — for instance, the 2009 Victorian bushfires.

There was serial confusion about who exactly was in charge of water levels at Wivenhoe dam. Was it the Minister, the Department of Environment and Resource Management (DERM), or the various water agencies such as Seqwater, the South East Queensland Water Grid Manager, and the Queensland Water Commission? The report says it was ultimately the minister's responsibility, but that the bureaucrats gave him conflicted and contested advice, and that he struggled to make his wishes clear.

Then there's the issue of the now-notorious flood mitigation manuals, which are ultimately the responsibility of the Director-General of the Department. However, the relevant legislation, the Water Supply Act, "does not contain any criteria against which a flood mitigation manual must be assessed". Worse, according to the Report, "the water agencies and [the Department] seem incapable of agreeing upon their respective roles. Seqwater and DERM have had fundamental disagreements about the advice Seqwater should be providing to the Minister." Any decision to vary the dam levels would have needed to have been made by the minister, presumably in cabinet. But no decision ever came.

One of the key issues appears to have been the desire to save as much water as possible, even in the midst of one of the wettest summers in decades. Queensland's long drought of 2001-2009, when Brisbane's dams nearly dried up, remained fresh in the memories of water managers. As a result, "water security" stayed paramount in Seqwater's calculations, even as rain continued falling. Robertson, meanwhile, had dropped the ball.

The report also looked at the response of emergency services agencies to the catastrophic events in the Lockyer Valley. It found a number of resourcing, management and communication issues. In particular, many of the smaller local councils such as Lockyer Valley Regional Council, were quickly overwhelmed by the scale of the disaster, and were not equipped or resourced to respond.

The Bureau of Meterology also failed to clearly and explicitly warn government agencies and citizens at risk. For instance, on 10 January, the day of the horrifying flash floods in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley, the Bureau failed to realise the significance of the Toowoomba rainfall for down-range communities. Although the report says the Bureau is not adequately resourced to monitor rural flood gauge levels across the state, and that no-one could have foreseen the Grantham disaster, the fact remains that "the Bureau, and other agencies, were oblivious to what was actually happening in Helidon that afternoon."

As with any report this size, it is impossible to canvass its full recommendations and scope. Nonetheless, the report is a welcome addition to the body of knowledge of Australian disaster response efforts. It is careful to examine what was, and was not possible, in the hectic weeks of summer when the rain fell and the waters rose.

Perhaps most importantly, the report avoids what US academic Susan Moeller calls "the hunt for the perpetrators" and instead carefully examines the systemic issues involved.

mes out.

[image error] At CPD we want to make good ideas matter. Like what you've read?

DONATE and support deeper thinking. Become an Ideas Sustainer now.

Ian McAuley | Debt Ceiling Lifted But Something's Gotta Give

Obama might have negotiated a way out of the debt ceiling stand-off but the larger problems of the US economy aren't going to disappear, writes Ian McAuley.

First published in New Matilda here.

The standoffs in the US Congress over the last few days have shifted the world's focus away from the fiscal troubles of the Mediterranean countries and on to those of the USA.

For now, there is a resolution, of sorts. Republicans in Congress, urged on by their Tea Party faction, have used their numbers to tie Obama's hands. Deficit reduction is to be achieved through spending cuts rather than tax increases or any reversal of the Bush Government's tax cuts.

This resolution has avoided a US Government default, which would indeed have had immediate global consequences — specifically a rise in global interest rates resulting from a downgraded US Government credit rating and severe contraction in the working capital required to finance global trade and investment. That working capital is still dominated by the US dollar: 84 per cent of foreign exchange transactions involve US dollars. The last crisis in confidence in the US dollar was in 1973, when the de facto gold standard unravelled, precipitating a prolonged period of economic difficulty.

While such an immediate crisis has been avoided, the cobbled-together resolution will nonetheless have consequences.

The first is that it places the US clearly on the path of fiscal contraction. This will have effects on domestic economic activity — in an already sluggish economy. And because the US is still such a large economy, global growth will slow. Even China will feel the effects because the USA is a major market for Chinese goods.

The second consequence is longer term, for even if in time the US Government budget is brought back into balance, the way this will have been achieved will have done nothing to fix the nation's deep-seated structural problems, and indeed may have worsened them.

To deal with the first consequence — the nation's fiscal contraction — it is useful to consider the state of American public finances. The Republicans are right in pointing out that these are in poor shape — what they don't point out, however, is that the fiscal rot set in under their watch when the Bush administration expanded government outlays without expanding public revenue. When Bush was elected in 2001 US federal government outlays were 18 per cent of GDP; eight years later, at the end of Bush's term, they were 25 per cent of GDP. Over the same period federal revenue fell from 20 per cent of GDP to 15 per cent of GDP, resulting from big falls in corporate and individual income taxes, the latter favouring particularly the well off.

Admittedly the US needed a fiscal stimulus at the end of this period, because of the global financial crisis, but that crisis was aggravated by poor economic management, which involved a combination of accumulating deficits and reckless monetary policy on the Republicans' watch; from 2001 to 2004 US official interest rates were near rock bottom, leading to the boom and bust of the GFC. Official interest rates are once again at rock bottom (0.125 per cent); the accumulated federal debt stands at around 100 per cent of GDP, and the annual budget deficit is 9 per cent of GDP — a figure matched only by Greece and the UK among OECD countries. All the country's fiscal and monetary ammunition has been spent, and unemployment is still above 9 per cent.

In summary, US government outlays — federal, state and local — are now around 40 per cent of GDP, which isn't far below the OECD average. The image of America as a country of "small government" is belied by these figures. It remains, however, a country of small taxation. Something has to give.

Worse, and this relates to the longer term consequences, there is nothing to show for America's accumulation of government debt. Many northern European countries, most notably Germany, have reasonably high government debt, but this has been used to finance economic infrastructure. In fact it is sound business practice to use debt to fund public assets, a point which seems lost to many Australian politicians and journalists.

By contrast, US debt has been used to finance two wars, farm subsidies, higher jail populations, tax cuts for the rich, and more outlays for the Medicare and Medicaid programs where the government has to meet the prices set by private insurers (which themselves are publicly subsidised). Even the Greeks have done better than the Americans, for as they went into debt at least they enjoyed themselves in the process!

An economically responsible approach to the US difficulties would be to raise taxes, particularly on corporations and on the rich, and to introduce a carbon tax, while re-directing public expenditure rather than reducing it drastically. Raising corporate taxes would not be painful domestically, because a large amount of the income of US corporations is earned overseas. And taxing the well-off would restore a sense of fairness and would raise revenue.

On the expenditure side there is an urgent need to invest in productive assets including education, transport infrastructure, public health, and environmental repair. And that's all before doing anything about chronic poverty, with its related problems of crime and urban decay. Unless the US economy can be re-structured to provide well-paid jobs, poverty will go on sapping public revenue, because even parsimonious welfare programs are overwhelmed by high rates of poverty.

Another result of policies to shift the economic mix from current consumption to carefully directed public expenditure would be an improvement in the overseas balance on the current account, because public expenditure is more likely to be spent domestically.

The opportunity for such re-structuring has been lost, however. The Republicans don't seem to be interested in economic responsibility; their congressional stances have been driven by their lunatic right wing fringe and a desire to embarrass President Obama, even if this means damaging the nation's economy — a large scale replication of Australian politics if you like.

In so doing, they have brought world attention to their nation's institutional weaknesses, just as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 displayed to the world the ugly images of American poverty. Some may gloat over seeing the US humiliated, but those who understand history know that national humiliation can have ghastly consequences, and that many people will interpret US failure as a failure in democracy, rather than as a manifestation of economic ignorance and short-sighted greed.

[image error] At CPD we want to make good ideas matter. Like what you've read?

DONATE and support deeper thinking. Become an Ideas Sustainer now.

'Lessons from the front line' Sydney seminar 31 August | Professor John Seddon

Lessons from the front line: What works and what doesn't in UK public sector reform | Professor John Seddon

Wednesday 31 August, 3pm to 5pm (followed by wine and canapés)

Dixon Room, State Library of NSW, Shakespeare Place Sydney (Mitchell Wing entrance)

Cost: $22 (NSW IPAA members) or $44 (non-members), includes canapés and drinks following the presentation.

RSVP here. Limited places so register now.

Join the Centre for Policy Development & the Institute of Public Administration Australia (NSW) for a seminar with Professor John Seddon, providing insights into the UK government's radical reforms of the public sector – with some lessons for Australia.

Through the Blair years John Seddon gained a reputation as a leading critic of public sector reform. His 2008 book, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime… and a manifesto for a better way, was read by Cameron's policy team while in opposition and was thought to be 'going too far'; but in some ways Cameron's new coalition government has gone further. The target-setting regime is over and the Audit Commission is to close. On other fronts, Seddon remains a strident and informed voice against UK government policy, arguing that ministers seek policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy.

Seddon is as vociferous about what works. Those who follow his ideas achieve performance improvements that represent economic benchmarks.

In this unique seminar John Seddon will talk about what works, what doesn't work and he will offer up some clear advice for Australia:

Why change should start with studying (no plan required)
How studying can reveal counter-intuitive truths (e.g. managing costs drives costs up)
How managing value drives costs out of public services while improving service delivery
How conventional approaches to sharing services lead to massive and costly failure
Why economy of scale is a myth
Why targets and inspection/regulation make performance worse
Three steps to sharing services that are guaranteed to maximise efficiency and improve service
How to get knowledge; studying service organisations as systems, the prerequisite to effective and profound improvement
The role of central government; constructive things to do and things to avoid
An evidence-based view of current UK government initiatives, including the Big Society.

The seminar is being presented as part of CPD's Public Service Research Program. To  download "The State of the Australian Public Service: An alternative report", visit the program webpage. Be sure to sign up to our email list here [link] to get the latest updates.

About Professor John Seddon

John has received numerous academic awards for his contribution to management thinking. Originally an occupational psychologist, John was persuaded by Deming's obvious truth, that we, mankind, invented management and we can change it. John has developed methods to help managers of service organisations change from a conventional command-and-control design to a systems design.

Here's where you can read more on John's ideas:

Managing for the Better – senior leaders from public, voluntary and private sectors describe the outstanding results being achieved by following John Seddon's ideas.

Why do we believe in economies of scale? – what are the arguments for 'scale' and do they stack up?

Re-thinking lean service – everything you need to know about why 'lean' is failing.

And find more from CPD's Public Service Program here.

To attend please RSVP here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

'Lessons from the front line' Sydney seminar 31/8 | Professor John Seddon

Lessons from the front line: What works and what doesn't in UK public sector reform | Professor John Seddon

Wednesday 31 August, 3pm to 5pm (followed by wine and canapés)

Dixon Room, State Library of NSW, Shakespeare Place Sydney (Mitchell Wing entrance)

Cost: $22 (NSW IPAA members) or $44 (non-members), includes canapés and drinks following the presentation.

RSVP here. Limited places so register now.

Join the Centre for Policy Development & the Institute of Public Administration Australia (NSW) for a seminar with Professor John Seddon, providing insights into the UK government's radical reforms of the public sector – with some lessons for Australia.

Through the Blair years John Seddon gained a reputation as a leading critic of public sector reform. His 2008 book, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime… and a manifesto for a better way, was read by Cameron's policy team while in opposition and was thought to be 'going too far'; but in some ways Cameron's new coalition government has gone further. The target-setting regime is over and the Audit Commission is to close. On other fronts, Seddon remains a strident and informed voice against UK government policy, arguing that ministers seek policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy.

Seddon is as vociferous about what works. Those who follow his ideas achieve performance improvements that represent economic benchmarks.

In this unique seminar John Seddon will talk about what works, what doesn't work and he will offer up some clear advice for Australia:

Why change should start with studying (no plan required)
How studying can reveal counter-intuitive truths (e.g. managing costs drives costs up)
How managing value drives costs out of public services while improving service delivery
How conventional approaches to sharing services lead to massive and costly failure
Why economy of scale is a myth
Why targets and inspection/regulation make performance worse
Three steps to sharing services that are guaranteed to maximise efficiency and improve service
How to get knowledge; studying service organisations as systems, the prerequisite to effective and profound improvement
The role of central government; constructive things to do and things to avoid
An evidence-based view of current UK government initiatives, including the Big Society.

The seminar is being presented as part of CPD's Public Service Research Program. To  download "The State of the Australian Public Service: An alternative report", visit the program webpage. Be sure to sign up to our email list here [link] to get the latest updates.

About Professor John Seddon

John has received numerous academic awards for his contribution to management thinking. Originally an occupational psychologist, John was persuaded by Deming's obvious truth, that we, mankind, invented management and we can change it. John has developed methods to help managers of service organisations change from a conventional command-and-control design to a systems design.

Here's where you can read more on John's ideas:

Managing for the Better – senior leaders from public, voluntary and private sectors describe the outstanding results being achieved by following John Seddon's ideas.

Why do we believe in economies of scale? – what are the arguments for 'scale' and do they stack up?

Re-thinking lean service – everything you need to know about why 'lean' is failing.

And find more from CPD's Public Service Program here.

RSVP here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lessons from the front line | Professor John Seddon

Lessons from the front line: What works and what doesn't in UK public sector reform | Professor John Seddon

Wednesday 31 August, 3pm to 5pm (followed by wine and canapés)

Dixon Room, State Library of NSW, Shakespeare Place Sydney (Mitchell Wing entrance)

Cost: $22 (NSW IPAA members) or $44 (non-members), includes canapés and drinks following the presentation.

RSVP here. Limited places so register now.

Join the Centre for Policy Development & the Institute of Public Administration Australia (NSW) for a seminar with Professor John Seddon, providing insights into the UK government's radical reforms of the public sector – with some lessons for Australia.

Through the Blair years John Seddon gained a reputation as a leading critic of public sector reform. His 2008 book, Systems Thinking in the Public Sector: the failure of the reform regime… and a manifesto for a better way, was read by Cameron's policy team while in opposition and was thought to be 'going too far'; but in some ways Cameron's new coalition government has gone further. The target-setting regime is over and the Audit Commission is to close. On other fronts, Seddon remains a strident and informed voice against UK government policy, arguing that ministers seek policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy.

Seddon is as vociferous about what works. Those who follow his ideas achieve performance improvements that represent economic benchmarks.

In this unique seminar John Seddon will talk about what works, what doesn't work and he will offer up some clear advice for Australia:

Why change should start with studying (no plan required)
How studying can reveal counter-intuitive truths (e.g. managing costs drives costs up)
How managing value drives costs out of public services while improving service delivery
How conventional approaches to sharing services lead to massive and costly failure
Why economy of scale is a myth
Why targets and inspection/regulation make performance worse
Three steps to sharing services that are guaranteed to maximise efficiency and improve service
How to get knowledge; studying service organisations as systems, the prerequisite to effective and profound improvement
The role of central government; constructive things to do and things to avoid
An evidence-based view of current UK government initiatives, including the Big Society.

The seminar is being presented as part of CPD's Public Service Research Program. To  download "The State of the Australian Public Service: An alternative report", visit the program webpage. Be sure to sign up to our email list here [link] to get the latest updates.

About Professor John Seddon

John has received numerous academic awards for his contribution to management thinking. Originally an occupational psychologist, John was persuaded by Deming's obvious truth, that we, mankind, invented management and we can change it. John has developed methods to help managers of service organisations change from a conventional command-and-control design to a systems design.

Here's where you can read more on John's ideas:

Managing for the Better – senior leaders from public, voluntary and private sectors describe the outstanding results being achieved by following John Seddon's ideas.

Why do we believe in economies of scale? – what are the arguments for 'scale' and do they stack up?

Re-thinking lean service – everything you need to know about why 'lean' is failing.

And find more from CPD's Public Service Program here.

RSVP here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chris Bonnor | School Funding Review Faces An Uphill Battle

The 2011 Gonski review of school funding has been handed an almost impossible task: "to reform a system which is becoming a significant barrier to educational achievement facing studies and the whole country". Money still matters, enabling schools and their students to gain a double benefit if they enrol students who are advantaged. For CPD Fellow Chris Bonnor, this creates a zero-sum game, where some schools and students win, and others lose. As we see the coupling of entrenched social and academic hierarchies of schools, the only certainty is that, "if little or nothing is done, current inequities in student outcomes will only increase".

Read Chris Bonnor's article at The Punch, here.

 

James Arvanitakis | Cash Before Custom

An application for an injunction to stop mining waste disposal in PNG was refused last week, leaving questions about the stewardship of natural resources unanswered, write Spike Boydell and James Arvanitakis

Originally published at New Matilda.

Last week in Madang, Papua New Guinea, an important judgement was delivered in the National Court regarding the controversial Ramu Nickel Mine. The case featured 1040 plaintiffs and related to the deep-sea tailings placement (DSTP) — a contentious mine waste disposal method that threatens both the local environment and the health of the population.

The Ramu Nickel Project is a large-scale project that comprises a composite mineral resource initiative with four components: a mine, a pipeline, a refinery and wharf — and DSTP. The mine at Kurumbukari is in the high country and involves a series of open-cut pits and plant that produces ore slurry. The pipeline transfers the ore slurry 135km from Kurumbukari to a refinery at Basamuk, on the Rai Coast of Madang Province. The refinery at Basamuk processes the slurry and the refined nickel and cobalt is exported from the wharf.

The DTSP system is the controversial tailings disposal process that transports the refinery waste through a sloping 400-metre pipeline offshore to a depth of 150 metres where the tailings are dumped into the sea in Basamuk Bay. The amount of waste is staggering: 50 million tons each year for the 20 year life of the project.

The plaintiffs were seeking a permanent injunction by attempting to assert their property rights on customary lands, including seawaters affected by the Ramu Nickel Project. They were not successful in this action.

Their efforts to stop the DSTP were split into three parts. Firstly, they made a claim that the DTSP would create a "common law nuisance" on the grounds that it would interfere with the population's enjoyment of the land and sea.

Secondly, they argued that  environmental harm that would result from the 1 billion tons of waste over the 20-year life of the mine would breach the PNG Environment Act (2000).

Thirdly, they argued that the DSTP would contravene "National Goal No. 4″ of the Papua New Guinea constitution, that relates to the sound principles of stewardship over natural resources and the environment. It states:

"We declare our fourth goal to be for Papua New Guinea's natural resources and environment to be conserved and used for the collective benefit of us all, and be replenished for the benefit of future generations."

 

The National Goal goes on to call for "wise use to be made of our natural resources … in the interests of our development and in trust for future generations". In addition, there is the requirement that resource extraction should ensure that "all necessary steps … (should) be taken to give adequate protection to our valued birds, animals, fish, insects, plants and trees."

The defendants, who included the the Chinese-owned mining company Ramu Nico Management (MCC), the state of PNG, and the country's Director of Environment, mounted a number of counter-arguments. To begin with, they argued that nuisance could not be proven. Contamination would only be evident after the event. Herein lies a big problem with the PNG Environment Act: it has provisions for prosecution when nuisance or damage is proven, rather than for sensible stewardship that would avoid contamination in the first place.

The defendants also argued that they could not be held to account for National Goals as they are non-justiciable. That is, the National Goals fall outside the jurisdiction of the Court.

Finally, the defendants questioned whether some of plaintiffs were genuine landowners. The defendants highlighted that those whose livelihoods had already been affected by the delay in mine production would be further prejudiced if the project was further delayed.

In summing up his decision to refuse the request for an injunction, Justice Cannings had this to say:

"Of the seven factors identified, three (standing, likelihood and extent of environmental harm, National Goal No 4) favour a permanent injunction. Three do not (delay by plaintiffs, lawfulness of DSTP, economic consequences). One (good faith of parties) is equally balanced.

I have decided that the substantial factors favouring an injunction are outweighed by the opposing factors. This is a borderline case. The plaintiffs have marshalled a compelling body of scientific evidence that the Director of Environment has approved operation of a very risky activity that could have catastrophic consequences for the plaintiffs and the coastal people of Madang Province. But I am satisfied that he has made that decision in good faith. If an injunction were to be granted at this late stage the economic consequences would for MCC and for the People of Madang Province be very damaging. Needless to say, if these proceedings had been commenced much earlier, the result may well have been different. My conclusion therefore is that the application for an injunction is refused."

 

This was a win for the defendants, and in the view of the judge, also an economic win for the people of the province.

But what is the real cost of this economic win for the 370,000 people of Madang Province? The province covers an area of 29,000 square kilometres, most of which is remote and undeveloped, although the province is an important producer of cocoa, copra, cattle, sugar, palm oil and woodchip. There will be some unspecialised jobs in the mining sector for locals and some service sector benefits — but there's a real risk of catastrophe to the coastal people of Madang if contamination of fish stock occurs when 1 billion tons of contaminated mining waste is dumped into their ocean.

Most disturbing is that the real property rights of the custom landowners and stewards of the subsistence fishing grounds have been overlooked, despite the compelling body of scientific evidence provided by the plaintiffs.

With significant mineral exploration underway elsewhere in Melanesia, as here in Australia, the court's prioritisation of politics before people, economy before environment, cash before custom reflects very badly on the values of contemporary society and is very much at odds with the notion of sound stewardship of natural resources.

In response, some of the plaintiffs have already moved to lodge an appeal to the Supreme Court. Their position is quite easy to understand: after 20 years the mining company will have made its profit, the PNG Government will have perhaps seen a very small increase in GDP — and Astrolabe Bay, the source of subsistence seafood for the local community, will have been contaminated by 1 billion tons of mining waste.

UPCOMING PAPER | A Fair Go For Refugees: Breaking the Stalemate

CPD is preparing to release a briefing paper which puts Australia's refugee and asylum seeker policies under the spotlight.

A Fair Go for Refugees will examine Australia's refugee and asylum seeker programs, past and present, within an international context – and outline options for real reform to break the current impasse which has slowed our nation's progress towards truly effective solutions.

This report promises practical alternatives for dealing with refugees and asylum seekers more fairly and cost-effectively, to shift this vexing public policy challenge from stalemate to success.

To stay up-to-date with commentary from the A Fair Go for Refugees authors in the lead up to the report's release, email: refugee.policy@cpd.org.au and be sure that you are signed up to our email list here.

"If Malcolm Fraser had decided that he wouldn't take Indo-Chinese refugees until he'd consulted opinion polls or focus groups, Australia would never have taken Indo-Chinese refugees. But Malcolm Fraser didn't take polls. He decided leadership was essential, it was something that Australia had to do, morally justified, and would be of benefit to this country if we did so."

- John Menadue, Former Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship

CPD MEDIA: Making ideas about refugees matter

John Menadue: Navigating the refugee fact free zone

John Menadue offers a roadmap for those seeking the facts amidst the the heated debate about refugees and asylum seekers in Australia. He wades through the misinformation, lies and unfonded opinions to get to what we need to know to start a useful conversation. Read more here.

John Menadue: Trampling on human rights is expensive

Asylum seekers continue to suffer because of poll driven policies and their fate remains an enormous political problem for Australia. John Menadue adds up how expensive trampling on human rights really is. They find that a new approach is not only urgently needed but that it but saves money too. Read more in our Budget InSight edition here.

John Menadue: Malaysia swap offers hope on 'toxic' debate

John Menadue, says the Malaysia refugee swap is needed to break a deadlock in a "toxic" asylum seeker debate and represents a way out of the "dreadfully dark" debate on asylum seekers. Read Kirsty Needham's article in The Sydney Morning Herald here.

John Menadue in conversation with BTalks Phil Dobbie: Our Dark Angels

In a recent talk at the St James Ethics Centre Menadue said "If Ben Chifley and Malcolm Fraser had appealed to our darker angels we would never have taken large numbers of Jewish and Indochinese refugees."

Phil Dobbie from BTalk asks Menadue isn't the debate today really about Islam? Why else would we concern ourselves with the small number of boat arrivals, predominantly refugees from the Middle East, and be less concerned about the larger number of asylum seekers who arrive by air, many of which come from China?

Menadue says our attitude on the issue seems to be a race to the bottom — and we are paying for it. The Nauru solution, for example, cost a billion dollars and deflected only 46 asylum seekers to other countries.

So why has the issue of asylum seekers become so divisive in Australian society and what can be done to appeal to our better angels?

LISTEN to John Menadue in conversation with BTalk's Phil Dobbie here.

Ben Eltham | Asylum Deal Looks Tough But Won't Work

The Malaysia Solution might look like the way out of a difficult political bind but it's a cynical and odious policy – and what's more it probably won't work, writes Ben Eltham.

Originally published at New Matilda.

Julia Gillard and Chris Bowen have signed off on the Malaysia Solution.

The deal (pdf), finally inked yesterday in Kuala Lumpur with Malaysian Home Affairs Minister Hishamuddin bin Tun Hussein, formalises the plan to swap 800 asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters by boat with 4000 UN-assessed refugees from Malaysia.

The deal is all about politics. What else could it be about? Certainly not ethics — or the law.

The issue of asylum seekers has long been a moral stain on the Australian body politic — and indeed there is no way to sugarcoat the depressing reality that tough "border protection" policies to deter desperate people from seeking a new life in this country are supported by the majority of voters.

The politics of asylum seekers has posed an almost insoluble problem for a progressive party such as the ALP, which finds itself wedged between the sincere desire for generosity from its supporters on the left, and the equally firm belief in lower levels of immigration held by many working-class voters. The situation is inflamed by incessant media coverage fixated on boat arrivals, and a ruthless Opposition only too happy to exploit the issue for political gain.

Asylum seekers pose a policy bind that Labor wishes would go away. Politically, the Government can never benefit from the issue. All it can do is attempt to neutralise it, in the hope that the political battle can be shifted to more amenable terrain.

So that, in a nutshell, is why the Gillard Government is swapping thousands of refugees with a northern neighbour that has failed to sign the international Convention on the Status of Refugees. In true Labor traditions, it's a political fix, aimed at neutralising the volatile politics of asylum seekers and allowing Julia Gillard to tick off another of the three commitments she made on taking the prime ministership.

From a policy perspective, there's little to like. For those who believe in the moral duty of a rich country like Australia to accept refugees, it's difficult to agree with the rhetoric of Chris Bowen's description of the deal as a "true burden-sharing arrangement". The agreement continues the Australian government's quixotic attempts — under both conservative and progressive administrations — to stretch our adherence to our international responsibilities under the 1951 Refugees Convention well past the limit of what even a generous observer would consider the spirit of that treaty.

It is true that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has expressed a kind of qualified endorsement of the arrangement, and that Australia has negotiated some special protections for the 800 to be sent there, including legal status, an ID card, and the ability to work and access education and healthcare. This is clearly a better outcome than a long stay in an Australian detention centre such as Christmas Island. It is also true that the 4000 currently in Malaysia who will be resettled in Australia will now enjoy a genuine chance at a new life in our country, freed from the legal limbo and harsh conditions experienced by an estimated 100,000 refugees in that country.

If you are a utilitarian, you might conclude that this moral calculus is indeed a positive one, improving the lives of many and apparently leaving no-one worse off.

But, of course, there will be many who find this hard-headed equation approach to accept, involving as it does the abrogation of Australia's legal and moral obligation to accept every genuine refugee who arrives on our shores, regardless of how they travelled here.

Many have also expressed qualms at the way in which people have been used as bargaining chips, as the international currency of migration. Others point out that this deal seems to make the Australian government a kind of people trafficker itself, moving humans across borders for reasons that appear to have more to do with political expediency than the best interests of those involved.

There is an even more odious aspect of the arrangement, which is that people who have done nothing wrong and have a legal right to claim asylum here are being punished — supposedly to create a deterrent effect that will "stop the boats". But then, the punitive treatment of seaborne asylum seekers is now bipartisan policy of both major parties. This is an outrage but it has become a depressingly familiar outrage.

Once you begin to unpick the logic of the arrangement, it makes less and less sense. If Australia can take 4000 "genuine" refugees from Malaysia, why do we need to send 800 to their shores? The net result is 3200 more people, after all. Indeed, the manifest truth is that we can obviously cope with all 4800 of the real human beings whose lives are being determined by this swap.

The deal is also unfair.

Eight hundred asylum seekers will now be sent to Malaysia because they arrived here after an arbitrary date on the calendar, rather than because they wish to go there. And, as the ABC's Zoe Daniel reported last night on 7.30, the deal also fails to address the broader problem of the tens of thousands of refugees currently in limbo in Malaysia, with few prospects of a better life. Daniel spoke to Iraqi and Afghan refugees who still want to get on a boat to come to Australia, because they believe it gives them a chance of escaping their current legal status in Malaysia where they cannot legally work or access education — let alone become a citizen and vote.

Of course, no-one really believes the boats will stop coming. That is not what this deal is about. It is about Labor's tortuous progress towards a policy that allows it appear "tough" on border protection, while staying within the black-letter law of the Migration Act.

As I wrote in June after the deal was first announced, it is already Plan C or D for this government. Plan A was the Rudd government's attempt to regularise and normalise asylum seeker policy, while downplaying the seriousness of the issue. That approach failed spectacularly once boat arrivals started to climb in 2010, allowing the Opposition's big lies about "stopping the boats" to gain traction. Plan B was the East Timor regional processing centre. That plan foundered when no-one bothered to ask the East Timorese whether they wanted one. A processing centre in Manus Island in Papua New Guinea was then mooted.

The current Malaysian solution won't be the final plan, either. What happens when the quota of 800 seaborne arrivals fills up? Will the Australian government seek to renegotiate another deal with Malaysia? With PNG? The Prime Minister appeared to rule that out yesterday. Perhaps Labor has another option up its sleeve. But it's more likely the government will simply scramble to cut another deal — anywhere, anyhow.

As Ross Peake writes today in the Canberra Times, "it would be much cheaper to process boat arrivals on Christmas Island and increase the humanitarian intake, but that wouldn't be seen as tough."

And being seen to be tough is what this deal is all about.

 

 

Public service in the news | 26/7/11

Deliverology destroys services > In this video Professor John Seddon addresses the California Faculty Association on the dangers posed by Sir Michael Barber's (former head of Toby Blair's Delivery Unit – and dubbed 'Mr Targets' by the UK press) 'Deliverology'. John Seddon provides compelling evidence that Deliverology not only failed in the UK, but actually made services worse and  increased costs. CPD will host a seminar with John in Sydney, August 31st.