Centre for Policy Development's Blog, page 116

Ben Eltham | Greek Debt Hits The EU – And The ASX

Our economy is strong but local share values have been affected by the Greek debt implosion. Ben Eltham looks at the Greek crisis and what it means for the European monetary union – and Australia.

First published in New Matilda here.

Yesterday, $28 billion was wiped from the value of Australian share values. With the economy growing strongly and many firms embarking on huge expansions, why are shares falling?

The answer is Greek debt. The hugely indebted Mediterranean nation is struggling to pay back the interest on its massive foreign loans, and is currently negotiating bridging finance with European and international institutions such as the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Greece's public finances are in ruins. The country has lived well beyond its means for a generation, financing generous pensions and public sector employment programs — not to mention the 2004 Olympics — largely by bond issues to the international debt markets. The situation would be serious even if Greek citizens and companies paid all their taxes. But tax avoidance is endemic, so the country's true levels of internal revenue have consistently been lower than government expectations.

Greece's crisis is now several years old. The nation negotiated a €110 billion bailout with the European Union and the IMF in May last year. The bailout included stringent conditions forcing the Greek government of George Papandreou from Greece's centre-left PASOK party to take savage austerity measures, including stiff tax rises and huge cuts to pensions and pay for public servants. Unsurprisingly, the Greek economy has continued to struggle, further exacerbating the country's fiscal woes. Now the government needs a second — or third, depending on how you define it — bailout if it is to avoid default on its vast bond issues.

Greece's problems are not entirely self-inflicted. The country is also paying a terrible price for the denomination of its debt in Euros, which prevents the country from devaluing its currency. As a result, Greece's exports, which represent its best chance of growing its way out of trouble, are far too expensive to be internationally competitive.

The story of Greece's sovereign debt problems is really the story of the failure of the European monetary union, which is fundamentally failing the citizens of its poorer periphery countries.

Historically, there are only three ways out of sovereign debt crises of the magnitude faced by Greece (and Portugal, and Ireland). The first — and by far the best — option is economic growth. Strong growth would eventually start to replenish Greek tax revenues, allowing debt to be slowly repaid.

But the huge cuts to public sector spending required as a condition of Greece's bailout have crimped Greek growth. Weaker government spending has largely cancelled out the gains by Greece's private sector in the famous "paradox of thrift" identified by Keynes two generations ago. Indeed, you don't have to be Keynes to realise that tax hikes and savage pay cuts affecting a big section of the population will have negative impacts on economic growth. As might have been predicted, unemployment rose sharply in the wake of the austerity measures.

The second escape hatch for indebted nations has generally been currency devaluation and inflation. For debt issued in a country's own currency, devaluation can make debts easier to pay, effectively imposing a haircut on overseas creditors. Devaluation also has the added effect of making imports more expensive and exports cheaper, potentially creating the conditions for an export-led recovery. Inflation is a similar strategy. Printing more money to pay back creditors is a time-honoured strategy for banana republics, even if the result is often economically devastating.

Unfortunately, Greece can't do this. Its currency is the Euro, which means that every unit of currency it pays back to foreign creditors has to be found from somewhere inside its own economy. Nor can the country devalue its currency to stimulate export-led growth, such as tourism. This is why the austerity measures have cut so deeply and been so unpopular.

The third escape hatch is default — in effect, to declare national bankruptcy. Default means a country simply refuses to pay back some or all of its debt and starts afresh, generally with a new currency to boot. For a sovereign nation, default is often the final result of unsustainable borrowing — most notoriously for Argentina, which has defaulted regularly in its history.

A Greek default is of course the source of the fear stalking global markets. Should Greece decide not to pay back all its debts, many European banks will be landed with huge losses, further weakening Europe's already fragile economic situation.

But some form of default, or at least debt modification, looks increasingly likely, as the Greek political situation spirals further downwards. There have been three general strikes in recent months and the PASOK government is struggling to retain the support of the Greek parliament. Overnight, Athens was again the scene of mass protests as Prime Minister Papandreou reshuffled his cabinet and attempted to cobble together enough numbers to pass yet more budget cuts. The budget cuts have been required of Panadreou's government by the IMF, which is threatening to withhold a €12 billion payment that Greece needs next month simply to keep the lights on.

Hard-headed observers now agree that some form of Greek default is almost inevitable. Former US central banker Alan Greenspan was quoted in an interview overnight as saying that "The chances of Greece not defaulting are very small" and economist Nouriel Roubini, famous for predicting the global financial crisis, has been predicting a Greek default and the subsequent break-up of the Eurozone for some time.

The potential contagion effects of a Greek default are unknown. Many fear a Lehman Brothers-like moment in which the disorderly bankruptcy of a big institution leads to the seizing up of global credit markets. That scenario is unlikely to play out in the short term, with the IMF and the EU determined to keep the money flowing to Greece, whatever the cost. They know that once Greece tumbles, other dominos — especially Portugal — may quickly follow.

In the medium term, however, the risks of a disorderly conclusion to the Greek sovereign debt crisis are growing. Austerity is already unpopular in all the countries where it is being imposed — even in Britain, where the conservative government has won surprising support from voters for its determination to tackle Britain's public debt. That's not unreasonable, as in the short term, austerity makes the economy and the fiscal crisis worse. Meanwhile, voters in Germany are turning against the Eurozone because of the responsibility it imposes on German banks and taxpayers to support profligate southern member nations.

Ultimately, a Eurozone currency union made up of large, economically advanced nations such as Germany, France and the UK, as well as small and economically disadvantaged nations like Portugal, Greece and Ireland becomes less and less sustainable every month. That situation seems inherently unstable and seems to imply some kind of break-up of the Eurozone — perhaps sooner rather than later.

What effects that may exert on Australia are unknown — but considering Australia's vulnerability to external credit shocks (our big banks still source significant amounts of their day-to-day funding from overseas capital markets), the potential for economic collateral damage in Australia cannot be discounted.

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Ben Eltham | Roxon Story All Smoke, No Fire

On Tuesday it emerged that Nicola Roxon had solicited donations from Big Tobacco. It's not a good look but it shouldn't distract from her plain packaging campaign and strong record.

First Published by New Matilda here.

Only a few hours after I had finished praising Nicola Roxon yesterday, reports emerged from the ABC that in the mid-2000s she had solicited donations form the tobacco industry.

The story, by the ABC's Hayden Cooper, reported that Roxon had written to tobacco industry executives in 2005 asking for $1,500 for a seat at a fundraising dinner. According to Cooper, "in 2005, in opposition, she wrote to three executives from Philip Morris, asking for them to support her re-election by attending a $1500 a table fundraiser. The new MP, Peter Garrett, was the star attraction."

The ABC led with the story on much of its TV and radio bulletins last night and today, complete with outraged criticisms from Coalition politicians. "Well this just blows the Minister's credibility," claimed Liberal Health spokesman Peter Dutton, emerging from a long media slumber to make the obvious attacks. "People don't like politicians who are hypocrites, and Nicola Roxon has been an absolute hypocrite when it comes to this matter." Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop was also crying peridious hypocrisy on Lateline last night.

But how big a story is this really?

The letter was sent six years ago. There was no cover up. Roxon immediately admitted the letter was sent, owned up to being embarassed by it, but also confirmed that no tobacco representatives attended and that no money was donated. That's right: no money was donated.

Nor can there be any suggestion of undue influence on the Minister. Roxon is of course trying to implement some of the world's toughest cigarette packaging laws.

Nor has the ABC bothered to reveal to its audience the source of the letter, which must strongly be suspected to be Philip Morris itself. One equally valid angle on the story is that big tobacco corporations are intimidating Australia's elected health minister. That's how international news bureau Reuters reported it: "Australia health minister accuses tobacco firms of smear".

But such is the antipathy for the Government in the Australian media right now that the "gotcha" moment was what counted for the ABC and the other outlets that reported this non-story. In effect, the national broadcaster has preferred the spin of large corporations with the most naked self-interest to the straight bat of a Minister trying to implement legislation that will save lives. It's poor judgment by the ABC's news editors and yet more confirmation of the difficulties that politicians face when trying to talk about policy rather than tactics or empty political spin.

We can discount anything the Liberal Party has to say on this issue — it continues to openly accept many tens of thousands of dollar of party political donations from the tobacco industry. While Roxon (or more likely someone in her electorate office) sent this letter in 2005, in terms of actual monies received, the Australian Labor Party has not accepted tobacco donations since 2004.

In my article yesterday I praised Roxon for her tenacity. She's showing some more of it today by sticking to her guns, in the face of insubstantial attacks from journalists and politicians with plenty of hypocrisy of their own.

 

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Ben Eltham | The Best Ministers Come In Plain Packaging

 

Gillard's front bench is looking more and more vulnerable. A key exception is Nicola Roxon who continues to push through important reforms. Ben Eltham on Labor's most effective operator.

First published by New Matlida here.

It's been a long cold winter for Julia Gillard's Government. Labor is behind in the polls and has been for months — if an election had been held this weekend, Tony Abbott and the Coalition would have romped home in a 1996-style landslide.

On issue after issue, the Government has struggled to attract swinging voters, or even shore up its crumbling base. Possum Comitatus wrote last week about an interesting pattern that has emerged this year. He pointed out that "the Coalition has increased their lead over the ALP in relatively short bursts, followed by a small contraction or consolidation in the Coalition vote, before going on to enjoy another burst of support."

Labor's inability to win even a small victory here or there has reinforced a general feeling of malaise about the Gillard Government, with many backbenchers now resigned to a long hard slog towards a likely election defeat sometime in the next three years.

Meanwhile, the tireless Tony Abbott continues to revel in his role as the Government's chief tormentor. Every day he seems to appear before the TV cameras with new variation on his simple messages: this is a bad government; big new tax; stop the boats; pick up the phone to Nauru. Labor constantly struggles to combat Abbott's ruthless simplicity.

The Government's only glimmer of hope right now is the electoral timetable. If a week is a long time in politics, then the two years to 2013, when the next election is scheduled to be held, is an eternity. In the last Parliament, we saw three opposition leaders and two prime ministers in one term of office. Who knows what the next 24 months might bring?

Julia Gillard and her dwindling band of supporters therefore insist that Labor's only option is to keep going, plodding forward with its signature policies like the carbon tax, and focusing on the long game.

Paradoxically, when Labor does focus on the long game and simply gets on with governing, it often performs much better than it is generally given credit for. An example over recent weeks has been the plain packaging debate concerning cigarettes.

Plain packaging is a debate most would expect the government to be able to win. Cigarettes kill. It seems obvious that making cigarettes less attractive will save lives. There's plenty of peer-reviewed research to support this case.

Know of any other issues where the Government enjoyed an intuitive advantage, backed up by plenty of evidence? Climate change springs to mind. So does the economic stimulus. On both of these issues, the Government comprehensively failed to frame the debate to its advantage, allowing its opponents to dominate the way the public understood the issues. Labor's parlous position in the opinion polls is in many ways a direct result.

But with plain packaging, Labor seems to be winning the debate. Despite a vigorous PR campaign from the big tobacco companies and even threats of World Trade Organisation lawsuits, polls suggest that the public supports the move, and the Government has even been able to exert some pressure on the Opposition over the issue of tobacco donations to the Liberal Party.

The credit for the Government's efforts on plain packaging must largely be given to Health Minister Nicola Roxon. She may not have the electoral appeal of Kevin Rudd or Penny Wong's ability to stay calm under pressure, but Roxon seems to possess a quality enjoyed by few in this Labor government: tenacity.

Health is one of toughest portfolios in any government. One of the biggest areas of federal government spending, it also involves matters of life and death. Bedevilled by complex Commonwealth-state relationships, powerful industry lobby groups and worsening long-term trends for diseases like dementia, diabetes and obesity, health has more than its fair share of "wicked problems".

But in nearly four years in office as Federal Health Minister, Roxon has slowly and methodically delivered on some significant policy reforms. The health and hospitals reform package — which was in reality a federal-state hospitals funding reform — may not have been the kind of sweeping sector-wide policy reform that many were hoping for, but it was certainly a step in the right direction, promising to deliver nearly $20 billion in new funding for public hospitals over the next four years. Nor was it an easy deal to get state premiers to sign up to — particularly after the election of conservative state governments in Western Australia and Victoria. But Roxon has stuck to her guns and recently inked a deal on a key plank in the new policy framework: a national deal to set up a new hospital watchdog called the National Health Performance Authority.

This is no small achievement: hospital errors kill thousands of Australians every year, so lifting national standards up to the levels of our best-performing hospitals has the potential to save many lives.

Likewise, in public and primary health, Roxon has patiently worked through Sisyphean difficulties to deliver some significant achievements, including more funding for mental health in the recent budget, and more funding for primary health. This year, the first Medicare Locals are finally rolling out, a belated achievement for a government that promised them in the 2007 election campaign, but a political plus none-the-less.

Again, it can be argued that Medicare Locals fall short of the best-practice policy — and some health policy experts such as Tim Woodruff and Jennifer Doggett have indeed argued that Medicare Locals could go much further in terms of their commitment to integrating allied health in the community. But there is no doubt that Medicare Locals represent the potential for real improvement in the way primary care is delivered, particularly in comparison with the current situation, which is splintered and GP-centric.

But it is on issues such as alcohol and tobacco where Roxon has been at her best. Despite strong pressure from deep-pocketed industry lobby groups, Roxon has stood firm on steep increases to tobacco and alcohol taxes and on tougher packaging laws for cigarettes. Throughout, she has maintained a simple and credible message about minimising harm. Roxon has won these arguments, delivering better outcomes for the Australian community.

Another way of assessing Roxon's peformance is to judge her against her shadow spokesperson. Does anyone even know Peter Dutton is the Liberal spokesman on Health? In contrast, Scott Morrison is well on his way to ruining Chris Bowen's career.

At a time when the Government struggles to maintain a coherent line on issues like live cattle exports or whether children will be sent to Malaysia, the rest of the government could do a lot worse than take heed of Nicola Roxon. The Member for Gellibrand can comfortably lay claim to being Labor's most effective front-bencher.

Public services in the news 14/6/11

Gillard's guiding light gets a gong> Former head of the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, Lisa Paul, has overseen some of the Government's highest-profile programs including the $16.2billion Building the Education Revolution scheme…

The Rudd and Gillard governments clearly applied the brakes to the bureaucracy's expansion > This week, the Australian Public Service Commission issued its first snAPShots paper. It showed the Australian Public Service shrank during the second half of 2010…

Unison chief's warning on shared services plan > Scottish schemes to modernise the public sector such as sharing back office functions across a number of bodies will not deliver a "pot of gold", unions have warned…

 

Ben Eltham | Models For A Model Carbon Policy

 

Wayne Swan loves a spreadsheet – and so do many stakeholders in the carbon debate. The thing is, all this talk about modelling the tax misses the bigger picture.

 

First published by New Matilda here.

We've heard an awful lot about models recently. We're talking economic models here — which are essentially complicated spreadsheets. These are the models that economic forecasters use to predict the future shape of the economy, and the potential impact of various policy changes, such as a carbon tax.

Wayne Swan spent much of the week trumpeting unreleased Treasury modelling figures that proved the economic benefits of imposing a carbon tax. At a National Press Club address, Swan told the assembled media that "by 2020, national employment is projected to increase by 1.6 million jobs, while at the same time growth in domestically-produced pollution slows".

On Wednesday on Lateline, Swan argued that the modelling showed that "you can have strong growth, strong income growth, and strong jobs growth and still reduce carbon pollution substantially".

The modelling turned out to be a bit more controversial than Swan intended. The Greens' Christine Milne wanted to know why the Treasurer was announcing confidential modelling to the Press Club when she hadn't even seen it on the Multi-Party Climate Change Committee. Milne called it an "act of bad faith" and sniped that Swan was "stepping outside the agreed process."

Close watchers of the carbon tax debate will recall that the Government has set up a committee with key cross-benchers to work through the details of the carbon tax, and that some of the crucial inputs to the committee process are a series of special reports from the Treasury and the Productivity Commission on the international picture of carbon abatement policy.

Yesterday, the Productivity Commission's report was handed down. Although complaining that they didn't have enough time to do a thorough analysis, the Productivity Commission nonetheless examined (pdf) "more than 1000 carbon policy measures" in 10 of Australia's key trading partners, including the US, UK, South Korea, Germany, Japan, India and China.

The Commission's finding that a carbon price through an emissions trading scheme was the cheapest way to reduce carbon pollution echoed the findings of nearly every significant policy investigation into the issue undertaken in this country, including the Shergold Report prepared for John Howard, as well as the work of Ross Garnaut.

As the Productivity Commission states on page 30 of the report:

"Overall, key insights to emerge are that the European Union ETS has driven relatively low-cost abatement, where it has induced switching from coal to gas-fired electricity generation. Policies supporting renewable energy sources are more expensive, reflecting the higher costs of large-scale renewables production and particularly small-scale solar technology, which was found to be very expensive in all countries examined."

That's broadly in line with the experience in Australia, where informed observers have long agreed that the really big impacts on carbon abatement will come from phasing out coal-fired electricity generation, which accounts for a whopping three-quarters of Australia's electricity. In contrast, as the New South Wales government has recently discovered, small-scale solar rooftop subsidies have consistently been found to be very expensive ways to reduce carbon emissions, even if they make householders feel good.

The Productivity Commission report is another piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is slowly being assembled by the Government and the minor parties as they negotiate a carbon policy.

Throughout the debate, modelling has been a key weapon for both sides, with industry using a series of dubious reports to issue doomladen forecasts of tens of thousands of job losses, while green groups and the government have used their own modelling to proclaim a sunny future for jobs growth driven by huge investment in renewable energy industries.

Who you believe depends upon which side of the debate you fall into, and what you think about the models themselves. Showing his usual talent for irresponsible audacity, Abbott is today using the Productivity Commission's report to claim that "the carbon tax ultimately spells death for the coal industry". By contrast, Tony Windsor is arguing that the report shows that "the most cost-effective way of dealing with the issue is through some sort of pricing mechanism, to price carbon".

Indeed, the very validity of the models being employed was raised by economist and Reserve Bank board member Warwick McKibbin this week, when he pointed out that the Treasury models didn't take unemployment into account.

What? The Treasury doesn't even model unemployment when looking at a carbon price? According to McKibbin, no. "I guess my surprise is when the Treasurer's talking about employment impacts, I hope that they're using a model in-house which doesn't assume full employment," McKibbin told the ABC's Ticky Fullerton. "Most of the climate models do assume full employment so there can never be an impact on jobs of a change in carbon taxes."

Although we can't know for sure, because the Treasury methodology has not been released, McKibbin is probably right. Most so-called "computable general equilibrium" models actually don't take unemployment into account — as this excellent paper on the history of equilibrium models by the New School's Benjamin Mitra-Kahn explains (pdf). That's because they're based on quite unrealistic assumptions about the state and nature of a modern economy, assumptions which are generally adjusted to make sure the numbers add up correctly rather than because they bear any resemblance to the complex nature of contemporary economic reality.

And if anything highlights the complexity of the carbon debate, McKibbin's intervention is it. We can't really take McKibbin's word as gospel here, because he's pushing his own barrow. A well-known modeller himself, McKibbin has been using his high profile and, dare we say it, his public position as a Reserve Bank director, to spruik his own business interests — as a provider of economic modelling.

"I am getting a lot of interest in my views on how the world works and my computer models which are being used around the world, are getting a great deal of attention because they are producing insights which seem to be coming true," he told Fullerton later in the Lateline Business interview, making sure to get in a plug on taxpayer-funded airtime.

In fact, the insights of economic models have a decidedly dubious track record. As no less an authority than John Maynard Keynes observed in the 1940s, the uncomfortable truth is that economies are highly unpredictable. We don't know what the Australian economy will look like in 20 years, let alone in 2050. Economic forecasters — including the Treasury — regularly get their predictions wildly wrong, as sceptical economist Paul Ormerod pointed out over a decade ago in his book The Death of Economics. For instance, throughout the boom years of the mid-2000s, Treasury regularly under-estimated how much tax revenue the Australian government would accrue. It then failed to predict the global financial crisis (along with most of the western world).

What we do know is the world will be much warmer. Climate models, which are based on rigorous physical observations backed up by the fundamental laws of physics, have turned out to be far more powerful predictive tools than their economic counter-parts. As a result, we are debating minor issues about the effect of a small tax on carbon while missing the bigger picture of what now looks likely to be a world that's four degrees warmer.

James Arvanitakis | It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel Green

The world as we know it will end on July 1, this year. That is the day the Greens take power in the Senate. James Arvanitakis explains

Read the  full article in The Punch here.

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Ideas on the Public Service | Where to go?

Here's a list of places we go to, and you can too, to find out more about the public service and the public services they provide for you.  From X to Y, we've compiled some useful links you can visit.

Public Services International Research Unit > PSIRU researches the privatisation and restructuring of public services around the world, with special focus on water, energy, waste management, and healthcare. Check out their international news updates..

HC Coombs Policy Forum > As a policy "think-tank", the HC Coombs Policy Forum employs a range of mechanisms to strengthen constructive relationships between the research community and government, translating a wide variety of relevant research in practical ways to contribute to the crafting of innovative policy solutions…

Institute of Public Administration Australia > IPAA is a voluntary, non-profit, member organisation enabling people with an interest in public administration and public sector reform to exchange ideas on trends, practices and innovations in public administration…

 

 

 

 

Ben Eltham | Moral Failure The Crux Of This Policy Mess

Labor's struggles to come up with a workable policy on asylum seekers show that no matter how hard politicians try, it's impossible to remove the moral dimension from politics, writes Ben Eltham

First published in New Matilda here

In a week when the carbon tax debate continues to simmer, two other issues of stark moral clarity are dominating Australian politics.

One is the issue of live cattle exports to Indonesia. The other is the Labor Government's plan to exchange refugees with Malaysia.

Both issues have to do with the trafficking of creatures across borders for profit. Both are fundamentally moral and ethical issues that continue to polarise the political debate.

It is certainly easy to understand the uproar over the live cattle trade. The sudden explosion of public concern over live cattle exports to Indonesia can be traced to Sarah Ferguson's expose of shocking conditions in Indonesian abattoirs on the ABC's Four Corners program.

The revelations — and especially the imagery — created an instant firestorm of negative publicity about the live export trade, and immediate calls for government action from many sections of the community, as well as key parliamentarians like Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie. Wilkie wants all live animal exports banned within three years, and many Labor backbenchers clearly agree.

As with any issue that arouses strong moral intuitions, the nuances of the story suggest a more complex reality. Many would point out that the inside of an abattoir is by definition confronting, and that there is a certain amount of public hypocrisy inherent in the outcry over the issue, given the healthy Australian appetite for beef.

The proposed "solution" to the issue, after all, is to kill and slaughter cattle in Australian abattoirs rather than Indonesian ones, a distinction which reveals the difficult ethical conundrums in play. Even the use of the word "humane" here is a loaded one. After all, the desired result will be less animal cruelty, but exactly the same amount of animal death.

That hasn't stopped the phones ringing off the hooks in marginal seat electorate offices, as outraged citizens demand that the government immediately cease live cattle exports to Indonesia.

The other issue in which moral sentiments continue to dominate is of course the issue of seaborne asylum seekers — specifically the Gillard Government's plan to exchange asylum seekers arriving in Australian waters by boat with UN-assessed "genuine" refugees from Malaysia.

Boat arrivals to Australia are actually falling, and have been for some months now. But few issues have as little to do with the empirical reality as asylum seeker arrivals, an issue for which the Government seemingly has no compelling response.

That's not for want of trying. It has only been three years since Labor took office, but in that time we have already seen at least three different attempts to "solve" the asylum seeker issue. The first 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.

The second approach, mounted by Julia Gillard after becoming PM, was to admit there was a problem and to announce a third nation "solution". East Timor was quickly announced as the proposed location of a regional processing centre. Unfortunately, no-one bothered to properly consult with the East Timorese. The Gillard Government was eventually forced to admit that this policy was not tenable.

The current plan, to exchange 800 seaborne asylum seekers with 4000 UN-vetted Malaysian refugees, is effectively Plan C. As is all too common with this government, the policy appears to have been cooked up quickly and announced before all the details had been worked out. As a result, the announcement was made before the Malaysian government had formally signed on, and before all the difficult implications of what the swap would mean had been teased out.

These include the obvious problems relating to Malaysia's less-than-stellar human rights record. Malaysia is far from a liberal western democracy, and refugees living in Malaysia enjoy few rights and suffer significant privations — even caning. There is also real concern, including from the United Nations, about whether the swap will involve the transfer of unaccompanied children to Malaysian detention camps — a possibility the government at first admitted and then denied. Unsurprisingly, the government has been struggling to convince anxious backbenchers and wary voters about the merits of the policy.

As usual, Labor is in another mess of its own making on asylum seeker policy. It's a measure of just how poorly this government manages issues like this that Tony Abbott and even some refugee advocates started to argue this week that re-opening the old detention centre on Nauru would be more humane (that word again). Christian Kerr was spot on last night, speaking with the ABC's Mark Colvin when he argued that Labor had effectively "wedged itself" on the issue.

Since Ferguson's Four Corners episode, more than a few observers have pointed to the irony of the public outrage over inhumane treatment of cattle, at the very time that the Government is also planning to traffic thousands of refugees and asylum seekers between various prisons in what is becoming a regional gulag archipelago.

Matters are not being helped by the absurd media secrecy being implemented by the Department of Immigration. As Leigh Sales reported on 7.30 last night, media restrictions on reporting inside detention centres are now more draconian than those she faced when reporting from the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay. As Sales put it, "apparently Australian detention centres are less open and transparent than the most notorious prison on the planet".

Labor's struggles over refugee policy are entirely the result of its own moral failings. One response to the problem of seaborne asylum seekers would be to end mandatory detention and to implement onshore processing rapidly, fairly and efficiently. Instead, Labor has tried a series of policies which it has hoped will allow it to appear tough on border protection while somehow still meeting Australia's obligations under international law. None have worked, because none have addressed the fundamental causes of Labor's political problem: the mismatch between the evidence of small and manageable asylum seeker arrivals, and hostile public opinion egged on by irresponsible media outlets and opportunistic conservative politicians.

There is a broader conclusion to be drawn. The continuing political controversy over refugee policy and live cattle exports shows that politics can never be conducted simply as an exercise in utilitarian efficiency, management or political fixes. Even if policy-makers believe they have crafted a solution which can keep the tabloid press quiet, back-benchers happy and voters satisfied, issues which appear to ordinary people to be simply morally wrong can never be easily swept under the carpet.

Public Service in the news 7/6/11: 'Bean counting and budgets'

A snapshot of how and where public services are making the news. Who's saying what? Good and bad news, refreshed weekly.

More front line public servants needed > "If I become Premier we'll sit down with senior management, and of course the unions, and we'll work out how we'll structure the public service to properly meet the needs of Queenslanders," Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman said…

Public Service Day June 23 > The United Nations' Public Service Day is held on June 23 each year. It recognizes that democracy and successful governance are built on the foundation of a competent civil service. The day aims to celebrate the value and virtue of service to the community…

The people versus the cuts (UK) > After protests and petitions, campaigners turn to judges to halt spending decisions. Matt Chorley reports on how the taxpayer still picks up the tab…

The future course of modern government (IPAA policy paper) > Modern government faces risks and opportunities of unprecedented scale and complexity, the solutions to which are very different from those tried in the past..

Budget breakdown: bean counting compromises public service > James Whelan and Jennifer Doggett argue that the increase in the Efficiency Dividend announced in the budget will place further pressure on the public sector and result in more agencies reducing their services to the general public…

$1bn budget boost for public sector projects > The federal budget was a boon for the technology sector, with more than $1 billion allocated to public-sector projects that will underpin reforms in service delivery…

News not good as ABC faces budget crisis > The ABC's news division is facing a budget crisis after a plan to cut international reporting costs failed and a string of international disasters led to a blowout in costs…

Public sector should innovate instead of outsourcing > Putting public services out to tender 'avoids the issue' of how to increase productivity, a Work Foundation report published today warns…

Suggested links are very welcome > email James.Whelan(at)cpd.org.au

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Public Service in the news: 'Bean counting and budgets'

A snapshot of how and where public services are making the news. Who's saying what? Good and bad news, refreshed weekly.

More front line public servants needed > "If I become Premier we'll sit down with senior management, and of course the unions, and we'll work out how we'll structure the public service to properly meet the needs of Queenslanders," Liberal National Party leader Campbell Newman said…

Public Service Day June 23 > The United Nations' Public Service Day is held on June 23 each year. It recognizes that democracy and successful governance are built on the foundation of a competent civil service. The day aims to celebrate the value and virtue of service to the community…

The people versus the cuts (UK) > After protests and petitions, campaigners turn to judges to halt spending decisions. Matt Chorley reports on how the taxpayer still picks up the tab…

The future course of modern government (IPAA policy paper) > Modern government faces risks and opportunities of unprecedented scale and complexity, the solutions to which are very different from those tried in the past..

Budget breakdown: bean counting compromises public service > James Whelan and Jennifer Doggett argue that the increase in the Efficiency Dividend announced in the budget will place further pressure on the public sector and result in more agencies reducing their services to the general public…

$1bn budget boost for public sector projects > The federal budget was a boon for the technology sector, with more than $1 billion allocated to public-sector projects that will underpin reforms in service delivery…

News not good as ABC faces budget crisis > The ABC's news division is facing a budget crisis after a plan to cut international reporting costs failed and a string of international disasters led to a blowout in costs…

Public sector should innovate instead of outsourcing > Putting public services out to tender 'avoids the issue' of how to increase productivity, a Work Foundation report published today warns…

Suggested links are very welcome > email James.Whelan(at)cpd.org.au