Centre for Policy Development's Blog, page 98

James Whelan | Debating the PS Burden: A View From Both Sides

Public sector budgeting issues have come into focus as the government stands by its purely political commitment to run a surplus next year in the face of strong economic arguments that suggest a continued deficit. So is the Public Serivce bloated, inefficient and unnecessary or stretched, effective and in high demand? The ongoing debate between IPA contributor Julie Novak and CPD Public Service Research Director Dr. James Whelan and  has been picked up as a feature in Public Service News.

Read more about the views from both sides here 

A big year for CPD – Add your voice to ours!

It has been a big year for progressive politics and a big year for CPD. Take a look below at what we have been up to in recent months – providing an alternative blueprint for refugee policy, ideas for protecting our ocean wealth and evidence of the need to base public service reform on reality not rhetoric.

Change can happen faster than you think – help us seize the moment and point to the alternatives.

 

 

 

 

 

REFUGEE POLICY | A pathway beyond today's toxic politics

Asylum seekers continue to suffer unnecessarily because their lives are the subject of political point-scoring by both major parties. Recent improvements in domestic policy were reached via the worst possible route.

Stepping back from the heated political debate, the authors of our recent report, A New Approach: Breaking the Stalemate on Refugees & Asylum Seekers, provide a comprehensive critique of our current policies and map out a politically viable pathway to fairer and more practical alternatives.

Our report was endorsed by 34 prominent Australians, including Heather Ridout from the Australian Industry Group, Ged Kearney from the ACTU and National Australia Bank chair Michael Chaney. We gained much media attention, and the chapter on detention policy became the focus of a GetUp! campaign.

Help us Occupy public debates about refugees and asylum seekers with good ideas not more fear and misinformation – Become an Ideas Sustainer.

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SUSTAINABLE ECONOMY | Our ocean wealth at risk

In a world of increased competition for resources and rising environmental threats, it makes sense for Australia to protect the oceans we love and the marine resources that sustain jobs in tourism and fishing. Yet policies being developed for Australia's Commonwealth marine areas are in danger of ignoring much of the economic value they provide.

Our groundbreaking report, Stocking Up: Securing Our Marine Economy found that Australia needs to act now to secure $25 billion a year in essential ecosystem services, along with 9,000 direct jobs in commercial fishing and a marine tourism industry worth $11 billion per year.

We got the attention of the politicians and decision makers with these numbers. Stocking Up was launched with support from Labor, Liberal and Greens politicians at Parliament House. We received a lot of media coverage and our ideas were taken up by environment groups campaigning to save our marine life.

Stocking Up showed how we can manage the long-term risks that climate change, pollution and rising fuel prices pose to our marine economy. With decisions being made now on the size and placement of Commonwealth marine parks, the next challenge is to make sure long-term value is not trumped by short-term thinking.

Help us Occupy public debates and keep the spotlight on the economic case for preserving our environmental wealth – Become an Ideas Sustainer.

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PUBLIC SERVICE | Moving past the public service bashing

Given the complex problems Australia faces we need a capable public service more than ever. Yet public debate on the public service is locked into an evidence-free slanging match between the politicians about who has the biggest axe and who will return the budget to surplus the fastest.

Our State of the Australian Public Service: An Alternative Report provides a critical and independent analysis of public service staffing, funding and community attitudes. We expose the myth of a bloated public service and show how to track citizens' real views on how public sector agencies are performing over time. Our report kick-started a public discussion on the future of our public service – in the media, in Parliament, and through roundtables (conversations) held in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey's vision includes sacking 12,000 public servants and wiping out entire departments. A more informed debate is crucial if the public sector is to maintain and improve its capacity to meet the public's needs.

Help us Occupy public debates and counter evidence-free attempts to downsize and privatise our public sector – Become an Ideas Sustainer.

All donations to CPD are tax deductible. If you'd prefer to donate offline download, print & post our donation form here or give us a call on 02 9043 6815 – we'd love to hear from you.

James Whelan responds to Julie Novak | Evidence please, not more bashing of our public sector

This Monday. Julie Novak from the IPA once again targeted public service cuts as a necessary step toward a surplus budget. In her most recent article published on Online Opinion, she took aim at our report on the public service. Among her targets are the "policy advisory, administrative and regulatory roles" of the public service that are an "unnecessary burden" to the Australian economy.

James Whelan, CPD's Public Service Research Director, today responded to Novak in Online Opinion. James debunks some of the myths about the public service being 'fat' or bloated and summarises research that indicates Australians' support for government exercising an active role in society. James responded that:

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) is no friend of public servants or of the idea of public service. They champion privatisation and outsourcing, believing instinctively that the private sector cannot help but maximise efficiency. By their definition, the public sector is an inefficient and ineffective way to meet community needs.

IPA research fellow, Julie Novak, launched her latest broadside on the public service in Online Opinion this week. Her 'cutting the slack' invective echoed another missive earlier this year where she yearned nostalgically for the 'meat axe' to wield 'savage spending cuts' and appropriately decimate the 'new endangered species' of 'pen pushing bureaucrats' (public servants).

Before the Centre for Policy Development (CPD) launched our Public Service research program this year, the IPA enjoyed considerable political space where their anti-government and anti-public service rhetoric was unchallenged. When Novak described an upward trend in the number of Commonwealth public servants, no-one responded that this upward curve came after years of retrenchments that saw almost one-third of the Australian Public Service gutted. In this week's baseless vent she again describes the public service as 'fat', contrary to the reality that there are no more public servants now than in 1990 despite 20 years of steady population growth.

In September, CPD released 'The State of the Service: An Alternative Report'. Our analysis of public service staffing and funding trends, public sector reforms and community attitudes toward public servants and services was based on extensive research including twenty years of attitudinal studies, scrutiny of five years' parliamentary and media discourse and included 174 citations. In contrast to the IPA's casual 'poison pen' approach, we found that Australians have high expectations of public services, consider public servants 'highly committed' and a growing proportion of Australians would cheerfully pay higher taxes to increase the funds available for public services (by OECD standards, we under-invest in the public sector).

Our research highlighted the gap between the IPA's anti-government politics and the attitudes of ordinary Australians. Novak argues that a speedy return to budget surplus will require increased pressure on agencies through the efficiency dividend and the elimination of some programs. In reality, popular programs have already been cut, and almost 70% of Australians support delaying the return to surplus.

Novak asserts that CPD's report 'bemoans' Australia's successful privatisation record'. The IPA's ideological passion for privatisation is shared by few Australians. Who benefits from privatisation? An EMC survey conducted just this month found that only 6% of Australians believe that the general public has benefited most: 59% believe that private companies have benefited most. Significantly, Coalition voters share this belief.

Privatisation and outsourcing have been key elements of public sector reforms by both Coalition and Labor governments, contrary to community wishes. Most Australians support government exercising an active role in society and the economy, strongly prefer public (rather than private) sector agencies to deliver services such as transport, policing, health and education and have much more confidence in public service agencies than major companies.

And no wonder. Just last week, New Matilda learnt through Freedom of Information that Serco, the international service company Serco engaged to operate Australia's immigration detention centres, hires untrained guards, check's detainees' welfare only four times each day and has no obligation for an independent audit.

We welcome this discussion. Decisions about the staffing, funding and role of the public service are decisions about what kind of society we want to live in. Equally, though, we hope for a rigorous discussion rather than oppositional ranting. We drew attention to the lack of justification in Joe Hockey's pledge to retrench 12,000 public servants 'for starters', and will continue to advocate a considered and evidence-based approach to public policy.

You can also find James Whelan's article in Online Opinion here.

 

 

 

 

The Australian | Time to tap into think-tank wisdom

Last saturday CPD was involved in the Battle of the Think Tanks, an event that showcased CPD's political ideas    (Link)

Leonie Phillips Principal of Thought Broker writes in The Australian what she feels each of the Think Tanks involved have as their own unique vision and opinion. She adds that think tanks play an important role in our society in shaping and debating the long term vision of Australia's public policy.

"Think tanks of the left, such as the Centre for Policy Development (CPD), are more concerned with the environment and propose policies to convert Australia's economy to a climate neutral one, based on environmental sustainability. Their "progressive" world view takes in the role of unpaid care in civil society, human rights, and mounting a defence of growth in the public service – everyone else's punching bag".

Read the full the article in The Australian here.

Green Left Weekly | Bipartisan Bill Attacks Refugees

A prospective amendment to the Migration Act that is about to be heard by the Senate, makes it an offence to be a 'people smuggler' and may harm the cases of up to 350 Indonesian nationals who are held in Australian courts under these charges. The People Smuggling Deterrence Bill 2011 which has already passed the lower house on November 1,  will amend the migration act to make it an offence to bring a person to Australia with "no valid visa".  CPD board director John Menadue was among a group of 11 respondents who gave submissions against the bill to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

Read the original article here

The government has undermined the right to a fair trial of up to 350 mostly Indonesian people now facing charges of "people smuggling" in Australian courts. It has done so by introducing hastily drafted, retrospective amendments to the Migration Act.

The People Smuggling Deterrence Bill 2011 was passed in the lower house November 1, supported by Labor and the Coalition. If carried by the Senate, it will amend the migration act to make it an offence to bring a person to Australia with "no valid visa".

Greens MP Adam Bandt and independent MP Rob Oakeshott spoke against the bill.

Bandt said it was intended to invalidate the defence case of 20-year-old Indonesian man Jeky Payara who crewed a boat carrying 49 refugees to Christmas Island.

Payara, who faces a minimum five years' jail, was to argue before the Victorian court that he had not committed a crime if the refugees he transported to Australia had the right to seek asylum under international law.

Bandt told parliament on November 1: "Because this case is coming up we now have an instance where this bill is being rammed through without any proper scrutiny."

Pamela Curr, coordinator of the Melbourne-based Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, told Green Left Weekly the ASRC was concerned about the effect of the bill on the cases of more than 300 people locked up on "people smuggling" charges in Australia.

She said the new changes would "in no way stop the people who actually have the resources to buy the boats, to charge people $10,000 for a space, and who are sending the boats to Australia.

"It's designed for the least educated members of the Australian public to make them believe there is some horrible threat.

"But all they'll do is catch the small fish — Indonesian fishermen who are unable to make a living will take a boat with people across the sea."

She said Australia's law targets "teenage Indonesian kids who do not know Australian laws … The first they hear about 'people smuggling' laws is when they [are] incarcerated. It's completely iniquitous."

Australia's Human Rights Alliance says about 100 teenagers are jailed in adult prisons and some are as young as 13. Many teenagers accused of "people smuggling" are in "incommunicado detention".

Early this year, Curr learned nine Indonesian teenagers had been locked up for 11 months at Berrimah House, part of the Northern Immigration Detention Centre in Darwin. She rang the Indonesian consulate, which could not talk to them and "did not know what to do".

The Senate referred the bill to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for inquiry on November 3, which was open for submissions for only six days.

The inquiry received 13 submissions, 11 opposing the changes, including from Centre for Policy Development board director John Menadue AO, the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, the Human Rights Law Centre, the Rule of Law Institute of Australia, the Law Council of Australia, the Queensland Law Society and Liberty Victoria.

The Law Council of Australia said there were "serious concerns" the government was "undermining the court process", and this was a "disturbing trend".

"The right to a fair trial is undermined if laws are changed during the course of proceedings … the government should not simply resort to retrospectively amending legislation whenever a different interpretation of the legislation is raised".

The Rule of Law Institute of Australia said "a person should not suffer for conduct that at the time it was engaged in was not unlawful".

International law professor Ben Saul said the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air criminalises the "smuggling of migrants", but contains explicit exception in cases of refugees and asylum seekers.

"The effect of criminalising those who smuggle refugees," he said, "is to prevent refugees themselves from reaching safety."

Curr said the bill was a distraction.

"If Australia does want to stop the loss of life, which is the new argument, they should be offering a lawful formal mechanism for people to be resettled from Indonesia to Australia," she said.

"At the moment there are 900 [asylum seekers] in the 13 detention centres [in Indonesia], and 88 of those people are UNHCR designated refugees." The UNHCR estimates between 2000 and 3000 refugees are in Indonesia waiting for resettlement.

"People locked up [in Indonesia] said to me they would wait three years, even four, if they were sure if a country, not necessarily Australia, would take them in.

"But, they said, 'we will not wait if we don't know, because we can't work, our children cannot go to school and we cannot live while we do not know'."

The decision of the Senate inquiry is due on November 21. The Payara case was adjourned until November 30.

Ben Eltham | This Week the News Went Global

Obama's visit and the APEC forum have put international relations in the spotlight this week. It's about time, even if the fanfare around a presidential visit drowned out the big issues, writes Ben Eltham

First published in New Matilda here

It's not very often that foreign policy breaks through the carapace of insularity in Australian media. For most of the year, the journalists who cover Australian politics stay focused on the intrigues of parliamentary politics.

But every so often, something obviously important happens in the world — important enough to jolt news editors away from their default preoccupations with leadership intrigue and opinion polls. It could be a gathering of international leaders, a visit from a foreign power, or an opportunity to hop on a plane to somewhere that isn't Canberra.

This week's political agenda involves all three: the APEC leaders forum, just concluded in Honolulu, followed by the visit of US President Barack Obama to Australia. No wonder the media corps is salivating. As The Australian's Peter Brent noted today, "few things excite Australian journalists more than a photo op between the Prez and our Prime Minister."

And, sure enough, the APEC meeting and the Obama visit have generated media discussion of foreign policy and international relations — essentially for the first time this year. The small band of professional foreign policy analysts who get a look in when it comes to foreign policy commentary in the Australian media have been appearing on our television screens: Hugh White, Geoffrey Garrett, Michael Fullilove.

There has even been some debate of the actual issues: the "trans-Pacific partnership", the announcement of an ongoing US Marine Corps presence in Darwin, and the future of Australia's relationships with the United States and China generally.

Mind you, it's not as though the media did a very good job of it. As the University of Sydney's Richard Stanton points out, the trans-Pacific partnership has been in negotiation since 2005 and won't be finalised until late in 2012, if then. Many in the media seem to think it is a new announcement. Stanton calls the media's coverage of the trans-Pacific partnership "fabricated, lightweight and embarrassingly inaccurate".

But that's par for the course when a US president comes to town.

Nothing is going to stop the media writing stories about the "special relationship" and "enduring friendship" enjoyed by Australia and America. It certainly helps that Barack Obama looks like he gets on well with Julia Gillard, at least on camera. But the truth is that the Australian political system — and its associated elites in the foreign policy and defence establishments, as well as in the media — is so invested in the US relationship that even a diffident and uncomfortable US visit would still be written up as a prodigal reunion of unprecedented amity and joy.

Consequently, the political optics are finally skewing the Government's way. For a beleaguered Labor Prime Minister, the Obama visit is a gift from the gods. Gillard has long struggled to convince voters of her legitimacy in the office of PM, so television coverage of her convening with world leaders is doubly valuable. Those shots of the US President smiling and joking with the Prime Minister must be worth a couple of percentage points in the preferred prime minister polls all on their own.

It's not just that she gets to look prime ministerial. The added bonus of the Obama visit is that it removes attention from domestic political issues, including from Tony Abbott and the Opposition. Labor has been presented with more than a week of that most precious of political commodities: "clean air".

What about the substance of recent events? The details have been much more prosaic. The proposed trans-Pacific trade pact may eventually boost trade between the various signatories, but there is a long way to go before the details are negotiated. Australia already has relatively low tariffs, so consumers here will barely notice any improvements in the flow of foreign imports. Meanwhile, our exporters will benefit far more from a cheaper Australian dollar than from any far-off and piecemeal trade liberalisation.

The APEC announcement regarding greenhouse gas emissions is another well-meaning but ultimately insubstantial announcement. APEC's communique states that the leaders have signed up to a non-binding commitment to reduce the energy intensity of their economies by 45 per cent on 2005 levels out to 2035.

Energy intensity is an important issue — Australia, after all, has one of the dirtiest economies in the rich world — but it's a poor substitute for what is really required: binding commitments to reduce overall levels of greenhouse gas emissions. The world continues to sleepwalk towards climate catastrophe, even as many speculate whether the capital of Thailand may have to be moved in future decades as rising sea levels slowly submerge most of Bangkok.

The APEC statement also included an agreement to "rationalise and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption". Australia's fossil fuel lobby will be quite surprised to hear about this one, given that the federal budget still contains many examples of such subsidies, such as the diesel fuel rebate. It will be interesting to see whether the Government moves to cut such subsidies in the next budget, given that it needs to find several billion dollars to deliver its precious 2012-13 surplus.

The big picture issue is of course the future of Australia' strategic relationships with the US and China. Simply put, Australia needs to stay friends with both nations, and keep them engaged with each other at all costs. The alternative — a cold war between the two superpowers that represent Australia's largest trading partner and closest military ally — is such an unimaginably awful outcome for this country that it bears little contemplation.

And yet, the content of Australia's key strategic policy document for this century, our Defence White Paper, takes increasing military competition with China as the starting point for its considerations. Ultimately, as I have long argued, the real threat to Australia's national security from China comes from the fossil fuels it is emitting, not the navy it is building. Solving that problem requires engagement, rather than confrontation.

In that respect, serious action from the United States on climate would provide far more value to Australia's future national security than any number of marines in the Northern Territory.

C hange can happen faster than you think – help us seize the moment and point to the alternatives. Add your voice to ours!

 

Miriam Lyons | ABC's The Drum

CPD's Miriam Lyons joins the panel on ABC's The Drum. In this episode, Tim Palmer speaks to the author of The Most Dangerous Man in the World, Andrew Fowler, Miriam Lyons from the Centre for Policy Development, James Paterson from the Institute of Public Affairs and ABC News Radio presenter John Barron.

WATCH Miriam Lyons take on the issues of the day as she joins the panel on the ABC's The Drum here.

Miriam Lyons | ABC Local Radio Hobart on Battle of the Think Tanks

Miriam Lyons, Executive Director of the CPD, recently spoke to Leon Compton on ABC Local Radio, Tasmania, about this weekend's political debate the Battle of the Think Tanks. Miriam will be representing CPD in this event which has been described as an intellectual debate over what ideology and vision for the future should Australia undertake.

To hear Miriam's interview on Statewide Mornings with Leon Compton follow the podcast subscription links from the ABC Hobart website here

James Whelan | Attitudes toward our Public Services

James Whelan, Public Service Research Program Director, recently wrote an article for Government News discussing the newly published CPD paper entitled State of the Public Service Report. Within this article for Government News James discusses the big questions debated around the Australian Public Service including: Are there enough or too many public servants in Australia? Are public service agencies and the services they provide meeting the Australian public expectations? And do Australians feel they are adequately investing in public services?

Read the full article in Government News by James here

Laura Eadie | Why smarter fishing could be worth billions

CPD researcher Laura Eadie talks to Domenica Settle from Earth Matters on 3CR Community Radio on her findings from the Stocking Up report on our marine economy. In this podcast Laura discusses why smarter fishing practises could be worth nearly a billion dollars to the Australian economy.

To find Laura's interview on 3CR, click here for the podcast.