Global Journalist: Fair trade and subsidizing rich farmers

On this September 11, 2003 Global Journalist program interviewees discussed how subsidizing farmers in rich countries is affecting the developing world. Are small holder farmers benefiting from the subsidy? What would be the solution to a fair trade for small holder farmers all over the world? Host: Betty Winfield. Guests: Claudio Tognolli, Sonja Hillgren, Tim Colebatch, Elizabeth Becker. Producers: Sara Andrea Fajardo, Radha Ravi (?), and Un Teck Han (?). Directors: Pat Akers

Labor And The Politics Of Structural Adjustment In Australia And Indonesia

The labour forces of Australia and Indonesia are compared for the period from the late 1960s to the 1990s. The position of labour in a global economy is also considered. It is determined that the outlook for organised labour is bleak, however its position is also contingent upon national circumstance

Polls and preferences: the new challenge for election watchers

Elections in Victoria and Queensland have caught the pollsters wrong-footed. Are unexpected preference flows making Australian elections harder to predict? Between now and the federal election, due late next year, dozens of polls will be thrust on us. For the next month, a deluge of them will come from New South Wales. But we’ve got a problem: we can’t be sure they are right any more. We saw that dramatically illustrated in the Queensland election result. Apart from Morgan, the pollsters predicted the two-party-preferred vote would be LNP 52 per cent, Labor 48 per cent. The actual outcome, on Antony Green’s estimate, was very different: LNP 49, Labor 51. As Peter Brent explained in Inside Story immediately after the election, this wasn’t because the pollsters got their polling wrong: Queenslanders voted exactly as they had told the final Galaxy Poll they would. So what went wrong? The pollsters tripped themselves up by assuming that preferences would flow as they had at the last Queensland election in 2012. In fact, the preference flows this time were very different, as this summary shows… Read the full articl

Caravan or coalition?

Europe offers lessons for Australian parties uneasy at the prospect of having to talk to each other In the same week as Malcolm Turnbull called the 2016 Australian election, another conservative leader on the other side of the world did what his Australian counterpart has been saying he will never do. Thomas Strobl, chairman of the Christian Democrats in the dynamic high-tech southern state of Baden-Württemberg, agreed to join with the Greens in a coalition government. It wasn’t too much of a shock. Coalitions between the Greens and the Christian Democrats – Germany’s version of Australia’s Liberal Party – are not new in German states and cities. Indeed, there’s a successful one across the border in the state of Hesse, which includes Germany’s financial capital, Frankfurt. What made Baden-Württemberg different was that the Christian Democrats were joining as the junior partner in a government led by the Greens. Surely it will be an unstable coalition – a caravan of chaos, as Scott Morrison warns us? Probably not, for governments in Germany are almost always formed by coalitions between political rivals. It’s like that in much of Europe. It’s like that in New Zealand. And there are lessons that all parties in Australia should learn from them… Read the full articl

More reasons why the Abbott budget is so hard to sell

The budget’s shortcomings don’t end with the fairness problem THE ABBOTT government’s problems began long before the 2014–15 budget, but now the budget is at the heart of them. It has failed to win support from the voters, and failed to win support from the Senate. Why? I think there are two reasons. The first is that its measures, taken together, fail the test of fairness. That’s well known, and the opinion polls show the public’s reaction. The second is not well known, but it may have been grasped intuitively by many Australians, which is why the government’s appeals to national interest have fallen flat. In short, the sum of the government’s actions is not to reduce the budget deficit, but only to rearrange it. And now, as treasurer Joe Hockey will tell us on 16 December when he releases the heavily revised Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, or MYEFO, the plunge in mineral prices and the economy’s failure, yet again, to meet budget forecasts mean a return to surplus is now just a distant goal, and we will face big deficits all the way to the next election. But even back in May, if you looked at the budget numbers, the net impact of the Abbott government’s policy decisions would have cut the deficit by just $4 billion over its first four years in office. Add in a crucial cost the budget numbers left out, add in the extra spending approved since the budget, and the net impact of the government’s decisions has been to increase the budget deficit – not to reduce it… Read the full articl

Tax: what are the options?

The government faces a paradox, writes Tim Colebatch. It needs to stop the tax debate from running out of control but that means making unpopular decisions. Malcolm Turnbull’s honeymoon with the Australian electorate has felt like a liberation; but it can’t last forever. His government, rightly, has allowed the tax debate to roam far and wide. But that freedom has allowed different interest groups to build up hopes and expectations that can’t be reconciled. The government must soon assert control by defining its goals – and once it does, it will start bleeding support. Perhaps it has already begun doing so. Last week’s annual conference on economic and social reform hosted by the Australian and the Melbourne Institute (the economic think tank of the University of Melbourne) heard treasurer Scott Morrison insist that the government would not be using tax reform to increase revenue, a position he has since repeated. If so, then the government has already ruled out using net gains from tax reform to reduce its own deficit. That is worrying, when $1 in every$10 it spends is being funded by borrowing; and the Coalition promised us at the 2013 election that it would close that gap… Read the full articl

Australia: much better than it looks!

The good news in this week’s growth figures is hidden by the downturn in mining On the conventional measure, Australia’s economic growth in the year to June was just 2 per cent; in the June quarter, it was a very modest 0.2 per cent. At current prices, that’s the lowest year’s growth since 1961–62 – and if you can remember that, you’re probably a lot older than you want to be. When the news hit the markets, the dollar plunged below US70 cents. But are the figures really as bad as all that? Read the full articl

Before we tackle the budget, let's clarify a few points

A month before we vote on September 14, Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson and Finance secretary David Tune will release their own uncensored estimates of Australia\u27s budget position, thanks to Peter Costello\u27s Charter of Budget Honesty. I think we need to match it now with a similar innovation: the Charter of Newspaper Honesty. This would require newspapers to report budget issues accurately, impartially, and without ignoring issues of relevance. That would be a bit of innovation for some of our papers, who, like the North Korean press, feel they have a duty to guide their readers constantly by ensuring that everything is reported through the prism of eternal truths, such as The Gillard government is bad or Government spending is too high. Read the full article Photo credit: Idrose via flickr

Fair enough? Watchdog acts for small changes

Tim Colebatch of The Age, comments on the review of the Fair Work Act. . The review of the Fair Work Act had just two terms of reference. First, is the act operating as intended? And second, are there areas where it could be improved, "consistent with the objects of the legislation"? Those are modest terms of reference. And it is no surprise that the review has proposed only modest changes to our workplace rules. Yes, it found, by and large, the act is operating as intended, but some minor changes would improve it. Business, naturally, wanted big changes. WorkChoices was a blueprint that suited its needs, giving it flexibility at the cost of its workers. The Fair Work Act was meant to change that balance, and has. Business wants to change it back. AdvertisemenFor some, it is about survival. The high dollar has turned sound businesses into marginal or unprofitable ones. At some, the workers and unions understand this. At others, they don\u27t. For other employers, the laws create frustration. WorkChoices allowed them to lean on workers to accept individual agreements dictated by the company. The Fair Work Act instead pushes them towards collective bargaining. It allows unions to raise more issues — including management policies such as hiring contract labour — and gives them more freedom to push them. Read in full Image: Flickr / Chris Mar &nbsp

How about we try the first-best solution to the infrastructure crisis?

Unreported data confirms that state governments are passing up the opportunity to invest in the future. There’s never been a better time to change direction Never have our governments been able to borrow money more cheaply. If we fear that our economy might underperform, or if we think we need to accelerate productivity growth by tackling the congestion choking our big cities, it has never made more sense for us to borrow and build. So what are our state governments doing? New South Wales and Victoria, both AAA-rated and faced with mounting road and rail congestion, are giving priority to paying back debt. Previously unreported data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics reveals that in the nine months to March, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania all repaid more money to the financial markets than they borrowed. At a time when it has never made more sense for them to take on debt, they chose to reduce it… Read the full articl