Victorian Law Reform

Attorney-General Rob Hulls has directed the Law Reform Commission to find out why criminal cases linger in our courts for so long (The Age, 29/3/06). It's going to take them two years to report back! I hope Hullsy's sense of humour extends to the deliciously ironic.

Smartcards - Just For The Poor

There is no inconsistency between the Liberals' policies for the mid-80's Australia Card and the present smartcard (The Age, 30/3/05). The original Australia Card concept would have caught all transactions, including those relating to income and tax, whereas this is all about catching welfare fraud. The Libs understand that their core constituency can only go so far with generous capital gains tax concessions and negative gearing. After that, they need, well, more room to maneuver, and tracking income and tax transactions would stifle financial creativity.

Think I'm being too cynical? Watch as Howard's centerpiece "middle-class welfare" (non-means-tested funding for high-income earners through, for example, the Family Tax Benefit scheme and private health insurance rebates) is exempted from the smartcard proposal. They'll come up with some excuse: it's either too difficult or an invasion of privacy or just plain unnecessary.

The Liberals believe in civil liberties for the tax affairs of the wealthy - and a "tag and release" program for people on the dole.

Bananas - A Bell-Weather for Freedom

Bananas are a fantastic food - healthy, portable and delicious. They should be enriching the nation's breakfast cereals, custards and smoothies. Instead, we're told that 20 million Australians have to go without for a year as a sop to a few hundred Queensland farmers in marginal seats (Sunday Age, 26/3). What kind of a free-market party dictates to us our basic fruit purchases?

Perhaps the kind that outlaws grown-ups from including a raft of provisions in their commercial agreements. Or the kind that is desperately trying to kick out the only effective liberal in Parliament in favour of an apparatchik. Maybe the kind that cops criticism from right-wing think-tanks for setting up a Stalinist-style command-and-control economy.

It's telling that when the Berlin Wall came down the most popular purchase for the East Berliners, newly-freed from Stalinist control, was the humble banana.

Sugar Farmers Are Happy as Larry

They say every cloud has a silver lining. One ongoing headache for the Howard Government is finding new and politically-palatable ways of shunting huge chunks of cash over to Queensland's sugar farmers. Remember the half a billion they got after the US Free Trade Agreement? Remember Howard's sneaky ethanol plan? Remember that for more than ten years governments of all stripes have been telling (and paying!) sugar farmers to sell up, modernise or change crops?

Now Howard and his agrarian-socialist coalition partner have found the perfect vehicle in Tropical Cyclone Larry "compensation". The farmers could have bought crop insurance, but were not prepared to pay the fair market price (Business, 22/3/06). Why would they when Howard's on the radio stating that it's an uninsurable risk?

Effectively picking up the insurance tab for Queensland's sugar farmers is just the latest method by which the Coalition shores up their support with taxpayer largesse.

Bullbars in School Safety Zones

The new road-safety campaign highlights graphically the difference that just 5 km/h can make. What about the gruesome impact of strapping a hundred kilos of steel on the front of vehicles, in the form of unnecessary and selfish bullbars? They turn injuries into fatalities more effectively than 5 km/h. From an economic and engineering point of view, there is no justification for bullbars on urban roads. However, politically, it seems untouchable.

A palatable compromise is to exclude bullbars from School Safety Zones. Not only are motorists used to observing special restrictions on these well-signed areas, but the good sense involved is obvious: little kids, distracted parents and cyclists abound. Surely a bullbar-free pick-up and drop-off for the kids is not too much to ask from those intrepid annual bush-bashers.

Jury Fails to Uphold Family Violence Principles

In light of a recent jury decision to acquit Claire MacDonald of murdering her husband, the community needs to pause, reflect and affirm the basic principles of justice. The Victorian Law Reform Commission, in its Review of Family Violence Laws (1/3/2006), suggests values such as "ensuring the safety of all people", "preventing family violence" and "promoting non-violence".

It is hard to reconcile these values with the jury's decision in the case of a person setting up, stalking and shooting their spouse from a "sniper's nest". This killing is clearly family violence of the worst degree. Regardless of how awful, abusive, even criminal a person's behaviour was, they have the right to access the courts and not be summarily executed. Suggestions by some that he deserved it or had it coming have the moral force of the view that a woman in a short skirt deserves rape.

I hope this verdict does not encourage others to solve their problems by killing. No one deserves to be gunned down while fixing a car in a paddock, or bashed to death in their sleep for that matter. We must make clear that our community will not tolerate family violence - especially lethal vigilantism.

Tax Reform: Loopholes THEN Cuts

There's one common thread in all this zeal for tax reform. Whether it's Malcolm Turnbull on the Right, or Bill Shorten on the other Right, reformers argue for paying for tax cuts by closing the loopholes, lurks and dodges available to the super-rich. I'm worried that politicians may - even inadvertently - over-estimate their effectiveness in increasing compliance and reducing avoidance. There's a real risk we'll just end up with more tax cuts for the rich. Let's close these loopholes first, ascertain how much has been saved and then make the cuts that we can afford.

Abbott's Return To Form

I slept terribly on Monday night, confused by feelings of respect for Tony Abbott after hearing him on Lateline talk up multiculturalism. Thankfully his appalling gaffe in Parliament about the ALP's ethnic groups meant I slept soundly on Tuesday night.