The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Soft power, hard decisions > Comments

Soft power, hard decisions : Comments

By Lindsay Tanner, published 22/3/2006

The changing role of government requires a new mind-set.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All
Even though the role of western governments have tended to follow the trend from a building and regulating role, to a persuading and less direct involvement in infrastructure building, I wonder if this is the best way to progress into the future.

From the environmentally sustainable view point I see the situation like a feast that has been laid out to be consumed by people using their best means of obtaining the dishes of their choice. Initially the government has set up some tables and chairs and some means of getting the feast to the banquet hall. Now it steps back and makes sure no one cheats too much or robs the other diners, and hands out some leaflets to educate people on how not to poison themselves, hopefully.

Unfortunately this model takes little account of how much and how long the food is really available for, or who's going to clean up the mess afterwards. Sooner or later I think we will need to go back to regulation and public control of resources to protect them for the future. Either that or a model has to be found that gives people the right incentives to produce this outcome.
Posted by PeterI, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 10:51:58 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
A few years ago, in conversations with progressive economist John Quiggin, I arrived at the figure of $5 billion necessary to eliminate waiting lists in public hospitals. The real figure could even be higher. The Coalition has also taken abouit $4 billion out of higher education, while schools the nation over are in crisis suffering from insufficient funds and a crisis of investment. Furthermore, the quality of aged care is appalling and yet, even with that said, aged care is already a massive feature on the federal budget. The ageing population, what is more, will put tremendous pressure on the PBS which is already being undermined by Howard. How much, therefore, is necessary to solve the problem? One thing is for certain - we're talking billions and billions. And so for social democrats the question really is still between small and big government. Only with 'bigger government' will we be able to solve these problems - unless we want to place them in the 'too hard' basket forever.

Tristan
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 11:21:51 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Mr. Tanner,
Some of us would argue that government should return to its responsibilities of 50 years ago. Since the privatization of almost everything government has traditionally done, standards have fallen alarmingly. Infrastructure for example in North Queensland has been virtually non existant since the Hawke government completed the Burdekin Falls Dam in 1987. Public education funding cuts have meant schools are run down, Health cuts mean hospitals are run down, and you speak of families on $60,000 per annum, out of my friends and associates in Townsville, I know of only 1 family in this catergory, an underground gold miner and his family.

This is why the ALP have remained in opposition for so long, and will remain there, because thought processes are similar to the Liberal Party, how can you oppose something that you inherently believe in yourself. Some of us, in fact a great many of us are still living in humble surroundings, the only difference to your grandfathers time is that these days the ALP does not stick up for us, like it did him.

The Union movement was responsible for much of the improvement in living standards, now we are going backward, with it seems the ALP playing Waltzing Matilda as low income families sink through the floor. Get rid of the right wing attitudes and you traditional base may return.
Posted by SHONGA, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 12:04:26 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thank you Mr Tanner for your article.

I am now quite certain that I won't be voting Labor at the next federal election.

You have forgotton your party's philosophy.

Government by the people for the people.

Why pay taxes at all if our very foundation is not maintained? People, human beings need education, health services, utilities, shelter and food on the tables. Unless we have a government prepared to regulate for such basics then why have a government at all?

We may as well appoint a CEO - John Howard is doing that job very well already.

Lindsay I think you have argued yourself out of a job.
Posted by Scout, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 12:37:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
What planet does this bloke live on? It can't be this one.
Competition policy has cost dairy farmers 30% of their income, & I pay 35% more at the shop. Good example.
Reduced regulations? Where? I am no longer allowed to do half the things, on my own property, that I used to do. Those that I can still do I have to have a permit for, & I have to pay for the permit, & wait 9 months to get it.
I can't ride my horse to town, because there is no where to put a rego sticker on the horse, & they have not figured out how to charge fuel tax on the grass he eats. Yet!
If I want a little dam, for my horse to drink out of, I must have another permit, & the horse will probably have died of thirst, or old age, before I get that.
Is there any truth in the rumor, that they have let a contract to design a water meter that can measure the water running off my roof, into my tank? I've heard they want to have permit system for that, & charge me by the liter.
It is more than my life's worth to do anything to the bl@@dy great gum tree endangering my shed, but I am going to prune the hibiscus, & be dammed to them.
I suppose i'll be caught, & have to go to jail. I wonder if I have to have a permit for that.
Hasbeen
Posted by Hasbeen, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 1:30:04 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hasbeen you live in the same land as me !

It seems to me the only thing ungoverned these days is government itself ..
Posted by jamo, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 8:57:31 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Lindsay,

The power of exhortation is great, properly managed. The government is arguably good at it in some ways. Anti-smoking campaigns have got be the prime example. As for road-safety, very much more could be done.

But exhortation is nothing new. Governments have been exhorting us to worship GDP and never-ending economic growth forever. The time for this sort of thing to stop has well and truly passed.

Time to start exhorting sustainability, with means approaching limits to growth, a stable economic regime and a steady GDP, accompanied of course by a stable population.

These are the things that really matter. If governments can’t do this in a very earnest manner in the very near future, with at least as much hard-hitting publicity as the anti-smoking campaigns, then they will be foregoing their duty of care to the community, and we will all be pretty well rooted before too long.

Unfortunately, you don’t even touch on this sort of thing in your article.

Now what would really set Labor apart from Liberal, and attract an election-winning level of support?

SUSTAINABILITY…. instead of the terrible spiral of continuous economic growth, driven by continuous population growth, which needs continuous economic growth just to provide the same standard of living for ever-more people, without increasing the average standard of living for the nation, but rather, taking it backwards…. and forever increasing pressure on our already stressed resource base and environment!!

THIS philosophy presents Labor with its greatest opportunity ever! They WILL find mass support in the general populace for genuine efforts towards sustainability and against the continuous growth paradigm.

A perfect opportunity to really express positive exhortation.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 10:05:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Lindsay,

There is some role for an expansion of the areas that provide universal opportunity. It is really a question of how they are paid for and who provide them. I would agree that health and education will increase in size. It is a question of how much more the government chips in in meeting this expansion. I for one consider that school funding can increase overall. I would also consider that if done well, vouchers for secondary schooling could be more equitable than the current system. So it is a very complex scenario.

Labor must make a case for the "ladder of copportunity" and increasing assistance over time for the struts that provide universal opportunity. I am not convinced it can afford though the sort of secondary education policy that advances state services at the expense of those provided by the market. ie. State funding of schools can and should increase (amazingly I agree with Tristan) but not at the significant expense of the private system.

I think you need to examine the role of the Third Sector, and indeed whilst the Blair government can be criticised on many fronts, the attempt to promote services at the most local level, must become a wider policy goal in Australia. I can only see the ALP linking with the community and wider civil society if it reforms its preselection to reward participation in these forums (perhaps by primaries or by affiliating forums outside of unions). I have no doubt you support this. What about you Tristan? I can see you coming around to the right thinking method of renewal?

Cheers,
Corin
Posted by Corin McCarthy, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 10:19:05 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
So what have we got here?
All I can see is that a member of Federal Labor is too afraid to criticise the Federal government.
As the Federal government turns right, Federal Labor turns right . . . right.
No wonder they don't get anywhere and will remain in opposition.
Posted by GlenWriter, Wednesday, 22 March 2006 11:09:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Corin - I might support local delivery of services where funding is provided federally - so that it derives from progressive taxation. I'm not sure, however, which services you're referring to, or how this would be different than the current scenario.

re: primaries - I think that it would be a huge diversion of resources from otherwise productive campaigning and thus would be an error.

re: Lindsay - I think Lindsay has leadership ambitions and thus feels compelled to fit within the hegemonic discourse. Part of this is support for 'small government' and the disavowal of any traditional social democratic agenda. I guess the same could be said of any leadership aspirant - but the proof would be in the pudding - should any member of the Left ever become Federal ALP leader. At least Lindsay's on record, however, as support the resocialisation of Telstra infrastructure - paid for thorugh privatisation of services. This is better than nothing.
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Thursday, 23 March 2006 12:35:10 AM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Tristan,

On significant matters people often discuss things like petrol sniffing, and other anti-social behaviour as matters Howard neglects. But really, the size of government has no genuine effect on whether these things occur widely. Indeed welfare dependent areas normally suffer most.

The real issue is that non-profit independent bodies are often far better at tackling many of the roots causes of poverty than government can achieve.

This is obviously a gross simplification but no get my drift.

On schools, I am very much in favour of rewarding schools on performance, so long as a general standard is maintained. I am also not averse to parents being far more heavily involved in schools, and unlike many in the left of centre not averse to non-secular public school, so long as the secular kids still have a secular choice to attend.

Vouchers - very much more radically - provide each child with a set budget to spend on education as the parents deem fit. i.e. each kids gets a budget set by the Commwlth, they can use for the public or use for private, if they use for public they are likely to have a larger amount left for spending on specialist assistance, etc. This is a real biggy for the ALP, and they'll never do it, but I'm convinced that it could be very good educationally and promote quality and access for all if done well.

I still diagree on primaries and diversion - go see Live8 or up your street the Howard Dean campaign. Direct campaigning raises more money than it costs if you ask me. Just think about all those mums and dads who don't really "connect" with the ALP but sympathise getting involved - $5 from each hey! Canididates and Unions would also get an opportunity to actually campaign rather than simply turning up to rallies and courts.

Cheers,
Corin
Posted by Corin McCarthy, Thursday, 23 March 2006 1:13:50 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Lindsay if the ALP is to get anywhere Federally, it must take a different approach to the one you are taking. Try taking responsibility for a change instead of palming it off. The State ALP GOVERNMENTS ARE ONLY STILL THERE BECAUSE THERE DOES NOT SEEM LIKE ANYTHING IS PRESSING ENOUGH TO CHANGE TWEEDLEDEE FOR TWEELDEDUM. The public don't have a real choice, who represents pensioners, low income families $35,000 p.a. families? The Labor Party used to, but not for the last 30 years, wake up to yourselves, the only reason the average weekly earnings are $53,000 p.a. is highly paid executives, and public servants in the military.

How much do you think shop assistants, clerks, console operators, etc earn, not much I can assure you, and the party they traditionally voted for thinks they are on $60,000 p.a. you should be ashamed of yourself. We don't have a political voice anymore, which is why we tend to punish those who are supposed to represent us.
Posted by SHONGA, Thursday, 23 March 2006 3:26:29 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy