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The Forum > Article Comments > An agenda for Labor > Comments

An agenda for Labor : Comments

By Tristan Ewins, published 22/2/2007

Labor needs to build for the future rather than embracing a policy that relegates the movement to 'one step forward, two steps back'.

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They are not to blame we are to blame, we are the ones who keep putting them there.

you say we have no choice you do

but the choice for change takes guts to stand and become a member or become a candidate for your community.

Wingeing about it is just that nothing more so stand and for a change do the right thing.

www.tapp.org.au
Posted by tapp, Sunday, 25 February 2007 7:54:19 PM
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Re-socialising Telstra is a great idea. They should at the outset commit to maintaining the Government shareholding in Telstra and unapologetically use it to leverage Telstra to serve the public.

Perhaps, also Australia Post could be expanded to become, once again, "Post Master General". It could have a charter to provide every Australian with the best possible telecommunications service within our means to pay (and to hell with what the other communications carriers say - if they can't find space to survive, tough). In time, with the economy of scale and patronage that the Australian people would give to such an enterprise, it would be easy for it to be able to buy out Telstra and other private telcos and to integrate them into a single publicly owned communications service.

---

Labor needs to have much more serious policies to deal with the looming ecological crisis.

Our global civilisation is very close on a world scale to a point equivalent to those where many past civilisations, which had overstepped the limits of their natural environments, collapsed. (Read about the Chaco Anasazi, the Mayans, Angkor Watt, the Sumerians, the Easter Islanders etc in Jared Diamond's "Collapse". Also, read about how the Ancient Greeks and ancient Romans destroyed the natural environments which sustained them in Franz Broswimmer's "Ecocide".) When the extraction of oil, upon which 20th century civilisation was built, begins soon to decline irreversibly, whilst the demand for oil, for a growing world population, with growing material demands, contines to grow, our whole globalised civilisation is very likely to also collapse with horrific consequences.

Labor needs policies to try to prevent this. A vital component of this would be the active Government encouragement and facilitation of relocalistation. This is described in an article by Russ Grayson, also on OLO, at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5538

Another would be to adopt Bob Brown's suggestion to scale back coal exports so at least the scale of that the looming global warming ecological disaster can be reduced.

... and they should definitely tell Julia Gillard where to take her suggestion to allow the expansion of the Uranium industry.
Posted by daggett, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 9:14:46 AM
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Firstly, apologies that this response is so late in the piece.

There are good economic arguments in favour of minimum wages. The typical argument against it is that it causes unemployment; however the demand for low-wage work is inelastic (this is in addition to the fact that the labour market is monoposonistic). Recent research by Card and Kruger (Myth and Measurement: The New Economics of the Minimum Wage, 1997) noted that the negative employment effects of minimum-wage laws to be minimal if not non-existent.

With regards to taxation policy, the clearest and obvious improvement that is needed it to encourage productivity and punish both speculation and environmental degradation. The most obvious reform in this regard is greater reliance on public finances from resource rents (land tax and the like) rather than lumping all "income" into one category as if the way it is gained is economically the same.

In the realm of tertiary education it is clear that Labor must return to the early-eighties policy of a free and public system as a matter of strategic investment in our future. Certainly the same applies for other matters of physical and social infrastructure.
Posted by Lev, Wednesday, 14 March 2007 9:44:49 AM
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While I agree with Labor that Nuclear Power Stations should be the last option in meeting our power needs, But why is Labor against setting Australian Standards to govern Nuclear Power Stations and Nuclear Waste Repositories? Should we just allow Industry to govern it self.
Posted by painted_red, Thursday, 15 March 2007 7:38:39 AM
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Lev, I agree that it would be great to return to a free tertiary education system. Unfortunately, though, Labor has many priorities, and limited scope to increase taxation. I'd like to see what additional tax is gained channelled into education infrastructure, provision of more university places, extra hospital beds and more doctors and nurses, inclusion of dental, podiatry etc in Medicare, support for low income earners through tax credits etc. That said, I think you can get a reasonably equitable result without eliminating tertiary fees. What I envisage is a scaled HECS system. Under such a system, students would pay back a proportion of their fees dependent upon income. The repayment threshold itself would be raised, and additional thresholds would government the total proportion of debt repaid. Also, I'd like to see the flexibility of universities to charge additional HECS removed, and the need for it countered by extra public funding. These moves would make the system much more equitable, while not being as costly as a full move back to free education: freeing up funds for other programs.

I'm also at a loss why Labor has no plans to regulate any nuclear industry. Perhaps it's just that they're adamant that we'll never have one? I'd like to hear more about this anyway.

Tristan
Posted by Tristan Ewins, Thursday, 15 March 2007 10:41:09 AM
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Tristan, go to this site http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d06550t.pdf and tell me we don't need standards governibg the nuclear industry.
Posted by painted_red, Monday, 19 March 2007 5:03:30 PM
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