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EMPLOYERS have expanded their push to cut minimum working hours – in one case to as little as 90 minutes a day for school students – and to slash weekend pay for casuals.
They are also moving to abolish evening penalty rates and to narrow the definition of ”shift work”, according to submissions to a major review of the awards system being conducted by Fair Work Australia.
Unions, after analysing more than 200 submissions to the review, have accused employers of ”merely laying the foundation” for an Abbott government to cut wages and conditions.
Pledge to reduce the infrastructure “backlog” … Premier Barry O’Farrell. Photo: Lee Besford
INFRASTRUCTURE spending in NSW has more than doubled in the past five years, defying the conventional wisdom that underfunding is responsible for gridlocked roads and overcrowded trains.
But even as two separate studies debunk public perceptions and political claims about inadequate capital spending, their authors say the state’s infrastructure woes, at least in part, reflect the inefficient allocation of that money.
Appointed by the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, to conduct an exhaustive audit of the state’s finances, the former Treasury secretary Michael Lambert could not find any evidence of underinvestment in infrastructure during the past 15 years.
The audit says that in the 10 years to 2010-11, the total capital program grew at an average rate of 12 per cent a year.
Between 2005-06 and 2008-09 the growth rate was a healthy 17.6 per cent a year.
“There is no evidence of underspending on infrastructure in NSW, based on total private and public sector expenditure trends and comparing the state with other jurisdictions,” Mr Lambert found.
In a separate analysis, the University of Sydney economist Russell Ross found that, after adjusting for inflation, capital works expenditure more than doubled between 2005-06 and 2010-11 in real terms.
Mr Lambert’s investigation shows that public- and private-sector infrastructure spending rose markedly as a proportion of final demand – a measure of the state’s economic output – during the past decade.
Infrastructure spending as a share of final demand varied between 1.5 per cent and 2 per cent for most of the 1990s and early 2000s but then rose steadily to more than 3 per cent by 2010.
“The Labor years were … a period of high spending on capital works,” Associate Professor Ross said.
The findings suggest poor planning, not a lack of spending, stoked voter resentment about infrastructure.
Mr Lambert and Associate Professor Ross raise questions about the management of infrastructure spending during the past decade. Mr Lambert found the large transport infrastructure program had “not been assembled through a disciplined capital planning and appraisal process”.
Associate Professor Ross said Labor’s infrastructure spending was often “inefficient”, although it was difficult to tell how much was wasted.
“A lot of exploratory work that doesn’t end up going anywhere is included in the capital works budget,” he said. “It’s not as if a billion dollars spent on capital works actually results in a billion dollars’ worth of new infrastructure.”
One example was the CBD metro line, which cost more than $400 million in compensation and administration costs before being axed.
Michael Egan, the treasurer from 1995 to 2005, said infrastructure investment under the Carr and subsequent Labor governments was higher than under any previous NSW government.
But he believed most voters were unaware of many big government projects such as Labor’s Rail Clearways Program, which he said was “probably the most important capital spending” on Sydney’s rail system for half a century or more.
“I’m sure that if people don’t regularly see something happening, they assume nothing is happening,” he said.
The O’Farrell government has pledged to reduce the infrastructure “backlog”.
But the findings by Associate Professor Ross and Mr Lambert underscore how difficult it will be to fulfil voter hopes for a dramatic improvement.
“To bring infrastructure up to scratch it’s going to involve almost a quantum leap in spending, and no government is going to be able to do that easily in Australia,” Associate Professor Ross said.
Dawkins and Pell battle it out in one hell of a debate
Leesha McKenny
April 10, 2012
Clashing ideologies … Tony Jones, centre, plays the referee to Richard Dawkins, left, and Cardinal George Pell on Q&A last night. Photo: ABC TV
IT WAS a match-up made in Q&A heaven: two pugilists of opposing convictions going head-to-head in a debate about the existence of God.
Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic and Sydney’s archbishop, Cardinal George Pell, spent an hour with evolutionary biologist and celebrity atheist, Professor Richard Dawkins taking questions covering everything from evolution, resurrection and eternal damnation.
Frustration and something bordering on barely concealed mutual disdain boiled over more than once during the ABC television show.
Charles Darwin was claimed as a theist by the cardinal, because Darwin ”couldn’t believe that the immense cosmos and all the beautiful things in the world came about either by chance or out of necessity” – a claim disputed by Professor Dawkins as ”just not true”.
Cardinal Pell won applause when he shot back: ”It’s on page 92 of his autobiography. Go and have a look.”
The clergyman remained unmoved on gay marriage and climate change, but he said evolution was ”probably” right, and that atheists could ”certainly” get into heaven. Professor Dawkins declared he was ”trying to be charitable” by suggesting there was no way Cardinal Pell meant the body would literally be resurrected.
The clergyman’s view that people would return after death in some kind of physical form earlier had been dismissed by Professor Dawkins. ”The brain is going to rot, that’s all there is to it,” he said.
Cardinal Pell said: ”Mr Dawkins, I don’t say things I don’t mean.
”I believe it because I believe the man who told us that was also the son of God. He said, ‘This is my body, this is my blood’. And I’d much prefer to listen to Him and take his word than yours.”
On the Q&A vote, 76 per cent of the audience decided religion did not make the world a better place.
PREMIER Barry O’Farrell’s opposition to a second Sydney airport was “absurd”, a senior Liberal said yesterday, opening a rift between the state government and federal opposition.
Mr O’Farrell has dismissed the need for a second airport, a centrepiece of The People’s Plan, in favour of a high-speed Sydney to Canberra rail link.
But shadow federal treasurer Joe Hockey said not only did Sydney need a second airport it also had to be close to the city.
“No one’s going to fly Sydney or Melbourne and land in Canberra and catch a train,” Mr Hockey said.
“I’m hoping the Premier will change his mind when he becomes fully aware of all the issues.
“Whether it’s Wilton or whether it’s Badgerys Creek, we need to have an airport closer to Sydney and suggestions of an airport further out are absurd.”
Mr O’Farrell wants a Canberra Airport expansion and a $10-25 billion high speed rail line. An airport at Wilton is estimated to cost $2.5-3 billion.
The Daily Telegraph People’s Plan infrastructure expert Gary Sturgess said building a second airport should be a major priority for the state government, either at Wilton or Badgerys Creek.
Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese again called on Mr O’Farrell to change his mind yesterday. “The NSW government, along with the Australian government, commissioned a report,” Mr Albanese said.
“Seven people sat on the committee, including the heads of NSW Transport and NSW Planning. They provided that report and it indicates what cost to the Sydney and NSW economy, but the national economy as well, if we don’t have a second Sydney airport.
“I find it extraordinary that the Premier of NSW, who speaks about making NSW number one, can just dismiss a report that shows there are dire economic consequences for Sydney if we don’t get this necessary piece of infrastructure.
“The Premier can’t just pretend that this is an issue that’s too hard to deal with, and I’d call upon him to be constructive, examine his own report and what the consequences are for Sydney and NSW.”
It is the second time Mr Hockey, who at one time was touted as being a NSW premier, has disagreed with Mr O’Farrell.
Mr Hockey said in December that he believed Mr O’Farrell should have sold the $10-15 billion poles and wires.
Questions raised … the Valuer-General, Philip Western. Photo: Adam Hollingworth
A ”FORENSIC review” of land valuation contracts awarded over more than a decade will be conducted by the NSW Auditor-General amid increasing concern about the accuracy of a system that determines land tax bills and council rates.
The review follows questions about the integrity of the process that have emerged from a parliamentary committee inquiring into the office of the NSW Valuer-General, which issues about 2.4 million valuations a year.
In recent weeks it has been revealed that wealthy landowners are having their private and commercial property values reduced by billions of dollars for tax purposes after objecting to official decisions or taking legal action.
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Concerns about the lack of accuracy in valuing land has led to scrutiny about whether land tax bills and council rates have been assessed correctly.
Questions have also been raised about the relationship between the Valuer-General, Philip Western, and a company he helped establish, Quotable Value Australia, which has been paid millions of dollars for valuation work during his tenure.
A parliamentary committee has asked the Auditor-General, Peter Achterstraat, to report back on every payment made by the government to private land valuation firms since 2000.
Mr Achterstraat will calculate how much has been paid to each of 20 valuation firms and check the figures with contract data.
The Herald revealed that official figures provided by Mr Western to the committee indicated that in the past five years Quotable Value Australia had received 60 per cent of payments to private contractors for valuation work for rating and taxing purposes.
Mr Western says the figures are incorrect. The director-general of the Department of Finance and Services, Michael Coutts-Trotter, has been asked to investigate.
The chairman of the parliamentary committee, the Hornsby MP Matt Kean, said Mr Achterstraat would conduct ”an independent and transparent inquiry so the committee is able to form an opinion based on the facts”. He is expected to report back within a month.
”As an accountant and an auditor, I believed the issues that have been identified are serious,” Mr Kean said.
Mr Western was questioned during a hearing of the committee last week about his relationship with Quotable Value Australia.
He told the committee he was general manager of rating and taxing at Quotable Value New Zealand, the company’s parent, owned by the New Zealand government, from 1999 until June 2003. He held the same position at the Australian arm after it was established in 2000 but has ”no business or personal interest” in the company.
Mr Western said he was a ”close friend” of one of the New Zealand company’s senior managers and had given a job to a woman who has become its chief operating officer and who he believes is also in charge of Australian operations.
When Mr Western was appointed Valuer-General in September 2003, the company held only one contract with the government – for land valuation work within the City of Sydney.
Mr Western said a tender evaluation committee decided he should not chair that year’s process due to his recent work at Quotable Value, which was a tenderer.
But he said the next year the panel decided he should chair the panel to oversee contracts to be awarded in 2004 because ”any perceived conflict would have disappeared at that stage”. This was particularly due to the presence of a probity officer overseeing the process.
Mr Western chaired the panel until 2007, after which responsibility was transferred to the land and property information division of the Lands Department.
He said he had demanded answers from the division about the figures provided to the committee.
Regions of the earth where water is frozen for at least a month each year are shrinking as a result of global warming. Some of the effects on ecosystems are now being revealed through research conducted at affected sites over decades. They include dislocations of the relationships between predators and their prey, as well as changes in the movement through ecosystems of carbon and nutrients. The changes interact in complex ways that are not currently well understood, but effects on human populations are becoming apparent.
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