Sez Mark:
> I already mentioned that, even
> before considering this capital shortage from the point of view of
> value-theory, it is possible to recognise it empirically and even
> anecdotally. There is a huge underinvestment in infrastructure
> renewal, for example, in many OECD countries, and even when, as > notoriously
>in the UK right now, the money is available and the > political will to spend
>it, combined with insistent popular pressure > for spending on public sector and
>transport projects: despite all > this, government find it extremely difficult to
>actually spend the > money. In the US soem of it is simply being handed back to
>taxpayers. > This political frailty (in Blair's case) and/or fiscal impropriety in >
>Bush's, has underlying causes and is not just the result of inertia > or middle
>class greed.
Oz's socdems have discerned a public sentiment for a bit of publicly
coordinated infrastructural development. The tories have responded as tories
do: 'where's the money coming from' / 'tax and spend' etc. But buggered if I
can see where Labor's exercise in nation-building Keynesian PR campaign
gambits amounts to much at all, without an integrated fiscal and
renationalisation policy that would see it flayed by money markets and WTO
suitstaffels.
Any ten-year programme is good campaign politics, warm and fuzzy now, and
unlikely to be brought to fruition (I suspect the constituent revenue
projections are as optimistic as Blair's, some of the requisite state
aid/control functions will infringe WTO/MAI definitions of unfair trade
advantage and upset Oz business if things get fiscal, and anyway, ten years
means four elections here, rather than the two it means in Britain).
That said, it's so much more exciting than anything Howard's mob have the
imagination to make up, that it should work for Labor as long as an electorate
taught (a) to look first and foremost at costings, and (b) to oppose tax
increases even at high margins, can be convinced 'efficiencies' and
'reprioritisation' (ain't the buzzwords of the last twenty years the worst
thing ever to happen to the language, eh?) can do the trick for the moment,
and don't mind antagonising a military (who have real public sympathy in a
country which reckons it was born on the beaches of Gallipolli) to whom most
of our projected surpluses have been promised.
If you read the points below, you'll see that point one concerns nought but
some nation-as-commodity branding (which actually may involve a lot of money,
I s'pose, on the grounds that we've so long been dining out on our
'thick-but-cute' image) - anyway, the PR orgy of the last quarter century has
convinced most executives and governments that the substance of most problems
is merely that of 'selling-the-message';
- point two involves numbers that wouldn't catch us up to most OECD countries
(although they'd be okay as the public sector's contribution - it's our
private sector that daren't present the shareholders with R&D expenses);
- the universal broadband service item is interesting, because it is
predicated on 51% of our primary telco remaining in public hands (a hot
political button here - but one where the parties must choose between a
one-off war chest or sustained but indeterminate income in a dynamic but
competition-ruined sector) and antagonising Telstra's shareholders, who are
already looking at losses, and are now discovering what 'regulatory risk' can
mean;
- the on-line education idea strikes me as a boondoggle (only very motivated
students get much value from on-line courses, and intercultural barriers are
all but insurmountable if teacher and student aren't in each other's face) and
too accepting of the definition of education as 'industry';
- I also don't know what 'revolutionary' is supposed to mean regarding our
schools, unless they mean to inject as much public funding into public schools
as they do into private schools (which would, I admit, be pretty
revolutionary);
- and then there's the little matter of attracting Australian brains back to
Australia (polls have found - unsurprisingly to most, but inexplicably to
economists - that said expatriated brains work overseas because they get to do
interesting stuff with interesting people, not because of wage differentials)
- they're needed to kick the thing off, but probably wouldn't be attracted in
any numbers until at least half-time.
Anyway, there's probably enough there to distinguish the parties for election
purposes. Good on 'em.
Cheers,
Rob.
The Age 2 July 2001
Key recommendations of Knowledge Nation
Monday 2 July 2001
The main recommendations of the Knowledge Nation report.
The prime minister should conduct an
international campaign to change Australia's image to a "knowledge nation";
Double Australia's overall funding, as a
percentage of Gross Domestic Product, in research and development by 2010;
Provide access to digital broadband to all
Australian households and businesses as an urgent national priority;
Develop three life science research institutes of
"undisputed global standing".
Start a 10year program to tackle salinity, land
degradation, polluted rivers and coastlines, deforestation and loss of species
diversity.
Establish a leading online education industry;
Instigate "revolutionary" changes to schools,
including a higher proportion of Commonwealth funding for public schools and
the funding of nongovernment schools on the basis of need.
Significantly increase public funding of
universities and boost the number of university positions.
Create an inventory of all recent Australian
graduates with research degrees living abroad, and provide a register of their
resumes and contact details for private sector employers.
Labor wants faster Net access
by XAVIER LA CANNA
THE AGE ONLINE
Monday 2 July 2001
A federal Labor government should force Telstra to
offer broadband Internet access to all Australians, an ALP report has recommended.
Unveiling the results of the ALP's Knowledge Nation
taskforce, Opposition leader Kim Beazley said the report would guide ALP
policy for the next decade and beyond.
The report said the ALP should use its ownership of
Telstra to mandate minimum levels of data transmission to households and businesses.
If it took government later this year, the ALP
should ensure fixedprice untimed Internet calls are available nationwide, the
report said.
Simon Banks, a spokesman for ALP MP Stephen Smith,
said Telstra would be forced to more easily allow competitors access to its
copper phone lines, so they could sell highspeed DSL Internet access, and
bring down prices.
The current datacasting laws should be ripped up by
an incoming Labor Government and replaced by laws that better open up the
possibility of new technologies, the report recommended.
Mr Banks said Labor would change the government's
current policy that heavily restricts the type of information datacasters can
show so that it does not resemble television.
The ALP would allow organisations who are not
currently broadcasters to datacast information, restricted only by a
minimum amount of interactivity, he said.
Mr Beazley has said he will respond to the
report's recommendations before the election.
'Recycled Whitlam policies': Coalition
AAP
Monday 2 July 2001
Labor's "knowledge nation" agenda released today had
plagiarised coalition policies and recycled Whitlam-era ideas, key federal
ministers said today.
Federal Education, Training and Youth Affairs
Minister David Kemp and Industry, Science and Resources Minister Nick
Minchin attacked a report released by federal Opposition Leader Kim Beazley today.
The Knowledge Nation Taskforce report outlined a
broad Labor plan for a greater commitment to education and research and development.
Dr Kemp and Senator Minchin said Labor's plan was
confusing and poorly framed, and failed to acknowledge the accomplishments of
the Howard government.
Dr Kemp said Labor's report overlooked the fact
apprenticeships had doubled under the Howard government, or that the number of
students embarking on vocational programs had increased from 26,000 in 1995 to 167,000.
In regards Labor's stated aim to reduce
Australia's brain drain, the government was already luring scientists home
under the Federation Fellowships plan, Dr Kemp said.
Senator Minchin said Labor's research and
development proposals could only be paid for by halving defence spending or
substantially increasing income or business tax.
Meanwhile, Labor had ignored the fact that the
federal government today introduced 175 per cent tax concessions for
research and development and cash rebates for R&D conducted by small
businesses.
Labor's own Chifley Report, released two weeks
ago, showed that the public investment in knowledge by the last Labor
government had left Australia worse off than before it took office, Senator
Minchin said.
"We can have no confidence they'd do a better job if
they ever got back in," he said.
"There are many aspects of the report which are just
Whitlamesque," Dr Kemp said.
He said these included huge central databases,
greater regulation, more intervention by central government and increased spending.
"This is all harking back to the Whitlam policies of
the 1970s these are not policies which reflect the need for Australia to be a
flexible economy," Dr Kemp said.
Labor education plan welcomed
AAP
Monday 2 July 2001
Key science and education lobby groups today
praised Labor's Knowledge Nation plan as a visionary document full of good
ideas for the future.
But expressing good ideas was one thing
implementing them was another, they said.
Peak scientific and technology body, the
Federation of Australian Scientific and Technological Societies (FASTS), said
Labor had unveiled a visionary and longterm plan full of good ideas.
Dr Ken Baldwin, chairman of the FASTS' policy
committee, said all sides of politics agreed on the importance of science and
technology and the issues had been spelled out by the government, the chief
scientist and now the ALP.
"How does the ALP plan to translate this grand
vision into reality?" he asked in a statement.
"The plan is one thing: generating the political will
to implement it is another.
"Now it's up to the ALP to unveil their plans for
Australia's future.
"We believe the 60,000 scientists and
technologists represented by FASTS will reserve their judgment until they
compare fully costed policies from all parties."
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) president
Carolyn Allport said the document was visionary but its usefulness depended on
Mr Beazley picking up the ball and running with it.
Dr Allport said the report identified some key
priorities in fixing the funding crisis in universities but they all
depended on rebuilding university core funding.
"The report doesn't tell us there the money will come
from but clearly it needs to be found," she said in a statement.
"Education remains top of the polls and the
community is looking for a future government to have the political courage to
stake a real claim on our future by endorsing these recommendations."
