What to Do About The Poor State of Politics in Canberra

In a recent Quarterly Essay article, former federal ALP leader Mark Latham wrote an article titled Not Dead Yet. With federal Labor's electoral support currently running at 30% of the popular first preference vote, the party may well be dead in all but name only. More importantly, however, the quality of political behaviour and dialogue in Canberra seems to me to be at an all-time low and Latham's belief that, in Labor's case, it's largely due to the lack of lay party members reflects my view as well.

In response to Latham's Not Dead Yet article, I offered the following response to Quarterly Essay but they declined to print it. Here it is now in full technicolour but note that it was written a couple of weeks before the failed attempt by the Labor and Liberal parties to give themselves another $58 million of taxpayer money.

For 20 years, I was an active member of the Liberal Party. After holding many lay party positions, working on numerous committees and standing twice for unwinnable federal seats, I was then elected twice to the WA Parliament as the endorsed Liberal candidate for the safe state seat of Vasse in rural WA. In 2003, however, I lost endorsement thanks to the actions of powerbrokers who wanted a candidate more compliant to their wishes, causing me to resign from the party and stand as an independent, losing by 209 votes to Troy Buswell, now the state treasurer.

This history is important as it demonstrates my long involvement in Liberal Party politics at all levels, hopefully making me competent to comment on Mark Latham’s “Not Dead Yet” article on the current illnesses of the federal Labor Party.

Like “The Latham Diaries”, I enjoyed reading the thoughts of a person who is clearly intelligent, articulate and passionate about the future of his preferred political party. Latham’s “Not Dead Yet” comments on climate change were an unfortunate distraction as they show that, on some issues at least, ideology overwhelms rational thought – Latham does not understand that the electorate’s opposition to the carbon tax is as much about its structure as Julia Gillard’s broken promise or the science supporting climate change.

My main comments on his article are directed at his statement that the Labor Party ‘can no longer rely on the politics of mass scale and common membership.’ I agree and the Liberal Party finds itself in exactly the same situation.

In 1984 when I joined the Liberal Party, it had some 15,000 members in WA and over 1,500 in the federal electorate of Forrest where I still live. Today, those numbers have at least halved but more importantly the role of lay party members in the party has been even more drastically reduced. In recent years, branches have closed; policy-making opportunities within remaining branches have diminished; fund-raising functions are being held annually rather than quarterly; and lay members’ major role is to hand out how to vote cards on election day.

This diminution of lay member involvement came about because of the ability of party powerbrokers to do the following:

·         * Concentrate their power to become the dominant influence within the party

·         * Place a large number of their people into Parliament, especially in the upper house where electors have far less ability to remove ineffective or other undesirable party candidates; and

·         * In government, convince the party room and cabinet to pass legislation (see below) strengthening their hold over the party.

Latham’s solution to the ALP’s current malaise “is to embed itself in grassroots politics – the nation’s true middle ground.” It sounds simple enough but Latham fails to outline the actions needed to achieve this embedding. More seriously, the question needs to be asked: why would Liberal or Labor Party powerbrokers willingly choose to give up their power and encourage grassroots politics? If the result was an increase in lay membership, they would have to work harder to maintain their current level of influence over their respective parties. If the result was the public generation of new policy initiatives with which they disagreed, the powerbrokers would need to change their modus operandi and show their faces in public to try and influence public opinion.

So it should be assumed that powerbrokers will not willingly allow changes to occur within their political parties that might weaken their holds or cause them to work harder. So what to do? Well, the federal and state government legislation that has allowed powerbrokers from all major political parties to reduce their dependence on lay members takes two forms.

First, public funding of election campaigns has overcome the need for political parties to encourage their branches to hold regular fund-raising activities. Today, the public purse is effectively substituting taxpayer dollars for community-generated, grassroots sources of income. Political parties no longer have as great a need to go cap in hand to business, unions, wealthy individuals or other similar sources of political donations, even though such visits are still needed to supplement taxpayer funds.

For example, the current payment to federal candidates who attract more than 4% of the vote at elections will receive 247.316 cents per eligible vote. For a seat with 80,000 voters where the winning candidate attracts 40,000 votes, this would result in a payment of $98,926.40. In WA, candidates who attract more than 4% of the vote at an election are entitled to claim a taxpayer-paid refund of $1.73302 per vote, worth around $20,000 to most winning candidates. At the recent elections here in WA, the Liberal Party will receive well in excess of $2 million from the state treasury. Federally, my guess is that the figure would exceed $20 million.

Second, members of Parliament receive extremely generous printing and similar allowances, purportedly to allow them to communicate non-party political messages to their electorates but in effect to sell whatever messages they believe will help them retain their seat at the next election.

The current printing allowance for Members of the House of Representatives is $75,000 per year plus $0.60 per constituent (potentially worth up to another $50,000), with an additional electorate allowance of at least $32,000. West Australian MPs receive an electoral allowance of $61,985 which can be spent on postage and communications.

Public funding of campaigns may only return a modest portion of a candidate’s or party’s total election campaign expenditure but every dollar raised in this way reduces the number of dollars needing to be raised from supporters, including lay party members.

Conversely, allowances and entitlements paid to sitting MPs are so large that, while they cannot be spent on electioneering, the line between ‘informing my electorate of news’ and ‘political campaigning’ is extremely fine (deliberately so, in my view). In fact, it’s so fine a line that a smart MP can use his or her allowances to pay for the majority of their campaign expenditures prior to the declaration of polls for an election.

Because of the generous allowances that MPs have been able to contrive for themselves over the years, their need to raise funds through lay party members and branches is now comparatively minor. Cursory, tokenistic lip service paid to lay party branches and members is all that is necessary these days for most MPs to retain party and lay member support.

If Latham is looking for a way of forcing existing MPs to embed themselves in grassroots politics, the most obvious and effective solution would be to abolish or drastically reduce (by at least 75%) the above-listed allowances and entitlements. MPs would have no choice but to go back to their electorates (and to their party branches), encouraging people to join up as lay party members. In turn, to retain those lay members and make them believe their membership of the party is valued for reasons more important than just raising money, MPs would have to attend branch meetings and respond to policy initiatives put forward by party members if those policy ideas were also supported by branches and by the party as a whole.

While there is a risk that the abolition of obscenely generous allowances and entitlements may increase  MPs’ and political parties’ dependence on their traditional donors, this is happening regardless of the amount of taxpayer support parties and candidates are receiving. It is certainly not a reason to delay worthwhile efforts to encourage greater lay member involvement in political parties.

Energy reality: in Greece, books and trees are a cheaper fuel than coal to heat your home over winter.

To Eat or Heat? That’s the EU’s Question

Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald, May 15, 2013

For a growing number of Europeans, their continent’s global warming policies have forced them to decide whether to heat their homes or buy food. In short they must choose whether to “Heat or Eat,” which was the title of a talk by a British climate policy expert delivered in Calgary Tuesday.

Benny Peiser, director of the non-partisan, not for profit Global Warming Policy Foundation, laid out in graphic terms how Europe’s climate policies have “failed.” Peiser, a social anthropologist and a visiting fellow at the University of Buckingham, started his talk by showing a slide of the policy statement that came out of the Lisbon Agenda in 2000: “To make the EU the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion by 2010.”

Anyone who follows the news knows that the exact opposite has happened. Europe is divided, Europeans struggle to survive, and their countries face bankruptcy. About 27 million Europeans are unemployed, and in Greece, for instance, 65 per cent of youth cannot find work. Part of the reason for this, says Peiser is the European Union’s 20-20-20 green energy policy that with 20-20 hindsight has proven to be an economic and social disaster.

The EU intends to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, increase renewable energy use by 20 per cent and improve energy efficiency by 20 per cent. The green lobby in Europe is so strong that it has pushed EU politicians to oppose virtually every kind of reliable non-renewable energy. The greens oppose nuclear, natural gas and shale gas and only seem to approve of wind and solar power — both of which are not reliable, since the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine — and it certainly isn’t “free.”

The German environment minister warned that Germany’s plan to shut down all of its nuclear plants to shift to renewables will cost citizens one trillion euros. “This is the biggest wealth transfer in the history of modern Europe — from the poor to the rich,” explained Peiser, who spoke to a crowd of 200 at the 10th annual Friends of Science luncheon.

The social implications of this failed policy are enormous, added Peiser. “Ordinary families and small and medium-sized businesses are essentially subsidizing the investments of green do-gooders,” who can afford to install solar panels on their homes and their businesses. But what’s really starting to cause citizens and policy-makers to question their green energy agenda, is that soaring energy costs are driving energy-intensive industries in Europe to move to the United States where the shale gas revolution has caused natural gas prices to remain low — or about one-third to one-fourth of what they are in Europe, exacerbating the EU’s unemployment crisis.

Peiser points out that in April of 2012, U.S. natural gas prices bottomed out at $1.95 to Europe’s $11.42 — the widest gap in recent times. More recently, U.S. natural gas prices hover at around $3 while in Europe they remain at around $12.“European industry is flocking to the U.S. to take advantage of cheaper gas,” said Peiser. “They can’t compete otherwise.”

As industries leave and more people are impoverished, the cap-and-trade scheme, which is the cornerstone of the EU’s green energy strategy — is collapsing. The price of to emit one tonne of carbon has plummeted from about 34.90 euros in 2008 to about three euros now. “The biggest irony is ... that it has now become very, very cheap to burn coal and as a result, there’s a new coal boom in Europe, of all places. Germany alone is building 25 coal fired plants,” said Peiser.

Swiss banking giant UBS says the carbon emissions trading scheme has cost EU consumers $287 billion for “almost zero impact”.

The Washington Post editorial board just last month wrote that Europe “has become the green-energy basket case. Instead of a model for the world to emulate, Europe has become a model of what not to do.” The result of these policies on individuals is widespread and grave. Greek citizens are chopping down their forests in search of wood and British pensioners are buying cheap old hardcover books as fuel to heat their homes since coal is more expensive. The Telegraph newspaper reported that half a million pensioners spent Christmas in bed in an effort to keep warm. Worse yet, Peiser says the Office of National Statistics in England and Wales shows that based on past numbers, one million Brits are expected to die from cold in their homes by 2050.Energy poverty is sweeping Europe. As many as nine million British families pay 10 per cent or more of their household income towards heat and electricity.

Meanwhile, all of the climate models that predicted catastrophic warming of the planet were a gross exaggeration. Indeed, for the past 16 years, temperatures have not spiked but remained stable. The Earth’s temperature has only risen 0.8C in 150 years, explained Peiser. This “flatlining of global temperatures” along with skyrocketing energy prices “is why the green agenda is crumbling,” said Peiser. Even in relatively wealthy Germany, 15 per cent of its citizens face energy poverty.

Meanwhile, the British Geological Survey says that Britain may have enough shale gas to heat every home for 1,500 years. Peiser says “Europe’s suicidal shale reluctance must change if Europe’s economy is to be transformed from stagnation to growth.”

Canadians should be very glad that past schemes for green shifts and the like never materialized and we don’t have to choose between eating or heating.

MAY IS BOWELSCAN MONTH: SAVE A LIFE - SAVE YOUR LIFE!

Bowel cancer is an insidious disease, with 9,000 new cases afflicting men and women around Australia each year. 4,500 of these people will die of the disease.

To give an early warning of the possible presence of bowel cancer, Rotary started its Bowelscan program in 1982. Each year, over 150,000 kits are distributed to pharmacists around Australia where they can be purchased for $8.00, this charge reflecting the cost of producing the kit and the subsequent sample analysis.

Kits are now available at several pharmacists in Busselton, Dunsborough and Capel at the following pharmacies:

* Terry White Pharmacy, Busselton
* Discount Drugstores, Busselton
* Dunsborough Pharmacy
* Capel Pharmacy

Members of the public are encouraged to purchase a kit, provide a sample in the privacy of their own home and return it to a participating chemist. The sample will then be sent to a testing laboratory to analyse for the presence of blood, a possible indicator of bowel disease.

To date, more than 1,000 people with cancer have used the Bowelscan kits to give them early advice of their cancers. Another 5,000 people with bowel polyps - a common precursor to cancer - have been diagnosed as a result of submitting a Bowelscan sample.

Bowel cancer is the commonest internal cancer affecting Australian adults.

People with a family history of bowel cancer are at particular risk of contracting the disease and are the group most strongly encouraged to provide a Bowelscan sample.

The Busselton Geographe Bay Rotary Club is coordinating the distribution and collection of Bowelscan kits to pharmacists throughout the City of Busselton and the Shire of Capel.

More information can be gained from Rotarian David Eyres, a now retired local pharmacist - phone 0407 697 717.

Bernie Masters
Publicity Officer
Rotary Club of Busselton Geographe Bay
9727 2474
0408 944 242

Helping WA's Farmers: Here's One Suggestion.

Immediately after the March 9 state election, re-elected Premier Colin Barnett stated his desire to pay more attention to the plight of WA's farmers, many of whom were doing badly. Low milk prices, poor seasonal conditions, restrictions on the live animal trade, high labour costs, competition for labour with the mining industry, an aging farm population, loss of services as rural populations decline: clearly, many farmers were finding it hard to make a profit.

I don't have answers to all of the problems facing our farmers, but one issue has been quietly ignored by successive governments. I explained this issue and provided a solution in an email I sent to the Premier on April 10. I have yet to receive an acknowledgement or a reply, so I have to ask if the government is really serious about helping farmers. Here's what I said to the Premier:


Attention: Premier Colin Barnett
cc: Hon Albert Jacob, Minister for the Environment

Dear Premier,

May I congratulate you on your strong win at the March 9 election? It's pleasing that you have a clear majority in the Legislative Assembly to allow you to govern without the uncertainties that currently exist in our federal Parliament.

In recent weeks, you have made public statements of support for farmers who are doing it tough in the wheatbelt. I wish to raise with you an issue that is a legacy of the Gallop government and which is causing significant financial harm to a small group of genuine farmers throughout the south west land division of WA.

One of the great injustices arising from the time of the Gallop government during its term from 2001 to 2005 was the clearing ban imposed on private property owners in WA. As you are aware, I was the shadow minister for the environment at the time and I was basically lied to by the then environment minister Judy Edwards who said the ban would have a low impact on the farming community. By the time the extent and impact of the ban became clear in about 2004, I had resigned from the Liberal Party for reasons that I'm also sure you're well aware of. Nonetheless, the fact remains that between 50 and 200 farmers have from 25 to 75% of individual farming properties covered in native vegetation and hence incapable of providing them with an economic return on the financial investment they or their predecessors made when purchasing the land.

The problem therefore is three-fold. First, these 50 to 200 farmers are unable to earn an income from land for which the owners had a reasonable expectation of being able to turn into economically productive farms at the time of purchase.

Second, if these farmers are attempting to manage their areas of native vegetation to protect environmental values, they are paying money out of their own pockets to protect assets which were determined by the Gallop government and hence, by implication, all successive governments including your own, to provide public benefits.

Third, if these farmers are unable or unwilling to allocate money to adequately manage the bushland remaining on their properties, then the public of WA are losing environmental values from native vegetation which an act of Parliament had deemed to be worthy of protection by imposing a ban on clearing.

It is my understanding that, of the 50 to 200 farmers seriously disadvantaged by clearing bans, many (possibly a majority) are in the midlands area along the Swan Coastal Plain between Gingin and Dongara. However, a significant number are in the central and eastern wheatbelt where financial pressures are the greatest.

I believe the Royalties for Regions program is ideally suited to paying compensation to this relatively small number of farmers affected by the clearing ban. Your government, possibly through a Parliamentary committee, could urgently investigate the seriousness of this issue with a view to buying from aggrieved farmers those parcels of bushland which are currently a financial millstone around their necks. Clearly, some minimum conditions would need to be imposed on such land purchases, for example, the minimum area of bushland on an individual property title would need to be at least 50 hectares and would need to constitute at least 25% of the area of the property. The option of paying these farmers an amount of money per hectare to manage their bushland should also need to be considered, together with a government subsidy to fence off bushland from productive farmland, recognising that fencing is undoubtedly the largest cost facing the owners of bushland on private properties. It may even be desirable for government to buy suitable parcels of bushland affected by the clearing ban and then pay adjoining farmers to manage the bushland on an on-going basis.

To act now to correct this injustice will be seen by the WA community as a decisive, fair and positive way of helping farmers in need, while also protecting the environmental values of remnant bushland in farming areas that have generally been extensively cleared over the past 100 years.

I commend this suggestion to you.

Regards

Bernie Masters
Member for Vasse 1996-2005

Commercial versus recreational fishing – now we know the justification for recreational boat fishing licenses

Norman Moore was the fisheries minister in the first term of the Colin Barnett government from 2008 to 2013. Although referred to by some sections of the media as the fossil or dinosaur, Norman remained (and probably still remains) a key powerbroker within the Liberal Party.

But one decision he made as fisheries minister made little sense: the introduction of recreational boat fishing licenses. But now we can understand why this decision was made, thanks to an article in the West Australian dated March 26 (page 4).

The retired minister was quoted as saying that WA’s commercial fishing fleet could largely vanish as the sector comes under increased pressure from green groups and recreational anglers. Now it all becomes clear. Blame green groups for locking up maybe 10 or 20% of commercial fishing grounds around WA’s coast; and blame recreational anglers for, well, it’s hard to be specific but the former minister simply says they’re to blame for further restricting professional anglers.

Bollocks! The push for marine reserves within state and federal marine waters is a direct response to over-fishing by all sectors of the industry and the resulting reductions in fish stocks. Norman admits that ‘cutting catch hauls was necessary in some circumstances, such as when he halved western rock lobster quotas in 2008 on the back of plummeting baby crayfish numbers’. This catch reduction had nothing to do with marine reserves and precious little to do with recreational fishing. It was all about resource depletion, either though natural causes (changed currents and reduced settlement of larval crayfish) or overfishing.

But, in politics, two things are sacrosanct. One is the need to continue to tap industry on the shoulder for campaign donations during state elections. The other is to blame everyone and everything for the problems of an industry that has to adjust to modern times, and the recreational fishing industry is fair game.

I’ve been a fisheries inspector for 3.5 years. I’ve been a member of Parliament for 8 years. My electorate of Vasse took in some of the more contentious fights between commercial and recreational fishing – crabbing, bait fish netting, trawling and giving commercial salmon fishers preference in Geographe Bay.

I’ve seen it all and the recreational boat fishing license is all about spin – see, we’re doing something to conserve fish stocks – and reducing recreational fishing pressure by increasing direct costs and making it more difficult for recreational fishers to catch a feed.

In the lead-up to the March 9, 2013, election, I prepared but never used the following newspaper ad:

I thought about putting my small dingy in the water to try and catch a few crabs recently. But then I realised I needed six different government-issued licenses or permits to do this:

·         a driver’s license to drive the boat and trailer down to the boat ramp

·         a registered vehicle

·         a licensed boat trailer

·         a registered boat

·         a skipper’s ticket AND,

·         thanks to the current government, I now also need a Recreation Fishing from Boat License.

There are lots of problems with this poorly conceived boat fishing license:

1.   you can apply and pay for a license on-line, but you must wait until the receipt arrives before you can go boat fishing. Bad luck if your friends or family arrive for the weekend and want to drop a line in - you can’t go fishing until you receive a receipt for your on-line payment.

2.   it must cost the Fisheries Department 20 or 30% of the money received from these licenses to administer them.

3.   Fisheries Inspectors used to be educators and law enforcement officers but now they’re also clerical staff, with their first priority being to check if you have a valid license.

Not only has Norman Moore made a significant useless contribution to the nanny state by creating the recreational boat fishing license but he’s reduced the recreational catch, turned fisheries inspectors into clerical staff and made himself look the hero in the eyes of the commercial fishing industry. Well done, Norman, you’re replaced the need to implement sound fisheries management with a bureaucratic solution that really does little for the fishing industry in WA.

Yes, I admit to being a little annoyed at the former minister, but his primary failing was his unwillingness to support the creation of marine parks over places such as the Minninup reef system in Geographe Bay north of the mouth of the Capel River. It’s under intense fishing pressure and needs better management, something that would have come from its declaration as a marine park (not as a no-take zone, mind you, just as an area with special marine values).

Troy Buswell: The Real Risk

In the Busselton Dunsborough Mail of Wednesday March 20, Trevor Sargent (who I don't know) wrote a letter critical of me and of my views about Vasse MP and state treasurer Troy Buswell. In response, I submitted the following letter for publication in the following week's Mail. During the recent election campaign, however, the Mail chose not to print any letters written in support of me and they ran a clearly overt campaign supportive of Buswell. It was not surprising therefore that the following letter was not published published.

In response to Trevor Sargent's criticism of me (letters, Mail, March 20), Troy Buswell and I were candidates for Liberal preselection for Vasse in 2003. Powerbroker Noel Crichton-Browne had been expelled from the Party some years previously but he was widely acknowledged within the party as having control over the Yallingup and Dunsborough branches and the delegates from these branches voted against me at the preselection meeting. After losing preselection, I then gave electors the opportunity to choose between Buswell and myself at the 2005 election.

Crichton-Browne will probably say my claims about him are untrue. However, both Buswell and Crichton-Browne were publicly interviewed by the Corruption and Crime Commission over the Smiths Beach proposal. Former Shire councillor Helen Shervington was quoted as saying that, after a meeting between Buswell and Crichton-Browne, an agitated Buswell phoned Shervington to say he had felt threatened by Crichton-Browne and that his future in the Liberal Party (i.e, his preselection for Vasse) was at risk if he didn't try to assist the Smiths Beach developers.

Mr Sargent may view Buswell's past behaviour as nothing more than him being 'a silly boy with his personal life' but I view his antics as also affecting his public life. My greatest fear is that, should an unscrupulous person witness a future 'silly' act by Buswell similar to his (alleged)* 'dry humping' of a party guest at a private function, the witness could then seek to influence Buswell into making a decision for the witness's benefit.

Remember: Buswell has admitted having felt threatened by an unelected person, namely, Noel Crichton-Browne, who sought to influence his decision as a shire councillor on a sensitive and valuable issue. But Buswell is now a senior government minister managing a multi-billion dollar treasury. He seems not to understand that he must maintain a near unblemished public and private life so that he can perform his duties without the risk of his being subjected to influence by people who may witness a future 'silly' act. 


Mr Sargent has every right to dismiss my concerns about Buswell but I have every right to stand for election and, in doing so, to remind people of his flawed and risky behaviour. 

* I've subsequently added the word 'alleged' as Buswell claims the dry-humping incident never happened!

Thank you

I wish to thank the many people who came forward to help me in many different ways during the election campaign. Friends, family, acquaintances and complete strangers: all provided support in different ways for the concerns that motivated me to stand against the sitting MP for Vasse. We now know the result, of course, and it's clear that Vasse electors simply weren't concerned about a deeply compromised and controversial person remaining as the 2nd or 3rd most important minister in the state government. It was a poor assessment of the political landscape by me and I apologise to my supporters if I gave them false hope.

I'll probably take a break now from all political activities to recharge my batteries and refocus on what to do with the rest of my life.

Thank you once again. Your moral, emotional, financial and other support has been very greatly appreciated.

Bernie