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October 2008 | ^Top^
Congress is no green house
Article published in The Australian on Friday, 3rd October 2008
THERE are two great myths perpetuated by Kevin Rudd and Climate Change Minister Penny Wong as a foundation for Australia introducing an emissions trading scheme. Both are deceitful and misleading the public about the cost of an ETS.
The first myth appears in Wong's green paper, which argues Australia is "acting with the rest of the world" because other countries are supporting an ETS, in particular the US, where "both presidential candidates are committed to introducing schemes".
Wong is correct that Republican presidential candidate John McCain and his Democratic rival, Barack Obama, support the introduction of a cap-and-trade system. But their support doesn't guarantee anything and the $US700 billion ($895 billion) financial bailout package demonstrates why.
The bailout is one of the grandest bipartisan political measures taken in US history. It was supported by Republicans President George W. Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and McCain, and the Democrats' house Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Harry Reid and Obama. Yet the bill failed in the House of Representatives.
A bill may yet pass, but it has nothing to do with bipartisan support. There isn't similar party discipline as in Australia and therefore bipartisan support doesn't mean success.
Members of the House of Representatives are elected every two years and are highly accountable to their electorates. Their allegiance is to their electorate first and their party second. And US voters are very sensitive to thegovernment voting for legislation that will simply take money from their back pockets.
The present 110th Democrat-controlled Congress provides ample evidence. To date there have been eight bills introduced to establish a cap-and-trade system. None have passed. Bush didn't even need to pull out his veto pen.
These failed bills are merely following in the footsteps of the Kyoto Protocol, which was voted down in the Senate 95-0. Similarly, in 2003 McCain and then Democratic senator Joseph Lieberman proposed the Climate Stewardship Act. The bill was defeated 55-43.
Both senators then proposed an amended version in 2005 that was defeated by an even wider margin.
Ultimately, the reason for each bill's demise has been the cost it would impose on American consumers and industry without corresponding costs on competitor nations. The fallout from the financial crisis is just going to make negotiating an ETS harder.
And that leads to the second myth: Australia needs to develop an ETS to participate in the forthcoming international trading scheme. But there will not be a comprehensive international trading scheme. Establishing one requires every major emitting country toparticipate.
At the G-8 meeting in Japan earlier this year Chinese President Hu Jintao reiterated what has long been the mantra of the Chinese Government: "China's central task now is to develop the economy and make life better for the people." The attitude of the Chinese Government is that "developed countries should make explicit commitments to continue to take the lead in emissions reduction".
China is not alone. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said to the 63rd session of the UN General Assembly: "The outcome must be fair and equitable ... we are committed to our per-capita emissions of greenhouse gases not exceeding those of the developed countries." In short, India may only slow the growth of its emissions to correspond with developed country levels.
For the US to participate requires developing countries to take proportionate emissions cuts. For developing countries to participate, developed countries need to shoulder most of the burden. In this scenario the developed and developing world are caught in a game of climate chicken. But outside Australia and the European Union no one appears interested in playing.
The final Garnaut report points out: "The only realistic chance of achieving the depth, speed and breadth of action now required from all major emitters is allocation of internationally tradeable emissions rights across countries." But it is simply not going to happen.
The likeliest outcome will be a voluntary international trading scheme. Countries that participate will be guinea pigs. Their role will be to iron out problems, such as developing an accounting system for an industry's carbon footprint, the equivalence of permits and how to respond to the nightmarish impacts on trade.
If we keep heading down this path, the myths will become clear, and it won't take long before Australians start to ask why we are harming our economy while achieving virtually no reduction in emissions.
It is an answer Rudd and Wong should think long and hard about.
Tim Wilson is director of the IP and free trade unit at the Institute of Public Affairs.
Ends
September 2008 | ^Top^
A change is patently needed
Article published in the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday, 10th September 2008
Patents are a private property right designed to incentivise innovation. But the incentives that patents provide for pharmaceutical innovation have been undermined at the expense of research and development investment.
Yesterday, Innovation Minister Kim Carr released the Cutler innovation review's report, Venturous Australia. The report identifies reforms to Australia's intellectual property (IP) regime including a review to ensure that the grounds for granting a patent are more stringent.
Tight patentability criteria are vital to ensure innovators can have confidence in the scheme. But so is the capacity for a patent's enforcement. Patents provide legal, tradeable status to an intangible asset. The right and responsibility of a patent holder is to stop others infringing on their rights, and where they do so, to take action.
Yet in 2004 the then leader of the opposition, Mark Latham, moved an amendment to the law to stop patent holders protecting their rights.
Under the amendments parliament agreed to, if a pharmaceutical patent holder enforces their rights against infringing patents they must determine whether they have ''reasonable prospects of success''.
If the court deems the patent holder didn't think they did the court can award a penalty of up to $10 million.
Considering the subjective nature of interpreting ''reasonable prospects of success'' the penalty is extreme. In comparison, a mischievous patent infringer who is found to have been misleading in the same proceedings can be fined only $110,000.
The Latham amendments were not good policy at the time and are now undermining Australia's attractiveness as a centre of innovation.
But the Latham amendments are not alone. Many non-pharmaceutical inventions enjoy the full commercial potential of the patent term. But pharmaceuticals are required to demonstrate efficacy and safety of their products before they can be sold. In addition to placing huge commercial costs, doing so also eats into their patent life.
By the time they reach commercialisation, pharmaceuticals normally have only half a patent life remaining. The reduction in the patent life is so egregious that governments provide for a limited pharmaceutical patent extension period at the back-end of the patent for up to five years.
But at the front-end new regulations are regularly added, by parliament and the Therapeutic Goods Administration, that eat into the patent life.
The 2006 OECD Science, Technology and Industry Outlook found that a mature IP system was ranked as the second most important consideration for the location of research and development in developed countries.
Carr should take the opportunity the Cutler Innovation report provides and fix the barriers to investing in an innovative Australian pharmaceuticals industry.
Tim Wilson is Director of the IP and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs
Ends
How to halt progress
Article published in the Pioneer (India) on Monday, 1st September 2008
The article appears below, or a PDF of the page can be found here.
More than a hundred countries met in Accra last week in negotiations for a new climate change agreement after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Understandably, developing countries refused to sacrifice economic growth in order to cut emissions, so they want new low-carbon technology.
India, China and a variety of pressure groups have been campaigning for "compulsory licences" on low-carbon and renewable-energy technology, saying the developed countries are to blame for climate change and should underwrite the alleged solutions.
This will destroy any incentive to develop new inventions. Developing countries should instead remove the tariffs and other barriers that they impose on their own people and that increase prices dramatically.
Mr D Raja, the Environment Minister, has said he wants an agreement "paralleling" what he calls "the successful agreement on compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals," which has undermined supply, quality and trade.
Some even claim patents confer a monopoly that reduces competition and stops downward pressure on prices. But patents are not a monopoly on a market, they are an exclusive right over a specific product. Patents on existing products do not in any way prevent the development of other inventions.
Without the property rights that patents confer, many inventions that cost millions of dollars to develop can be copied. So without patents there are no incentives for investors and innovators to spend time and money researching and developing new technology. This is especially counter-productive as low-carbon technology is still in its infancy and requires high investment for the next level of innovation.
The low-carbon or "renewable" inventions that would be undermined by removing patent rights include wind turbines, clean coal, solar panels and fluorescent lamps.
A 2007 United Nations Development Programme study found compulsory licensing of low-carbon technologies would directly reduce investment. Similarly, a World Bank report from the same year found that weak Intellectual Property regimes act as a barrier to the transfer of low-carbon technology, meaning that patent owners are reluctant to transfer their technology to countries that do not respect patents and other property rights.
Attacking patents is a distraction when there are policies that require greater attention. For example, the top 15 greenhouse-gas-emitting developing countries impose hefty tariffs and other trade barriers that can drastically increase prices on "green" technology they claim is essential.
Zambia and Egypt have tariffs on solar panels at 30 per cent and 32 per cent respectively. In Nigeria, barriers against 'clean coal' technology add 160 per cent to the final product cost. In Egypt, the extra cost on fluorescent lamps is 87 per cent, in the Philippines 93 per cent, in Brazil 96 per cent and a staggering 102 per cent in India.
The egregious extent of tariffs and other barriers on low-carbon technologies has prompted the United States and the European Union to propose an Environmental Goods and Services Agreement in the World Trade Organisation, to encourage the transfer of technology. But since the collapse of the Doha Round last month, that seems unlikely.
By ignoring these self-imposed barriers, the anti-patent campaign is gaining traction because it is always more attractive to blame someone else.
That spells bad news for the poor. Companies that invest in low-carbon technology are dependent on capital to develop new products. If patents are waived investors will not see returns and the funding for new technology will dry up.
Forget patents: Governments in poor countries can make newer, cheaper and more efficient low-carbon technology available now by dropping their self-harming trade barriers.
Ends
August 2008 | ^Top^
Attacking patents is a way to halt progress on climate accord
Article published in the China Post (Taiwan) on Friday, 29th August 2008
The article appears below, or a PDF of the page can be found here.
A hundred countries are meeting in Accra this week in negotiations for a new climate change agreement after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Understandably, developing countries refuse to sacrifice economic growth in order to cut emissions, so they want new low-carbon technology.
India, China and a variety of pressure groups are campaigning for "compulsory licenses" on low carbon and renewable-energy technology, saying the developed countries are to blame for climate change and should underwrite the alleged solutions.
"The developed countries should get off the backs of India and China. Instead, they should help India and China move towards a low carbon economy with technology and finance," said Rajendra Pachauri, the (Indian) head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in July this year.
Shri Raja, the Indian Environment Minister, wants an agreement "paralleling" what he calls "the successful agreement on compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals," which has undermined supply, quality and trade.
This will destroy any incentive to develop new inventions. Developing countries should instead remove the tariffs and other barriers that they impose on their own people and that increase prices dramatically.
Some even claim patents confer a monopoly that reduces competition and stops downward pressure on prices. But patents are not a monopoly on a market, they are an exclusive right over a specific product. Patents on existing products do not in any way prevent the development of other inventions.
Without the property rights that patents confer, many inventions that cost millions of dollars to develop can be copied. So without patents there are no incentives for investors and innovators to spend time and money researching and developing new technology. This is especially counter-productive as low-carbon technology is still in its infancy and requires high investment for the next level of innovation.
The low-carbon or "renewable" inventions that would be undermined by removing patent rights include wind turbines, clean coal, solar panels and fluorescent lamps.
A 2007 United Nations Development Program study found compulsory licensing of low-carbon technologies would directly reduce investment. Similarly, a World Bank report from the same year found that weak Intellectual Property regimes act as a barrier to the transfer of low-carbon technology, meaning that patent owners are reluctant to transfer their technology to countries that do not respect patents and other property rights.
Attacking patents is a distraction when there are policies that require greater attention. For example, the top 15 greenhouse-gas-emitting developing countries impose hefty tariffs and other trade barriers that can drastically increase prices on "green" technology they claim is essential.
Zambia and Egypt have tariffs on solar panels at 30% and 32% respectively. In Nigeria, barriers against "clean coal" technology add 160% to the final product cost. In Egypt, the extra cost on fluorescent lamps is 87%, in the Philippines 93%, in Brazil 96% and a staggering 102% in India.
The egregious extent of tariffs and other barriers on low-carbon technologies has prompted the United States and the European Union to propose an Environmental Goods and Services Agreement in the World Trade Organization, to encourage the transfer of technology. But since the collapse of the Doha Round last month that seems unlikely.
By ignoring these self-imposed barriers, the anti-patent campaign is gaining traction because it is always more attractive to blame someone else. That spells bad news for the poor. Companies that invest in low-carbon technology are dependent on capital to develop new products. If patents are waived investors will not see returns and the funding for new technology will dry up.
Forget patents: Governments in poor countries can make newer, cheaper and more efficient low-carbon technology available now by dropping their self-harming trade barriers.
Ends
Tariffs, not patents, hurt low-carbon innovation
Article published in the South China Morning Post on Friday, 29th August 2008
The article appears below, or a PDF of the page can be found here.
A hundred countries are meeting in Accra, Ghana, this week in negotiations for a new climate change agreement after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. Understandably, developing countries refuse to sacrifice growth to cut emissions, so they want new low-carbon technology.
India, China and a variety of pressure groups are campaigning for "compulsory licences" on low-carbon and renewable-energy technology, saying developed nations are to blame for climate change and should underwrite the alleged solutions.
"The developed countries should get off the backs of India and China. Instead, they should help India and China move towards a low-carbon economy with technology and finance," Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian economist and environmental scientist who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said last month.
Shri Raja, the Indian environment minister, wants an agreement "paralleling" what he calls "the successful agreement on compulsory licensing of pharmaceuticals", which has undermined supply, quality and trade.
This will destroy any incentive for invention. Developing countries should instead remove their tariffs and other barriers that increase prices dramatically.
Some even claim patents confer a monopoly that reduces competition and stops downward pressure on prices. But patents are not a monopoly, they are an exclusive right over a specific product. Patents on existing products do not in any way prevent the development of other inventions.
Without the property rights that patents confer, many inventions that cost millions of dollars to develop can be copied. So, without patents, there are no incentives for investors and innovators to spend time and money researching and developing new technology. This is especially counterproductive as low-carbon technology is in its infancy and requires high investment to take it to the next level.
The low-carbon or "renewable" inventions that would be undermined by removing patent rights include wind turbines, clean coal, solar panels and fluorescent lamps.
A UN Development Programme study last year found compulsory licensing of low-carbon technologies would directly reduce investment. Similarly, a World Bank report found that weak intellectual property regimes act as a barrier to the transfer of low-carbon technology.
Attacking patents is a distraction when there are policies that require greater attention. For example, the top 15 greenhouse-gas-emitting developing countries impose hefty tariffs and other trade barriers that can drastically increase prices on "green" technology they claim is essential.
Zambia and Egypt have tariffs on solar panels at 30 per cent and 32 per cent, respectively. In Nigeria, barriers against "clean coal" technology add 160 per cent to the final product cost.
In Egypt, the extra cost on fluorescent lamps is 87 per cent, in the Philippines, 93 per cent, in Brazil 96 per cent and 102 per cent in India.
The egregious extent of tariffs and other barriers on low-carbon technologies has prompted the United States and the European Union to propose an environmental goods and services agreement in the World Trade Organisation, to encourage the transfer of technology. But, since the collapse of the Doha Round last month, that seems unlikely.
By ignoring these self-imposed barriers, the anti-patent campaign is gaining traction; it is always more attractive to blame someone else.
That spells bad news for the poor. Companies that invest in low-carbon technology are dependent on capital to develop new products. If patents are waived, investors will not see returns and the funding for new technology will dry up.
Forget patents: governments in poor countries can make newer, cheaper and more efficient low-carbon technology available by dropping their trade barriers.
Ends
Protecting industry in carbon plan may be illegal
Quoted extensively in an article by Tracy Sutherland in the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday, 27th August 2008
The federal government's proposed emissions trading scheme ignores the plight of import-exposed industries but imposing a tax on imports to protect them would be illegal under global trade rules, the freemarket think tank the Institute of Public Affairs says.
The government's green paper on the model for an ETS proposes giving free permits to emissions-intensive, trade-exposed industries. Some trade experts fear this could amount to an illegal subsidy under trade laws.
These concerns and the implications of other countries imposing ''green border'' taxes to protect local manufacturers have sparked calls for the government to examine the issues in more detail.
The director of the institute's freetrade unit, Tim Wilson, said the government's proposed free permits would be used ''almost entirely by export-exposed industries''.
''Just about every firm is import-exposed in some way but they're not getting free credits,'' he said. Of the emissions-intensive, trade-exposed sectors identified by the government as qualifying for free permits, Australia's chemicals and cement industries are among the most vulnerable to cheap imports.
However, Trade Minister Simon Crean and his coalition counterpart, Ian Macfarlane, have ruled out implementing a green border tax.
The European Union and the United States are debating the implications of implementing such a measure.
''A lot of import-exposed industries may not be emissions-intensive but will have to pass on increased costs through higher prices - the only way to help them is through carbon tariffs [green border tax],'' Mr Wilson said.
Under World Trade Organisation rules, a green border tax could be imposed at the same rate as the equivalent cost imposed on domestic industry by an ETS.
But Mr Wilson said that because the price of the emissions permits would fluctuate, the level of any green border tax would also have to - something that was illegal under global trade rules.
''The ETS means the price of the carbon credit will fluctuate. You can't have a floating tariff, a border tariff can't fluctuate - it's illegal under WTO rules,'' he said.
Critics of a green border tax in Australia also point to the administrative complexities involved in measuring the amount of carbon in each imported product, before imposing a tariff on it.
Mr Wilson also raised concerns about the impact of an ETS on domestic industry if the Australian scheme began in 2010, while the next Kyoto commitment period does not begin until 2012, when it is hoped a global ETS could start.
''There is a two-year window where Australian business will be exposed. A lot of damage can be done in two years,'' Mr Wilson said.
Ends
Climate talks should focus on removing low-carbon tech tariffs, Australian report says
Extensively quotedin an article on AfricaScienceNews.com on Wednesday, 20th August 2008
"UN Climate Change Talks commencing in Accra, Ghana tomorrow should focus on removing tariff and non-tariff barriers on low-carbon technologies, not patents", Tim Wilson, Director of the Intellectual Property (IP) and Free Trade Unit at the Institute of Public Affairs, said today.
Wilson's comments coincide with the release of the new paper - Undermining mitigation technology: compulsory licensing, patents and tariffs.
The paper is the world's first comprehensive paper bringing together the international debate on intellectual property rights, notably patents, on low-carbon technology.
"Research shows developing countries are pushing for an international agreement to compulsory license (waive patents) low-carbon technologies in line with the agreement on pharmaceuticals", Mr Wilson said.
The report now sounds an alarm and says the incentives to develop the technologies to reduce global CO2 emissions are being undermined. Internationally, a campaign is being run to undermine the intellectual property that incentivisesresearch and development on CO2 mitigation technologies.
These technologies are vital to assist developing and developed countries to reduce their CO2 emissions based on their commitments ininternational treaties.
"Developing countries want patents removed because they have been conned into thinking patents cause the price of new technologies to rise. In fact of the top 15 greenhouse gas emitting developing countries the real barrier to making low-carbon technologies affordable is high tariffs and non-tariff barriers in excess of 165 per cent".
NGOs and developing countries are now advocating for amendments to the WTO's intellectual property rules (the TRIPS Agreement) to allow for compulsory licensing of CO2 mitigation technologies.
Compulsory licensing allows for the property rights to be waived on patented inventions and the commercial return they provide. Without the commercial return there is no incentive for investors to fund research and development into new technology.
The campaign to undermine incentives for new research and development is not without precedent.Advocates are using the successful campaign to compulsory license essential medicines under the TRIPS Agreement as precedent.
They are also advocating for the issue to be debated and includedin the next agreement out of the UNFCCC process scheduled to be completed in Copenhagenin 2009.
By promoting compulsory licensing NGOs and developing countries are claiming that technology will become more accessible.
"Numerous studies including by the World Bank, the International Energy Agency and the Stern Report show patent rights are not a core barrier to transfer of low-carbon technology into developing countries". "The low-carbon technology industry is very much in its infancy. Removing the patent rights for new low-carbon technology will ensure investment will quickly dry up. Worse, existing investors may never see a return on their investment".
The research shows that the campaign against patent rights is being led by the Government of India, with the support of numerous other developing countries.
"Removing patents will simply undermine the development of new low-carbon technologies. Everyone loses. Patents are vital to create the incentives for investors to fund research and development in new technology". "Why would anyone invest in technologies with high, up-front costs when patent rights are expected to be removed?" Mr Wilson said.
"Investors should be wary. If developing countries have their way the low-carbon green goose may not lay golden eggs", Mr Wilson said.
Ends
Undermining Mitigation Technology - Compulsory licensing, patents and tariffs
Paper published on Wednesday, 20th August 2008
Undermining mitigation technology - Compulsory licensing, patents and tariffs, August 2008
Ends
Wong toes party line
Mentioned in an article in Melbourne Community Voice on Wednesday, 6th August 2008
Openly lesbian Labor MP Penny Wong has angered gay marriage advocates.
Comments about same-sex marriage made last week by Federal Labor MP, Penny Wong, the Minister for Climate Change and Water, have outraged gay rights activists.
Wong, a lesbian, appeared as a panelist on the ABC TV program Q&A last Thursday, July 31, alongside Shadow Treasurer Malcolm Turnbull, and openly gay Melbourne man Tim Wilson, representing the Institute of Public Affairs.
The program allows its audience to question the panelists directly. One such question, put to Turnbull and Wong, asked whether they personally supported their party's respective stances on same-sex marriage.
Turnbull stated that he personally believed marriage was a union between a man and a woman; Wong also toed the party line with her response.
"We made it clear as a party that we would not look at gay marriage; we would recognise the fact that marriage is a heterosexual institution," she said.
After an additional question by the program's host, Tony Jones, Wong went on to say, "My view is that I'm a member of the party. The party has a very clear view, and that is a view that is supported, let's be frank, by the vast majority of Australians."
Tim Wilson then suggested Wong's public stance was at odds with her private beliefs.
"I find it really frustrating that within the party room you may very well be vocal, but when you come out here you take this position; the public respects that people can have different opinion from their party but it doesn't seem that you are allowing that," Wilson said.
"My view is that frankly that is where most of the community is at … most Australians still regard marriage in the way I have described, and the Labor Party respects that," Wong replied.
This week, Wilson told MCV he thought Wong's response "weak", and that "she was clearly uncomfortable with someone taking her to task on the issue".
He also refuted Wong's claim that the "vast majority of Australians" are opposed to same-sex marriage.
"There is a small majority and that's withering away every day," Wilson stated.
A 2007 survey backs up Wilson's claim. The poll, conducted by the grass roots political lobby group Get Up, found that 57 per cent of Australians supported same-sex marriage.
Wong's comments came shortly before the National Day of Action, held last Sunday, August 3, commemorating the impending anniversary of the Howard Government's 2004 ban on same-sex marriage.
Co-convener of the Victorian Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby (VGLRL) Stephen Jones said the Lobby was "disappointed by Ms Wong's comments, and the blatant inaccuracies that Australian society rejects same-sex marriage".
"Sunday's event showed there is stronger public acceptance than is perceived by political representatives," he told MCV.
Mainstream media coverage of the issue was welcomed by the VGLRL, Jones added, as it portrayed same-sex couples as deserving of gay marriage.
Activist Rodney Croome said it was a badly-kept secret that behind closed doors, "Wong is a strong advocate [for same-sex marriage], and that Wong is bound by cabinet solidarity".
"It's not the people against same-sex marriage, it's the government," Croome concluded.
Ends
Wong stance challenged
Mentioned in an article in BNews on Wednesday, 6th August 2008
Senator Penny Wong was under fire this week for standing by the Labor party's continual refusal to allow gay marriage.
The openly gay senator was taken to task on the ABC's open forum program, Q&A, with host Tony Jones challenging Wong over civil unions by asking, "is it enough for you?"
Wong responded said she believed the government has done what it said it would in removing sexuality discrimination and recognising same-sex relationships.
"We made it clear as a party that we would not look at gay marriage, we would recognise the fact that marriage is an heterosexual institution, but what we did say and what we have done... is to deal with the discrimination issue," Wong said.
"It's not where you want to be, is it?" Jones responded.
"My view is that I'm a member of the party, the party's got a very clear view and that is a view that is supported, let's be frank, by the vast majority of Australians."
Director at the Institute of Public Affairs, Tim Wilson, challenged Wong, asking what she had done inside the party room to advocate for an alternate position on same-sex marriage.
"There's two gay people on this panel, you and I, and I find it very frustrating that within your party room you may very well be vocal, but when you come out here you defend that position. It's okay to have a different opinion from your party. I think the public respects that people have different perspectives from time to time," Wilson said.
Green's Senator Sarah Hanson-Young said Wong was out of touch with the view of the majority of Australians, citing a poll in The Age this year which showed 79% of respondents support gay marriage.
"The community is way ahead of the old parties when it comes to this issue. Australia is ready to honour the basic human right of allowing adults to marry whomever they love, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation."
Ends
A tale of two pollies
Mentioned in an article by Tim Duggan on samesame.com.au on Friday, 1st August 2008
The Labor Party may be projecting a unified front regarding their refusal to allow same-sex marriages, but it seems things are a lot more heated behind closed Parliamentary doors.
Speaking on 2DayFM yesterday morning, the Prime Minister was questioned directly by gay newsreader Geoff Field. "Mr Rudd, I don't want to be rude to you," said Geoff, "but can I just put this to you, while Jason [my partner] and I are not legally allowed to marry that makes us second class citizens. Do you get how we feel?"
"It's important that everyone's relationships are treated with respect," Rudd trotted out, "Marriage is a particular type of relationship… Our position is that marriage is between a man and a woman. I don't mean any disrespect to same sex relationships."
Blah, blah, blah - we've heard this nonsensical argument many times before. Rudd says that he wants to remove all discrimination against same sex couples with one breath, and with the other says "except marriage - we want that to ourselves."
So it was very interesting when Penny Wong, Kevin Rudd's openly lesbian right hand woman, was on a panel on ABC's Q&A last night.
Referring to marriage as a "heterosexual institution", she was quizzed by host Tony Jones over whether civil unions were acceptable: "Is it enough for you?"
Penny fumbled her way through an answer.
"It's not where you want to be, is it?"
"My view is that I'm a member of the party, the party's got a very clear view and that is a view that is supported, let's be frank, by the vast majority of Australians."
Tim Wilson, another openly gay panel member from the Institute of Public Affairs, would not take this for an answer. "But what have you done, Penny Wong, from inside the party to advocate for an alternate position?" Wilson said. "There's two gay people on this panel, you and I, and I find it very frustrating that in your party room you may very well be vocal, but when you come out here you defend it. It's okay to have a different opinion form your party. I think the public expects that people have different perspective from time to time."
"I've been in parliament now for six years and I've put my view forward on a whole range of issues in the party room," replied Wong. "We do that in parliament, we put a range of views and then we come to a particular decision. My view is that frankly that's where most of the community is at. It may not be where you are… but most Australians still regard marriage in the way I've described and the Labor Party accepts that."
Despite towing the party line, it sounds like there were indeed some pretty heated discussions behind closed doors in Parliament.
Come on Penny, it's time for you to come out and tell us what you really believe.
Ends
Flawed focus drove Doha to collapse
Article published in ABC News Online Opinion on Friday, 1st August 2008
The Doha Development Round is in a deep, deep coma. A lot of excuses will be made for a failure to reach agreement. But the real problem is that the round stopped focusing on the World Trade Organisation's primary purpose - trade liberalisation.
The round was launched shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks to provide certainty to the underlying framework of the global economy. The spirit of that moment called for the outcome of the meeting to be coined the Doha 'Development' Agenda.
The issue of development became central to WTO agenda to seek maximum cooperation from developing countries and to secure a big commitment to liberalise to help lift millions out of poverty.
The WTO is designed to secure reciprocal reductions in trade barriers. To prioritise 'development' objectives trade ministers agreed to "less than full reciprocity" in reducing tariff barriers by developing countries.
In essence, it gave developing countries the policy space to liberalise less than developed countries.
The goal of the WTO is to "improve the welfare of the peoples of the member countries". To achieve this goal the WTO is one instrument, with one purpose - trade liberalisation.
Structurally designing the round around 'development' through less than full reciprocity doomed it from the beginning. Doing so undercut the objective of achieving progressive liberalisation.
Securing an outcome in the WTO requires trade ministers to agree to a liberalisation package deal. By minimising the obligations on developing countries to cut tariffs, the round has limited the political flexibility developed countries need to secure an agreement.
In the US, the heavily protectionist Democratic Congress was not going to accept a big commitment to liberalise if developing countries were not going to reciprocate at an equivalent rate. The elevation of Nicholas Sarkozy to the rotating EU Presidency guaranteed the same attitude in Europe.
And ultimately the focus on 'development', not trade liberalisation, has been what has brought the round down.
As recent as last Friday it looked as though a breakthrough had been secured to move the Doha Round forward. The deal was between the EU, US and Brazil on a less than reciprocal reduction of developing country industrial tariffs against developed country agriculture subsidies.
But India and China wanted more 'development' policy space through the right to enact temporary tariff increases to protect local producers from a sudden influx of cheap agriculture imports.
China and India's demand was essentially about prioritising perceived 'development' interests ahead of trade liberalisation.
Doing so undermines any deal that can be struck. It is for this reason that there is resistance to include other sensitive policy priorities, such as labour and environmental standards, in the WTO. Their inclusion would make negotiating a deal almost impossible and shift its focus away from the organisation's core purpose.
China and India's position also ignores the reality of trade liberalisation. Too many developing countries still believe that erecting tariff barriers and providing subsidies to help infant industries is good for their economy. Doing so stops countries from getting the best value for their scarce capital and builds a false foundation for their industries to grow from.
Nothing will be achieved in the WTO for at least a few years and willing liberalisers are likely to increase their focus on liberalisation bilateral agreements. But this will be a poor outcome.
Bilaterals are good for reducing tariffs and barriers for cross-border trade in services. But they fail to address many of the most egregious protectionist measures, such as agriculture subsidy programs. Reducing subsidies programs can only come through pressure in multilateral trade negotiations.
Similarly, many bilateral agreements are hard on rhetoric and weak on substance. Many do not cover all areas of trade and often exclude any sensitive sectors. Trade ministers have found it too easy to place any sensitive issue in the 'too hard basket'.
And that is the tragedy of the Doha Round. Without a focus on 'development', developing countries would have seen an increase in their share of global trade through a reduction in subsidy programs and reductions in their own tariff barriers.
Much of the gains from the Doha Round could still be secured by developing countries through unilateral reductions in tariff barriers. The World Bank has estimated that if developing countries removed agriculture tariff barriers they would be US$110 billion better off. But it is unlikely they are going to take the lead.
In the absence of a WTO agreement or unilateral liberalisation their economies will stagnate with limited export-led opportunities for growth. And to survive least developed countries will still be dependent on the international equivalent of the soup kitchen - foreign aid
Ends
July 2008 | ^Top^
Money and trees - the green stuff
Appearnace on ABC1 TV's 'Q&A' program on Thursday, 31st July 2008
I was a little honoured and gobsmacked to be asked to appear on ABC1's Q'&A'. The program is generally reserved for elite opinion makers. The episode I was on included Minister for Climate Change and Water, Penny Wong, Shadow Treasurer, Malcolm Turnbull, Former Australian of the Year, Tim Flannery and Chair of Harris Farm Markets and former Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, Catherine Harris. For some reason I was also invited. It went well and the feedback was overwhelming. I've never got so much positive email, phone calls, SMS' etc from the general public. And I'm reliably informed my final comment stole the show. The video can be viewed here.
Ends
No
Doha deal better than a dud one
Article published in The Australian on Friday, 25th July 2008
Free trade remains in Australia's best interests. This week trade ministers
descended on Geneva for negotiations to try to break the deadlock in
the Doha Round of World Trade Organisation negotiations. But if a good
deal cannot be reached, no deal would be better than a bad deal.
The present bottleneck in negotiations surrounds the preparedness of
the US and European Union to cut deep into their agriculture subsidies.
In exchange they want developing countries, led by India and Brazil,
to reduce their tariffs on industrial goods.
But if a deal is struck in the next week it is likely to be short, because
commitments to liberalise will be low. In particular, the US and EU
are likely to give little and developing countries will reciprocate.
Poor negotiating positions by the US and EU are driven by domestic politics
and demonstrate why politicians should be kept away from trade policy.
At the last mid-term elections protectionist Democrats took control
of the US Congress. As a result, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab
has her hands tied. For political and protectionist reasons the Congress
is unlikely to agree to a trade deal that would provide outgoing President
George W. Bush with a moral victory.
And the official campaign for the US presidency has begun. Lurking in
the shadows is the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency. To date Obama's
trade positions have pandered to ignorant anti-trade populism. But at
least the US problems are cyclical. The problems of securing a deal
from the EU were entirely avoidable.
On July 1, French President Nicolas Sarkozy took on the rotating presidency
of the EU. Following his accession he launched a tirade against the
EU's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, and his commitments to end
export subsidies and reduce production subsidies.
As Mandelson admitted, Sarkozy's attacks make his job harder. Because
of Sarkozy's attacks it is now unclear what the EU negotiating position
is and what Mandelson can commit to.
Negotiating a successful round is being bookended by difficulties. The
prospect of a global economic slowdown is also likely to cause a retreat
to protectionism in the US and EU. Populist politicians are likely to
blame lost jobs on off-shoring and cheap Chinese labour. However, there
remains a slim chance it could be a wake-up call. With scarcer funders
the US and EU governments might finally realise the excesses of their
subsidy programs.
All these factors make the successful conclusion of the Doha Round in
the next week unlikely. And that might be good news for Australia.
Core gains for Australia from the round stem from agricultural subsidy
cuts. Only deep cuts meet our interests. And beneath the surface of
the main negotiating issues are two concerning proposals.
In the committee dealing with intellectual property, the TRIPS Council,
there are negotiations to expand the mandatory scope of geographic indications.
GIs are a questionable form of intellectual property that allows only
select products to be branded based on their geographic origin.
Under present rules special GI status is provided for wines and spirits.
The EU wants to push it into agriculture. The risk is Australia would
no longer be able to export cheeses under their common names -- parmesan
and cheddar -- like we cannot export Australian champagne.
Developing countries are also championing amended intellectual property
rules related to the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity. These
changes would nationalise genetic resources, introduce international
regulations on how to distribute commercial gains from innovation and
increase the cost of innovation.
The consequence would be to remove the commercial incentives for the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to prospect for new medicines
and treatments.
Boosting the pharma and biotech sectors has been made central to the
Government's innovation review. They may find their efforts are undercut
in the WTO.
The EU has already stated they expect their GIs proposal included in
the text of the final round. In a text circulated last week the EU and
developing countries have joined in alliance to support each other's
intellectual property reforms.
The consequences of the proposed amendments to international intellectual
property rules have not been fully considered. Their inclusion is premature
and dangerous. Unless these intellectual property reforms are offset
by deep cuts in agriculture subsidies there will be few gains for Australia
from the round.
It looks as if the best outcome for Australia from the WTO is to wait
and pray. France's EU presidency will end and there is hope Republican
candidate and staunch free trader John McCain will be elected the next
US president. If these things happen negotiations are much more likely
to meet our interests. There is a need to finish this round. But, for
Australia, no deal remains better than a bad deal.
Ends
Moral
maze
Mentioned in the Sun Herald on Sunday, 20th July 2008
HOWEVER cynical, ideological and pathetically out-of-date it may be,
the attack by right-wing experts on fair trade just won't go away.
As most coffee drinkers know, Fairtrade and its new competitor Rainforest
Alliance are dedicated to increasing the ethical footprint of Western
consumers by encouraging them to buy products that offer a better deal
to those in the developing world who make them.
In essence, fair trade schemes ask us to pay more for things we are
told have been farmed in a sustainable way by workers protected by International
Labor Organisation conventions.
Implicit in the very project of ethical consumerism is a critique
of the way we do business when it comes to global trade, and the values
that underlie the free trade ideal. No wonder Tim Wilson, from the free
market Institute of Public Affairs, is purse lipped. In an interview
on ABC
National's Background Briefing, Wilson claimed to be worried that
consumers buying fair trade products were being "duped": "Developed
country consumers are buying these products with the expectation that
the right thing is being done by them and the developing world producers,
and that isn't always occurring."
The problems to which Wilson refers are ones that no one, most notably
Fairtrade officials and advocates, deny. Namely, that Fairtrade isn't
perfect, and that one consequence of its imperfection can be a disconnection
between what consumers are promised for the premium they pay, and what
is delivered. For example, an investigation a few years ago by Britain's
Financial Times found some fair trade farmers were not paying their
labour the legal minimum wage, though these workers were getting 25
per cent more than those picking coffee on conventional farms.
In an article on the IPA website, Wilson suggests that on the
evidence of history, such problems are without remedy. "The International
Coffee Agreement operated for most of the Cold War period to help developing
world coffee producers lift themselves out of poverty. It was a monumental
failure."
Elsewhere he contends that even if fair trade could be made to work,
there is little reason to bother, because free trade provides all the
equity and justice this world needs: "Free trade has ... worked
for many, many years now ... The fairest outcome [results] from a system
where prices are set by the marketplace."
Yeah, and pigs fly. Throughout history an unregulated market has brought
us gross disparities of wealth, corruption, child labour and sweatshops.
The IPA has long been funded by the major corporates: BHP Billiton,
Monsanto, Caltex and Gunns, to name a few. Businesses that have done
well from existing trade conditions and would like to see them roll
on. We're still waiting for Peruvian coffee-growers to fund an expert
panel. The IPA's objections to ethical consumerism are vested and ideological;
in other words, not a response to the occasional promise-reality gap
that the fair trade movement is working hard to fix.
It is easy for self-serving cynics to drain our idealism. Easy to make
us feel that however good our intentions and however much we try, there
is nothing we can do to make the world a fairer place.
Don't believe the hype. While it is neither enough nor perfect, ethical
consumerism is better than business as usual. Drink your coffee, join
the movement and keep the faith.
Ends
Radio
interview on ABC Radio National's Background Briefing on 'fair trade'
Aired on Sunday, 14th July 2008
Tim Wilson on 'fair trade'
Ends
Clubland
Quoted in The Australian Magazine on Saturday, 5th July 2008
What happens when
a night of alcohol and violence spills over into the daytime world of
office workers? Kate Legge delves into the events that led to a triple
shooting and the murder of Brendan Keilar in Melbourne last year.
Sarah Durrell's husband roused her at 6am on Monday, June 18, last year
with a mug of coffee because she's a slow starter. She showered, dressed
in a black suit and drove "bleary-eyed" along the beachfront
through bayside suburbs into Melbourne's CBD for an early meeting.
In the north of the city, John Hughes boarded a tram bound for the multi-storeyed
concrete hive, gazing out at commuters, their faces as glum as he felt
on an overcast day the wrong side of the weekend.
Wise to budget-saving tricks, Dutch tourist Paul de Waard spent the
night at Southern Cross rail terminal, waking at 7am to freshen up before
shouldering his backpack and heading towards the city's heart in search
of a McDonald's to fill up on coffee.
After nabbing a car space in Alexandra Avenue, between the Botanical
Gardens and the banks of the Yarra River, solicitor Brendan Keilar,
43, set out west towards Norton Gledhill, the legal firm where he handled
commercial property cases. Dressed in a red fleece jacket over khaki
shorts, his routine allowed for changing into a clean business shirt
and suit once he arrived on the 23rd floor of 459 Collins Street.
Eighteen-year-old clerk Natalie Galluce caught a lift into town with
her father, Carl Galluce, who, since losing his oldest daughter to meningococcal,
took no chances shepherding her sibling to the office where she worked,
processing insurance claims on the corner of William Street and Flinders
Lane.
The wave of early birds sweeping towards the intersection with briefcases,
homemade sandwiches, appointment books and lingering memories of the
weekend was about to collide with a netherworld crawling forth after
a night of partying in 24-hour licensed premises. This clash of civilisations
would kill Keilar and wound de Waard as they went to help Kaera Douglas,
a woman unable to wean herself from a dangerous man who spun out of
control in the middle of a city street on a Monday morning. The tragedy
awoke Melbourne to a subculture of alcohol and drug-fuelled violence
that has spiked assaults during weekend revelry. One stark incident
has a way of illuminating dark crevices in the landscape.
Night and day used to be different as. People partied but you didn't
see long queues snaking outside clubs at 6am. An average 55,000 patrons
pass through Melbourne's Crown Casino precinct every Friday and Saturday
night - almost as many as a Saturday football crowd at the MCG. Midnight
to dawn is no longer the graveyard shift. Downtime is obsolete. A casualised
workforce, 24hour liquor licensing, ice, speed, ecstasy and the club
scene are just some of the trends scrambling circadian rhythms.
Former Victorian premier John Cain, whose Labor cabinet deregulated
liquor licensing 20 years ago, says: "I guess we never contemplated
this culture when the laws were amended." Chief architect of the
reforms, Professor John Nieuwenhuysen, winces at the unintended consequences
but believes the increase in the number of licences from 3200 to 17,000
has spearheaded Melbourne's quest for a European-style sophistication
with its graffiti-covered laneways and vibrant mix of commercial, residential
and creative activities.
No one wants a wowser-style crackdown so the Brumby Government last
month announced a fiveyear alcohol action plan. Most controversial is
the 2am lockout curbing traffic from bar to club in and around 150 high-risk
premises. Of particular concern is the King Street strip, where the
tide of white-collar innocence crashed into wretchedness just after
8am on Monday, June 18, 2007.
ON the SUNDAY NIGHT before the mayhem, cleaners, clerks, lawyers and
finance brokers slumbered in their beds while a disparate group of dancers
and waitresses finished their shift at the Spearmint Rhino "gentlemen's
club" and propped at the bar. The King Street entrance to this
venue is stuccoed with Las Vegas-style glitz that palls by daybreak
just like Christmas tinsel turns tacky out of season. While this club
shares a postcode with the temples of capitalism, they are parallel
universes. One skips all day to the tick-tock of conference calls, meetings,
emails and laptops. The other grinds through the night to the beat of
lap dancers, music, alcohol and sometimes drugs and sex.
Like a grotesque version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the menagerie
of bottom-feeders drinking shots through the night and disappearing
into the toilets unleashed mayhem in the bitumen and glass forest when
the sun rose. The dancers have stage names - Jazz, Savannah, Brianna.
For some it's a second or third job; others come from abroad, here on
working holidays. Jazz is Marie Gamard's nom de plume. A backpacker
who'd been working at Spearmint Rhino for six months, she calls herself
an entertainer.
Performing on the podium in the VIP room around midnight that Sunday,
Gamard noticed patron Christopher Hudson, or "Huddo", in his
black adidas top, white stripes down the length of his arms, the bogan's
tuxedo. He was drinking and talking with Carly Rheinberger, who'd knocked
off after a two-hour stint strutting around as "Brianna".
She'd been a dancer at the club for a year and a half.
In the VIP club, clients must spend a minimum of $250. Hudson, 29, was
a temporary member, a privilege extended by purchasing a bottle of liquor.
The theme for Sunday was disco night. Autumn Daly-Holt, who used the
name Savannah, had given one private show and one stage performance
that evening before she joined off-duty club manager Steve Kyriacou
at the bar. His girlfriend had left early because her job in a logistics
firm started at 6am.
Daly-Holt had been working at the club for six months, dancing Wednesday,
Thursday and Friday from 6pm to 4am. She'd graduated from McKinnon Secondary
College, one of the state's best public high schools, growing up in
rural Western Australia where her father started a'70s-style alternative
school, light on discipline, big on self-expression.
The dancers were told no drugs during their shifts but they could drink
alcohol in moderation. Once they'd clocked off and changed into civilian
clothes they were supposed to leave the premises.
Asked by police to judge the level of intoxication of the others there
that night on a sliding scale of one to 10, Gamard reckoned Kyriacou
was an eight, while Daly-Holt and another waitress, Cassie Hudson, were
into the teens. "Both of them were the drunkest I have ever seen
anybody in Australia," she recalled.
Some time in the early hours of Monday morning, a senior staff member
asked Rheinberger to go home, which annoyed her because Daly-Holt was
drinking freely with Kyriacou. Rheinberger wanted to stay and hang with
Huddo, and felt she was the victim of double standards.
There was some argy-bargy over this, with Huddo trying to intervene
on Rheinberger's behalf, so that resentments had begun simmering already
when the motley troupe gathered their things about 4.30am and shifted
to Bar Code, a neighbouring dive that occupies the same building as
Spearmint Rhino.
When Rheinberger got there, she couldn't see Huddo so she rang him on
his mobile. He was in the toilets. She and Gamard banged on the doors
and found him in one for the disabled, appearing "a little agitated
and distant". Rheinberger told police she asked if he was using
drugs because she wanted some too, but he denied it. Half a long drinking
straw floated in the pan. Huddo told her that he was "off the drugs"
as he was back in training, trying to get fit again.
Everyone had been imbibing rocket fuel of one sort or another. Cassie
Hudson's police statement documents the pattern of consumption. Despite
being on antidepressants she'd downed three-quarters of a bottle of
wine before arriving at Spearmint Rhino around 10.30pm, where she tossed
back champagne shots. "I was blind drunk," she says. Not surprisingly,
she vomited. She caught a cab home to Carlton, then, realising she'd
lost her necklace, came back at 4.30am. At Bar Code she ordered Fresh
Pussies, cocktails of schnapps, vodka and cranberry juice. She saw Huddo
disappear into the toilets with Kyriacou, who had joined the crew at
Bar Code. "We knocked and kicked at the door and nobody answered.
When they came out, they both looked happy. I said, 'Excuse me, where
is the love?'"
Happy one minute, crazed the next, Huddo paraded membership of the Hells
Angels as a conversation starter. The Queenslander had no job, drove
a black Mercedes convertible, boasted more than 60 prior convictions
and was prone to violence, breaking doors or noses if someone forgot
to leave a door key out for him.
AS A RAT CRAWLS up from the sewer to pillage restaurant bins late at
night, there's a toxic underworld that thrives in certain licensed venues,
where patrons can't remember what they argued over or why they told
someone to "f..k off", where disinhibition and ugliness grow
like fungus on rotten food. Hundreds of pages of police interviews with
the patrons who congregated at Bar Code provide a peephole into this
subterranean world, the flesh on the statistical bones linking intoxication
with random atrocities and acts of aggression.
"Alcohol, alcohol, alcohol," says Professor Jon Currie, director
of Addictive Medicine and Mental Health at St Vincent's Hospital, when
I ask him whether the rise in amphetamines, ice and steroids has given
unruly behaviour a violent edge. Currie heads the Victorian advisory
council that was set up late last year to address alcohol and drug-related
injury. He points to the figures: between April and December 2007, alcohol
made up 40 per cent of drug-related events requiring ambulance attendance
in Melbourne, up a staggering 30 per cent from 2006; hospital admissions
caused by alcohol involving Victorians aged 15 to 24 are also up substantially.
"Intoxication and violence go hand in hand," says Currie.
"Intoxicated people make bad decisions. Their reflexes and judgment
are impaired. If you are still looking for an environment to be with
friends at 3am, 4am or 5am, you're often searching for trouble."
Currie might as well be describing events in Bar Code that Monday morning
as the mood grew foul. Daly-Holt had begun stripping for Kyriacou in
a seamy seduction, at one stage biting his tongue until he bled. This
sideshow was the loose thread that led to the night's unravelling, self-control
undone by alcohol, testosterone, lust. Even in dens of iniquity, there
are dos and don'ts and Daly-Holt's friskiness stirred jealousy and muttering
among women dishevelled by grog.
When Daly-Holt bared her breasts, Gamard tried to halt the exhibition
but Kyriacou brushed her aside. Rheinberger told Huddo: "Autumn
shouldn't be flirting with Steve when he has a girlfriend." Huddo
agreed with her and explained he had a sister and that he really "wouldn't
want her behaving in that manner either". DalyHolt remembers being
upset when the pair ticked her off.
The altercation overshadowed news from outside that a tow operator was
preparing to hook up Rheinberger's car as the city readied itself for
morning peak hour, when King Street becomes a clearway. Huddo offered
to go out and talk the truckie round but he was too late, the car had
gone.
Inside the bar, Daly-Holt removed her Gstring to dance naked for Kyriacou.
Egged on by Rheinberger's disapproval, Huddo strode over and pulled
the dancer by the hair in an eerie prelude to what lay ahead. The caveman
antics suggest sexual tensions in a company with scant humanity, intelligence
or reason - behaviour bordering on barbaric.
Around the corner in the Flinders Lane block of Punt Hill apartments,
26-year-old Kaera Douglas, one of the drama's main characters, was still
sound asleep. She'd told Daly-Holt on Friday she was going to a city
hotel to see a guy she'd been having sex with on and off for about three
months.
Douglas worked part-time as a travel consultant for Flight Centre, dancing
in clubs and doing modelling promotions to earn extra cash. She'd gone
to bed on Sunday morning after spending all Saturday night clubbing
with a girlfriend, and had dozed through until 6am on Monday when Huddo
sent a text message telling her to come down to Bar Code. Her initial
instinct was to stay put. Then she noticed her car keys and money were
missing.
She'd been trying to detach herself from Huddo, but he would ring and
wear her down. He'd broken her nose on two previous occasions, scaring
her so much that she once refused a ride to her brother's place because
she didn't want him knowing where her family lived. She says she wanted
to be "good" - less drinking, more gym visits - yet she couldn't
end this unhealthiest of relationships. Why she stayed with him beggars
belief.
Douglas says when Huddo contacted her that Monday morning he was "blind
drunk" but she wanted her keys back. "I couldn't leave my
car there because it would have been smashed to pieces ... I just know
what sort of person he is" - a violent man bent on satisfying his
cravings.
Moments before Douglas arrived at Bar Code, Rheinberger was sitting
with Huddo on the couch. "When he got off the phone he started
telling me something and then he crunched his phone in his hand and
broke it to pieces before throwing it across the floor," said Rheinberger.
She noticed Douglas entering: "I said hello to her and she gave
me a look, a pissed-off look."
Douglas asked Huddo for her keys and he stormed off. "I'd been
in bed all night, I'd just woken up to this disgusting zoo of people,
just repulsive," she recalled - and she's no stranger to the animals
on show, or the cage where they lounged.
Daly-Holt told police she'd had "some kind of argument" with
Huddo and vaguely recalled leaving the premises and sitting somewhere.
"I remember being approached by him and not wanting him near me,"
she said, fearful since he'd grabbed her hair. She brushed him away
"because he was invading my space" and the next thing she
felt was sharp pain.
OUTSIDE, the early-morning symphony wasin swing. Banking operations
manager Sarah Durrell clocked her car in at Crown Casino's parking station
at 8am. The 45-year-old mother of three crossed the bridge over the
Yarra and walked up King Street as Huddo emerged into the daylight carrying
the topless Daly-Holt. Durrell saw him dump the girl on the footpath
but she kept walking, one eye on what was happening, "not really
knowing what I should or could do to help". Huddo began to kick
the dancer in the face. Now running late for her breakfast meeting,
the sight of his face "white with rage" made Durrell avoid
eye contact, keeping to herself.
Every witness to this drama made a split-second decision determining
their involvement. The "what ifs" that chase sanity into the
landscape of madness haunt some of them still.
Shannon Molloy was driving to her office in Custom House Lane when she
pulled up at the lights on the corner of King Street and Flinders Lane.
"I saw him draw his foot back and kick through with what looked
like absolute force straight into the girl's face ... her whole head
and upper body went flying back onto the concrete." Molloy dialled
triple-0 on her mobile. "I was horrified by what I had seen and
I was petrified for the girl." The lights turned green and Molloy
headed for a car park as she fired details of what was unfolding to
an emergency operator. Durrell walked past Molloy weighing up her response
to a man she thought was "one angry person".
A security camera outside Bar Code recorded the assault. Homicide detective
Matthew Garbutt says it captured the most violent, vicious attack he's
seen since joining the force 15 years ago. Daly-Holt suffered a broken
nose, fractured eye sockets, chipped teeth and bruises to her skull
and face.
Inside Bar Code, brain synapses were so impaired that some patrons went
on drinking as if Huddo had crunched a paper cup rather than Daly-Holt's
cranial structure. Cassie Hudson learnt an ambulance was collecting
her co-worker but "it went in one ear and straight out the other".
No bouncers stood guard at the doors of Bar Code. Huddo walked out and
up to the corner of King Street and Flinders Lane with Kaera Douglas
following him. He grabbed her by the arm, revealing the 40-calibre handgun
down the front of his pants. "He goes, 'Walk with me' and that's
when it started," she said. "It was horrid, it was psychotic
... I couldn't believe it was happening ... he's bigger, stronger, faster
than me ... he was completely out of his mind, insane, just completely
gone ... I was trying to calm him down, saying, 'You don't have to do
this, and he's like, 'No, walk with me. You and me we're going for a
little walk', and then I wasn't walking and he goes, 'Have you forgotten
how to walk? I'll show you how, you stop and watch me. Now this is how
we walk, one foot in front of the other ... now you try it.'"
That's how they stumbled down Flinders Lane towards William Street.
On the corner of the intersection is Swann House, an elegant, 10-storey
tower striking for its old-world charm of brass door fittings, dark
wooden panelling and a carpeted foyer that houses literary enterprises
such as Text Publishing and crikey.com.au.
Huddo shoved Douglas inside the Flinders Lane entrance, spilling her
bag as he forced her down a set of stairs to the car park, pinning her
against the wall. Emmanuel Borg, the janitor, was junking armfuls of
rubbish into a skip parked in William Street when he heard screaming
and went to investigate.
All he remembers as he rounded the corner of the stairwell is Christopher
Hudson's weapon pointed between his eyes. He yelled "gun"
as he swivelled into his co-worker, who ran left into a storeroom, scaling
a one-and-a-half-metre cabinet that he couldn't have climbed without
adrenalin pulsing through his veins. Borg flew across the car park and
out into William Street. Hudson chased after Borg, giving Douglas a
chance to grope her way back upstairs to Flinders Lane, where she ran
to a taxi waiting at the lights. She tried to open the back door, then
the front door, but they were locked.
Nearby at THE Southern Cross rail station, backpacker Paul de Waard
had brushed his teeth, eaten breakfast and, wearing a green hoodie,
was walking up Flinders Lane towards William Street looking for the
nearest McDonald's where he could read a newspaper and drink multiple
refills of coffee for free.
Brendan Keilar was walking west towards the crossroads. He might have
been thinking through the business appointments he'd lined up, or maybe
his thoughts were entertaining improvements to the Point Lonsdale weekender
he'd just bought with his wife, Alice, for holidays with their young
children.
John Hughes was on the tram gliding uneventfully down the Williams Street
hill. "It was a pretty dull Monday morning. Everyone was on their
way to work, no one seemed particularly keen to get there, but I remember
later the contrast between this mundane feeling as we headed into the
eye of a scene that few of us would ever imagine witnessing."
Once Huddo realised Borg had got away, he raced back upstairs and into
Flinders Lane where Douglas was wrestling with the taxi's door. He grabbed
her by the hair.
Borg watched from the foyer of 15 William Street, where he'd run for
sanctuary because he knew Huddo was armed. Douglas was petrified for
the same reason. No one else nearby had a clue the thug in the adidas
top manhandling the girl with the long hair had a weapon, and wouldn't
hesitate to use it.
De Waard crossed William Street certain the man was drunk, although
he couldn't smell alcohol fumes. "The thing that stood out about
Hudson most was that he had a mad look in his eyes," the Dutchman
recalls. "I remember the look in her eyes and she was totally frightened.
Also, her voice sounded scared. She was saying, 'Help, help.' I thought
about the recent commercials in Australia about violence against women.
I felt that I had to stop him. Then I looked around to see if there
were more people to help me."
De Waard thinks Keilar was walking with him in the same direction, but
the father of three, grey streaks in his thinning hair, was crossing
from the opposite side when he stopped halfway across William Street.
De Waard felt Keilar behind him lending support. "As we walked
towards them, I said, 'What are you doing, mate? Let her go.' I can't
remember if Brendan said anything. It all happened so quickly. I was
just trying to settle [the attacker down by talking to him. Brendan
did not physically intervene either - he was behind me."
Hughes watched the disturbance escalate from the stationary tram. He
struggled with whether to jump off and assist. "I was actually
looking around me to see if anyone else was helping. I could see Brendan
walk past. He stopped and stood for a while, watching, like all of us,
hoping it would stop by itself. When it didn't, he started to walk back
towards them. I remember thinking, 'I hope this guy's OK.'"
Keilar typified the commuter crowd, whereas Huddo's aggression telegraphed
an alien intruder. The lawyer appeared smaller, older, greyer than the
menacing Hudson. Hughes thinks Keilar's hands were by his side. Others
describe them as raised up in a questioning gesture. Borg thinks Keilar
was about halfway across William Street, only turning around to face
Hudson when the first shot was fired.
The precise chronology of who was hit first - Keilar, de Waard or Douglas
- eludes police. Witness statements tell what happened from every imaginable
angle, accuracy distorted by shades of fear, recollections blurred by
shock and panic. Hughes describes Keilar as a man reluctantly, tentatively,
reeled in to the fray: "Everything about his body language was
non-threatening. The reaction from Hudson was an extraordinary, devastating,
violent response to the mildest of interventions."
Passengers on the tram crouched on the floor as the gunfire sounded.
Natalie Galluce hid behind a pillar in front of her workplace diagonally
opposite Swann House. She was on the phone to her mother. "I heard
five or six shots ... I saw the orange flame come from the gun. I screamed
and dropped my phone and bags." Her mother, who'd already lost
a daughter, was hysterical when she rang her husband, Carl. He sprinted
from his Bourke Street office, praying as he ran, his eyes skyward,
pleading for Natalie's life.
Donna McGowan was on the first floor overlooking the intersection. She
ran downstairs and knelt beside de Waard, holding his hand, telling
him how brave he'd been. He was losing blood fast. "I saw the other
guy [Keilar gasping for breath. I watched him die."
Emergency training kicked in for nurse Coralann Walker, who leapt out
of her car to assist Keilar. "His pulse was very weak. I tried
to reassure him that he was going to be OK and stroked his hair."
She performed 20 cardiac compressions before she was relieved by paramedics
who'd converged on the scene, sirens blaring; but they were unable to
save him.
CHRISTOPHER Hudson has pleaded guilty to charges of murdering Brendan
Keilar, attempting to murder Paul de Waard and Kaera Douglas, and intentionally
causing serious injury to Daly-Holt, and awaits sentencing. He was a
conflagration in the making, his personal history littered with brawls
and weapons, drug-taking, drinking and wanton aggression, notching up
62 offences in Queensland and NSW since 2001. Six days before the Melbourne
rampage he'd fired shots into the air as he sped across the Bolte Bridge
with AFL footballer Alan Didak a passenger in his Mercedes. They'd met
at Spearmint Rhino after Didak had gone on a sevenhour post-game drinking
binge ending at 4am when the Collingwood forward accepted Huddo's lift
home via the Hells Angels clubhouse at Campbellfield.
But there's more to this singular tragedy than the smoking fuse of a
psychotic personality. The Bar Code nightclub where Hudson exploded
had attracted notoriety, too. The venue migrated to King Street in 2004
after Crown Casino bought the business out of a tenancy deal because
the gaming giant didn't like its modus operandi. Crown paid about $5
million to get rid of Bar Code and three other nightclubs from its Southbank
location, believing they bled trouble.
Crown is hypersensitive to security. For years, its management has urged
the State Government to increase uniformed policing within the Southbank
precinct at night, even offering free accommodation for a visible mobile
unit to discourage a criminal element drawn like moths to the neon glow.
Superintendent Stephen Leane heads the strategic response to public
disorder in and around high-risk licensed premises. In July last year,
he thought he'd never win the war as assaults, property damage and theft
around the city spiked at 33 offences every weekend. Twelve months later,
the average has fallen nearer 30. "We've taken the edge off it
but we've got a long way to go," he says.
New late-night liquor
licences have been frozen; a state taskforce is targeting hot-spots
to enforce compliance with existing regulations; the 2am lockout pilot
began on June 1 with nine weeks to run; police have the power to ban
troublemakers from entertainment precincts for 24 hours; and campaigns
against binge-drinking are being rolled out.
Leane says police and government are struggling with a phenomenon he
attributes to a fistful of trends from increases in disposable income
to heightened intoxication from drugs and alcohol and the sheer numbers
flocking to all-night venues.
City apartment dweller Tim Wilson , a director at the Institute of
Public Affairs, takes the bad with the good but worries at increasing
signs of disorder. "It's been getting noticeably worse for the
past year. After about 9pm the streets become a law unto themselves.
Not just drunks, but people who are out very, very late with no particular
purpose."
Paul Mullett, spokesman for the state's police association, says
nothing works so well as a uniformed presence on the street. He doubts
the lockout will solve a problem aggravated by increased drug use, and
advocates the return of a stand-alone unit to monitor licensed premises.
British chief constable Peter Neyroud, who visited Melbourne the week
young Harry Potter actor Robert Knox was stabbed to death outside a
London bar, confirms that days are as busy as nights in big cities.
When he started out decades ago, the 6am shift was a sleepy time for
doing paperwork. "Now coppers are straight out the door dealing
with drunks coming out of clubs," he said.
Borrowing a slogan from the gun lobby, liquor industry advocates insist
that alcohol doesn't kill, deranged individuals do. Peter Iwaniuk, director
of Entertainment Management Services, says: "It's a cheap shot
to blame licensed premises for the actions of Christopher Hudson."
He argues the 2am lockout "would have had no bearing whatsoever
on the tragic consequences of his actions".
But if Hudson and his crowd had been refused entry to another licensed
club that Monday morning, Brendan Keilar might have lived.
AS POLICE began containing the crime scene, news of the shooting fanned
across the city. Staff rom Norton Gledhill were concerned when their
senior partner failed to show up for his appointments. They rang the
police station to report his absence. Some time after midday, a member
of the firm accompanied Detective Daniel Ryan to the Hawthorn home of
Keilar's wife, Alice Edwards.
Perhaps she hadn't been listening to radio or television coverage, or
if she'd heard the news maybe she didn't think the unimaginable, because
she didn't seem to have any forewarning that the victim might be her
husband, her kindred spirit. Together since university, they'd married
in Scots' Church up the Paris end of Collins Street, where the European
ideal of restaurants and bars that Melbourne celebrates is a world away
from the King Street scourge at the other end of town.
A pillar of kindergarten and community, Edwards' friends doubt she's
ever been to a nightclub. She has endured her grief privately. Her brother-in-law,
Paul Firth, collected her husband's car from Alexandra Avenue that night.
Another family member identified the body. "We'll never get over
the loss," Firth says.
Other witnesses nurse scars. Galluce sleeps with her light on. She hasn't
been able to resume work and still undergoes counselling for the trauma.
Hughes says the events of June 18, 2007, are never far from his mind.
"I don't ever go by that corner without thinking about it,"
he says. "Before this incident, I'd never felt scared or threatened
going about my business. I try to rationalise it as an extremely rare
event, an isolated incident, but I know now that there are people around
who are armed and dangerous ... it's a strange thing to fear that going
about your life."
One of the last images of Brendan Keilar flickers brightly in Hughes'
memory. He can still see the solicitor stopping, turning around, borne
by a strong sense of obligation, his gentle bearing, the concern on
his face, his daily journey interrupted by a monster he could not have
fathomed in the minute before he was felled. Hughes has thought of contacting
Keilar's wife to pass on his vivid glimpse of her husband, but he hasn't,
holding on to the relic of a day she will carry with her forever.
Ends
June 2008
| ^Top^
EU's
cheese naming proposal are on the nose
Opinion article in The Australian on Wednesday, 11th June 2008
It's almost enough to make you choke on your Aussiemade camembert. The
European Union is trying to use complex intellectual property rights
rules to lock out Australia's dairy industry from export markets through
the Doha round of World Trade Organisation negotiations.
Australia's dairy industry is valued at more than $3 billion at the
farm gate, and $9.2 billion wholesale, of which more than $2.5 billion
is earned in exports.
But under the EU's proposal, Australian cheese producers may no longer
be able to use simple names like ‘‘parmesan'' or ‘‘brie''
in export markets. Cheeses at risk also include mozzarella, fetta and
many others.
At the start of the Doha round of WTO talks in 2001, participating governments
committed to negotiate an international system of registration and notification
for geographic indicators, or GIs.
GIs are a comparatively new - and very questionable - form of intellectual
property.
GIs assign rights to names that indicate the geographic origin of a
good, or a certain quality, reputation or characteristic linked to its
origin.
The regularly cited example of a GI is ‘‘champagne'' - a word
that can now be used to describe only sparkling wine from the Champagne
region of France.
The negotiation for international registration of GIs was supposed to
be limited to wines and spirits. WTO members are required to prevent
the registration of trademarks for GI-covered wines and spirits in their
home country.
The EU is now trying to extend GIs to include all agricultural products,
in particular cheese. Under the proposal, countries would have to argue
why a GI should not be registered and enforced in their territory.
The EU has deliberately designed the rules to place the burden of proof
on the protesting country, not the applicant.
For Australia, there are incentives to fight most, if not all, applications
on cheeses. But for countries that do not produce or export cheeses,
fighting a GI registration may be more effort than it is worth.
Japan, other parts of Asia, and North Africa all import cheese from
Australia. Yet it is doubtful they would bother fighting GIs on largely
imported cheeses. If they don't, Australian diary producers will no
longer be able to export those cheeses under their consumer-recognised
names.
The EU proposal is trying to claw back generic product names. In doing
so, they are also hoping to expand exports into markets where cheeses
with generic names have become commonly used.
For example, parmesan cheese has become renowned across the world for
a particular taste, not for its origins in Italy's Parma region.
The EU is trying to achieve its objective by negotiating GI extension
as part of the final WTO agreement for the Doha round, which encompasses
all areas for potential liberalisation. By doing so, the EU is trying
to use GIextension as part of the negotiation package for reducing its
agriculture export subsidies.
The risk for Australian industry is that in the haste to get a broader
agreement in the Doha round, Australian interests will be sold out.
The main event of these negotiations is reduction of European and American
agriculture subsidies and developing country industrial tariffs. GI
extension is merely a side event.
Indeed, some developing countries are now supporting the EU's GI extension
proposal in order to get support for their own amendments to WTO intellectual
property rules.
The Australian government needs to take further, strong action now to
oppose the EU's plans. Not doing so will bring a short-term political
cost. But the long-term cost will be borne by a diminished Australian
dairy industry.
Ends
Tariff
cuts do more
Opinion article in The Australian on Wednesday, 11th June 2008
KEVIN Rudd likes to project himself as the heir of the Hawke-Keating
reform agenda. But Bob Hawke and Paul Keating reformed even when it
hurt politically.
The Government's own data shows that automotive industry assistance
and tariffs are costing the economy the equivalent of almost 30,000
jobs. Rudd and Innovation Minister Kim Carr should demonstrate the same
ticker for reform by phasing out tariffs.
Last Thursday the Productivity Commission released its report into the
economy-wide modelled effects of removing automotive tariffs and support.
The commission's modelling found that the benefits could be as high
as $500 million, with most of the gains coming from removing tariffs.
The present tariff rate is 10 per cent and is scheduled to be reduced
to 5 per cent in 2010.
The commission's report coincided with the announcement by Holden it would cut 500 jobs at its Fishermans Bend plant. Following the announcement, Carr gave the strongest hint yet that the Rudd Government would act to protect jobs by freezing the tariff phase-out.
A tariff freeze would be a disaster for the Australian automotive industry and Australians generally.
The problem the industry has suffered from is that government support
has shielded it from the need to adapt to changing consumer demand.
It isn't until consumer demand collapses that the industry faces a crisis
and adapts. During the past 20 years consumer demand has shifted towards
smaller vehicles and sports utility vehicles.
Advocates of a tariff freeze believe it will protect jobs. It won't.
Instead it costs sustainable jobs in viable industries. Australian Bureau
of Statistics data demonstrates the cost to jobs caused by tariffs.
In the 1980s, tariffs were as high as 57.5 per cent and Australia exported
slightly less than $400 million worth of road vehicles.
Since then tariffs have been gradually phased down to 10 per cent.
In 2007 Australia exported $4 billion worth of road vehicles.
Rudd and Carr should let the numbers speak for themselves: higher tariffs
equal fewer exports, lower tariffs equal higher exports.
Analysis of the Government's data shows the true cost of protection.
Import duties on passenger cars and light commercial vehicles in the
2006-07 financial year totalled $1.2billion. According to the latest
ABS data, the average full-time Australian income is $57,860.40. A simple
calculation shows tariffs have cost the Australian economy the equivalent
of 20,740 jobs. Similarly, between 2001 and 2015 the industry will receive
$7.2billion of assistance through the Automotive Competitiveness and
Investment Scheme. This program amounts to about $480 million a year
in assistance. The ACIS program alone costs the equivalent of 8296 average
Australian jobs.
Advocates of tariffs will argue that losing these 30,000 jobs comes
at the expense of saving the present 61,200 jobs in the industry.
But such an argument is based on false logic. In the absence of existing
jobs, the capital used to pay their wages would be redistributed to
other sections of the economy, creating sustainable jobs elsewhere.
Government trying to protect jobs during a skills shortage is absurd.
Australia is importing labour from across the world to fill a growing
void. Yet the Government thinks it is appropriate to act to protect
jobs for workers who are in dire need in other industries.
Tariffs are also unduly cruel on those working in the industry. Temporarily
propping up jobs creates disincentives for workers to reskill and adapt
to the changing market. Instead they are encouraged to stay in their
present jobs until the industry falls apart. Then they are left high
and dry. They have only the Government's tariffs to blame.
But, ultimately, the cost of tariffs are felt by ordinary Australians.
They are the ones who have to pay higher prices for vehicles because
of tariffs.
Now the Government is going to splurge a further $35 million of taxpayer
money to subsidise Toyota to build hybrid cars in Australia. Doing so
is building an industry on false foundations. It is a symbolic measure
so Rudd can appear as if he is doing something to reduce carbon dioxide
emissions and to support jobs.
Rudd shouldn't go weak at the knees because Holden has finally cut unsustainable
jobs. When the automotive industry review's report comes to cabinet,
Rudd should prove his commitment to reform, promoting innovation and
reducing the burden on working families. He can do all of this by opposing
a tariff freeze.
Tim Wilson is director of the IP and free trade unit at the Institute
of Public Affairs.
Ends
Radio
interview on Alan Jones' 2GB radio show regarding Australia's automotive
industry and car tariffs
Aired on Thursday, 12th June 2008
Tim Wilson on the automotive industry
and car tariffs
Ends
May 2008
| ^Top^
Clubs
protestors hail tribunal victory
Quoted in a news article in the Herald Sun on Saturday, 31st May
2008
A PROTEST against Melbourne's proposed 2am lockout turned into a minor
celebration last night after news of a court victory filtered through
to the crowd.
After a slow start in Treasury Gardens in the late afternoon thousands
of party-goers and hospitality workers marched to Parliament House to
protest against the State Government's plan to lock people out of venues
after 2am in a bid to curb street violence.
The crowd cheered as news of the VCAT win was announced.
Melbourne Locked Out protest group organiser Andrew Ranger said he was
thrilled with the turnout.
"I am very happy . . . we have been flabbergasted with the response.
This shows exactly what a large bunch of people do when they get together,
that they can be responsible and not be violent," he said.
"We will not stop. We are going to keep protesting until we have
won this thing."
The 21-year-old RMIT student, who was behind last month's fare-evasion
protest, said he was not an anarchist or aligned politically, but felt
strongly about the issue.
"The lockout would shut down the industry and ruin Melbourne's
reputation as a 24-hour vibrant city, and small businesses will not
be able to survive," he said.
Melbourne DJ Grant Smillie said a 2am lockout could cause chaos on the
streets between 1am and 3am as people tried to get into venues or get
home, and could harm Melbourne's reputation abroad.
"I am lucky enough to play all the way around the world, and this
is such an international city -- a culture and lifestyle city -- and
it's a shame we have to resort to this kind of lockout. Surely there's
a better way to solve the problem," he said.
Protester and nightclub promotions organiser Jessica Mariolis, 22, said
a lockout would prevent her from going out after she finished work.
"I look after about 40 staff who all work until 2am, and if they
want to go out afterwards they are not going to want to work, because
they'll be scared of not being able to get in anywhere to see their
friends," she said.
"I don't think they've thought it through at all."
Melbourne's Tim Wilson, 28, said a lockout failed to address the
real problem of a lack of police on the streets.
"It's penalising the majority for the actions of a few. I am affected,
as some of the bars I go to close at 3am. And then I'll have nowhere
to go," he said.
Coral East, 22 of Northcote, said she was proud of Melbourne people
for protesting.
Ends
Channel
9 News on the 2am lockout
Appearing on Channel 9 news on Friday, 30th May 2008
Ends
Petrol
price promise non-core
Opinion article in The Australian on Tuesday, 27th of May 2008
KEVIN Rudd's election promise to keep petrol prices low has been exposed
as non-core. That was confirmed when Climate Change and Water Minister
Penny Wong announced that the cost of carbon credits from the forthcoming
emissions trading scheme would apply to petrol. The cost is likely to
be equivalent to doubling the GST at the bowser.
The cost of signing the Kyoto Protocol and establishing an emissions
trading scheme was always going to flow on to the price at the bowser.
The cost of the next international agreement, to be completed in Copenhagen
in 2009, is unknown but will probably only amplify the pain. And the
tax increases on petrol will flow throughout the rest of the economy
as higher transport costs increase grocery prices.
Now that he's in government, Rudd cannot deliver on his empty promises
and is drawing voter ire. The absurdity is that Rudd seems genuinely
surprised by the Opposition and the public's anger over rising petrol
prices when he promised to keep them low.
Rudd can hardly feign ignorance. In Opposition he played the same kitchen-table
politics that is being used against him to tap into voter resentment
over the rising cost of living. Further, in 2001, Treasurer Wayne Swan
led the Opposition's attack that ensured the Howard government capped
petrol excise.
Soon after coming to government, Rudd attempted to deflect attention
from his non-core promise by establishing a petrol commissioner at the
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to watch over petrol
prices. Following a naming-and-shaming of Coles Express for increasing
prices, the commissioner, Pat Walker, claimed he was helping to stop
price rises.
Walker's claim is akin to suggesting he can stare down prices. In fact,
Coles Express was merely the first petrol retailer to increase prices
that day. Its competitors followed with similar price rises later that
day. The irony is that if all the companies had increased their prices
at once, the ACCC would have complained about collusion. Petrol retailers
simply cannot win.
The Government is claiming that a petrol commissioner will help reduce
prices by having an observant watchdog that will increase transparency.
But petrol is already a highly transparent consumer product. Standard
unleaded petrol is an interchangeable product that can be bought from
any service station. As a result, consumers are able to buy petrol from
any retailer they like.
Further, petrol prices are advertised on large boards along the road.
If consumers don't like the price they see they can simply drive to
the