Forest sale will ‘axe jobs’: MP

29th May 2009
Craig Warhurst

SELLING off the State’s Forestry plantations will only axe local jobs and increase building costs, says member for Gympie David Gibson.

Labor’s ‘fire sale’ advertising now includes State-owned forests and Mr Gibson said it was quite clear Premier Bligh was willing to take an axe to regional jobs to fill ‘the black hole that is Queensland Government’s debt’.

Forestry Plantations Queensland (FPQ) has emerged as a prime candidate for privatisation as the government attempts to deal with its $14 billion debt.

FPQ manages almost 200,000 hectares of state-owned plantations and reported a net profit of $85.45 million in 2007-08.

“Why sell off government assets that generate income?” Mr Gibson asked.

A number of large industry operations in the Gympie region rely on the raw product from State-owned forests and if the plantations were to be sold, it would mean price hikes and job losses.

Hyne and Sons, Laminex and Carter Holt Harvey are main employers in the Gympie area and Mr Gibson said sawmills, trucking operations and all support services would be affected by the sale.

Queensland fuel subsidy to end, petrol cost to rise 8c

Patrick Lion

June 02, 2009

QUEENSLANDERS will pay an extra 8 cents a litre for their petrol within weeks after the government today scrapped its fuel subsidy.

Premier Anna Bligh told parliament the 8.3 cents a litre would end on July 1.

“This will bring us into line with other states in the country,” she said.

The announcement follows today’s report in The Courier-Mail that there will be a fire sale of the state’s assets.

The shortlist also includes the Abbot Point Coal Terminal near Bowen in north Queensland.

50,000 sign petition on fuel prices

2nd June 2009

AAP

JOINING some of Queensland’s most powerful lobby groups, 50,000 motorists have signed a petition opposing any change which could see fuel rise by over 9 cents a litre.

Queenslanders receive cheaper fuel thanks to a 9.2 cents a litre fuel tax rebate.

The rebate is under threat as the Queensland government seeks to fill a $14 billion hole in its budget caused by the global financial crisis.

The 50,000 signatures were gathered in a week in response to the RACQ’s online petition, lending weight to major industry groups opposing the axing of the rebate including AgForce, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Queensland, Motor Trades Association of Queensland and the Queensland Trucking Association.

RACQ ‘s general manager for external relations Gary Fites said the response to the motoring organisation’s petition indicated strong support across the community for retaining the fuel subsidy.

Mr Fites said that, combined with increases in vehicle registration fees of 17 to 22 per cent from July 1, removing the long standing subsidy would cost most Queensland families several hundred dollars a year.

4BC News Talk

The US securities commission
Posted by: Michael Smith | 20 May, 2009 - 11:36 AM

Our state Treasurer will shortly deliver his budget for next financial year.

A budget is an informed guesstimate about the state’s expected income and expenses for the year coming. I think actual, recorded results give a much better view of how well a government is managing.

This is Treasurer Fraser’s 2007-08 Report on State Finances. You might want to think twice about opening it. It’s 110 pages long and a bit impenetrable. http://www.treasury.qld.gov.au/office/knowledge/docs/state-finances/2007-08/state-finances-report-2007-08.pdf

It tells us that in the boom financial year of 2007/08 he delivered a deficit of $1.6 KEV*. That is a profit-and-loss result of negative $1.6 KEV*. His government also spent $5 KEV* more cash than it brought in. That’s as a result of its capital works program not being managed to budget. In other words, it blew its budget badly.

Treasurer Fraser explains that away with this magnificent piece of Sir Humphrey-ism. Get ready. It’s superb. Here it is, a direct quote from page 4.01.

‘Capital Purchases in the General Government sector exceeded the estimated actual forecast due to a lower level of under expenditure than anticipated.’

That one is going in a frame on the wall.

OK, that’s one thing. The government’s total debt as at 30 June 2008 is the really scary number.

The financial disclosure laws in the United States are pretty comprehensive. Queensland’s Treasury Corporation raises money in the United States. So our government has to produce financial reports for the US Securities and Exchange Commission that meet US reporting requirements.

And that’s great, because the resulting financial statement is much, much easier to read than the one that the Government puts out here.

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/852555/000119312508251662/dex99e.htm

That document shows clearly that as at 30 June, 2008, Queensland’s state debt was $41.796 KEV*. We owed $42 KEV*. And that was as a result of the good times. God knows how much that’s grown in the 12 months since then.

$42 KEV*. I’ll write it out. $42,000,000,000.00.

There are currently 2,236,800 people in the work-force in Queensland as at April, 2009

http://www.skillsinfo.gov.au/NR/rdonlyres/61119D9B-B470-426E-BA9B-E6584E8308FD/0/QLD_Labour_Force_Summary_200904.doc

On that basis, each working person in Queensland owed $18,776.80 as at 30 June last year. We’ve been paying the interest load on that money all year.

Not Federal debt. Not personal debt. That’s debt owed by the state government of Queensland. Now you can add in your share of the $300 KEV that Kev’s borrowing as well.

Before we pay for one copper, one nurse, one doctor. It’s like each of us having a $18,700 credit card balance to finance every month before we can buy the groceries.

Happy with your election choice? There will come a time when a sensible economic manager in this state will need to relieve us of the burden of the interest payments. That will mean asset sales in rail, power stations, ports and anything else that’s not bolted down. The people who are in power at the time will cop it for that - but make no mistake - the reason we’ll have to do it is because of the shocking mismanagement of the boom times.

This state really did deserve better.

* a $KEV is the unit of AUD currency formerly known as $1 Billion.

For more information

Privatisations are not simply fire sales of National Assets, they are theft of Public Assets, occurring in the following partial list….

Financial… Banks, Insurances, The Mint, TABCorp.
Energy… Electricity, SEC, Gas & Fuel, Hydro Generators, Snowy River Scheme.
Health… Hospitals, Pathology, Ambulance Services
Transport… Rail, Tram, Buses, Roads, Ports, Wharves, GEB, VicRoads, Airlines, Airports, Government Vehicles.
Sundry assets of… Plantations, Parklands, Cemetaries, Prisons, Smelters, MMBW,Water Boards, Schools.
Communications… PMG or Post Master Generals Dept, Telstra, Australia Post

John Brumby summed it up well when he wrote the following in 1995…

“The SEC is a valuable and profitable asset paid for and owned by Victorians. It is held in trust by the Government for present and future Australians. Each year, after servicing it’s debts, it pays a dividend of over $250 million [actually $314 million for 1993/94 ]to the people of Victoria.

These dividends are used to build our schools and hospitals, run our trams and buses, and train and equip our police and emergency services.

Without the profits of the SEC, and other publicly owned companies such as the Gas & Fuel and Melbourne Water, the only way Victorians would be able to afford these essential services would be through higher taxes”.

These public utilities have been built up through public investment, risk, and lost lives in industrial accidents.

The transfer to private ownership means that profits now are prioritised over service and employment, and in all instances there has been no public gain, in actual fact the taxpayer now must supplement the running expenses with millions of dollars annually.

MAKING THE COMMONWEALTH A BANKERS’ BANK

By Hon. Clyde R. Cameron A.O.
Australian Minister for Labour
(1972 1975)

Link

Keynote address by Clyde Cameron to the Victorian Country Conference of the recently amalgamated Association made up of the former Australian Telecom Employees’ Association and Australian Telephone & Phonogram Officers’ Association held at the Clyde Cameron College on 28 April 1989.

Mr. Chairman and fellow Laborites:

The main thrust of my remarks tonight will be towards the role of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia. But before doing so, I want to express a concern I share with a growing army of loyal and lifelong Laborites over the Hawke Government’s attitude towards privatisation of public assets.

Only a few weeks ago Mr. Hawke made noises which suggest that he, at any rate, may still be toying with the idea of selling Australian Airlines and Qantas.

This may not be done in one fell sweep. It could be done in stages. Stage one, could be to continue the crazy practice of compelling the public to pay taxes to itself by taxing its own enterprises.

The next stage could be to deliberately starve them of capital by refusing them the rights enjoyed by Alan Bond & Co. to borrow funds for capital expansion.
And the final stage could be to then pretend that the Government is left with no option but to sell.

Or, it could be to short circuit all three stages in so far as Australian Airlines is concerned, by appointing a Chief Executive who will “co-operate” with its competitor instead of engaging in active competition with it. There are more ways of killing a cat than choking it with butter!

In this way, deregulation could become another way of ensuring that Ansett Airlines would continue to receive such benefits of regulation as to be guaranteed the right to take government business away from the Government. It has an equal right with Australian Airlines to carry public servants while they are carrying out public duties. In fact, it actually enjoys a right to carry a percentage of the country’s mail!

One might well ask, ‘Just how stupid can a Government become as to tax itself and give its own business to its opposition?’

Ansett Airlines has already been given a 20-year lease on 50 per cent of our air terminals. At one time it was even suggested that the Government was considering actually selling the terminals to private enterprise! The terminals themselves have already been transferred to a body called the Federal Airports Corporation.
But is this just the first step towards actually handing over our air terminals to private profiteers?

Can we assume that bribery and corruption in high places is confined to the State of Queensland. Perhaps it is. Maybe the police, politicians, and public servants in the rest of Australia are lily white and as pure as the driven snow!

But if they are, they deserve the highest possible praise; because the temptation to place the interests of the rich and powerful above the interests of the majority is great indeed.

Leaving aside the possibility of corruption at the personal level by way of expensive gifts, overseas trips and meeting the costs of sending a friend’s children to private schools, etc., there is the funding of the major Parties’ campaign expenses by private entrepreneurs.

Television has lifted the cost of electioneering to unbelievable levels Mr. David Morgan, a former public servant, and now the Federal Director of the Federation of Australian Commercial television Stations, told a March meeting of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, that it cost the A.L.P. $500,000 just for three seconds of voiceover and graphics in each T.V. Spot at the last election.

The total cost must have amounted to tens of millions of dollars. If we can assume that the Liberal Party is charged the same rate, we are entitled to ask, ‘Who’s paying; and why?’ One thing is certain,the cost is not being donated by the ordinary wage and salary earner!

Before television, election campaigns were run for a tiny fraction of today’s costs. In 1947, while I was still the State President of the Labor Party, the total cost of the whole State election campaign was £1,100. In earlier elections it was even less. But every single penny of those costs was donated by our affiliated unions.

The Labor Party of that period owed no favours to Big Business, takeover merchants, Media Barons and the like. But today’s union donations are infinitesimal compared with that which comes from private sources who stand to gain from privatisation of public assets and other favours.

In fact, at a meeting of the Port Adelaide F.E.C. of the A.L.P. on the 9th of this month, the Hon. Mick Young, a former Federal Campaign Director for the Party, declared that union contributions now cover no more than 3 or 4 per cent of campaign expenses.

The rest must, therefore, come from donors who expect some favour! Does anyone really believe that Alan Bond and his rich mates kick into Labor Party funds because they believe in our Socialist Objective? Of course they don’t! They do it because they know that he who pays the piper can call the tune.

But is there any way out of Labor’s predicament? Public funding has helped; but it leaves the Party millions of dollars short of the amount it must now meet to fund a television campaign.

Yes, there is a way out. It is by eliminating altogether, the prohibitive costs of televising electoral material. If that were done, no Party would have to become beholden to the selfish and greedy demands of rich donors as is now the case.

The remedy for removing today’s principal ingredient towards political corruption was spelt out by Dr. H.V. Evatt and the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party 33 years ago when Menzies first opened the doors to commercial television.

During the Second Reading debate on Menzies’ Bill, the Caucus unanimously agreed to authorise its Leader to move a long and comprehensive amendment to ensure fair and just use of televising religious, educational, cultural, political and social organisations “to ensure that facilities were provided free of charge, on an equitable and impartial basis for the broadcasting and televising of matters of political or industrial controversy, or relating to current policies of national importance”.

Dr. Evatt’s amendment to the Bill had the full support of every Labor Member and Senator; and, I know present day Labor Parliamentarians, plus the Democrats, would do likewise if given the opportunity. In fact, there is an outside chance the coalition Parties might also support such a Bill.

A full report of that debate can be found at pages 1767 and 1998 of the Hansard for 1956.

Dr. Evatt was also concerned to see that trade unions had a right to have their case seen and heard via the electronic media. He pointed out that his amendment was merely preserving the provisions of a law that had been passed by the Chifley Labor Government.

The airways are the collective property of all of the Australian people; and as such, the people have the right, and the duty to demand that a condition of granting a licence to use their air waves shall include the kind of conditions set down in Labor’s 1956 Amendment.

A truly Labor Government will turn its back on the greedy monopolies which now dominate the media of this country.

I would like to know what assistance, if any, has been given to the major political Parties and / or the Leaders by, or on behalf, of Ansett Airways, Bond Corporation, and the many other Corporations that would benefit from privatisation of the people’s property. I would like to know what donations, if any, were made to the Party or the Leaders’ Campaign Fund by those associated with corporations which have already benefited by decisions of Government.

In all the 31 years I was a Member of the Labor Caucus, only one Leader ever offered Members of Caucus the right to see details of all donations made to the Leaders’ Campaign Fund (commonly known as the “Slush Fund.”) That Leader was Bill Hayden!

I was one of those who took up his offer. In fact, he handed me all the documents and left the room while I sat at his desk and made a minute examination of all receipts and payments from the Slush Fund.

I assume Bob Hawke has followed the Hayden precedent. Caucus Members should know whether moves might be motivated by money.

Always remember: public disclosure of donations is not required to be made of donations and other assistance not covered by the current legislation. You will remember the Woodchip donation to the New South Wales Branch of the Labor Party.
But I very much doubt whether that was an isolated instance.

Each and every target for privatisation could be the pay back for favours already received;or, it could be a deliberate betrayal of Labor’s policies; crass stupidity; a genuine belief that the public has no right to be serviced by a bank or an airline that will give efficient service on a non-profit making basis; or, it may be for some other reason.
We must allow the circumstances to give the answer.

However, although every public asset owned by the Australian people is sacred to Labor voters, the Commonwealth Bank probably stands out as the prime example of a former Labor Government’s determination to protect our people from being exploited by the private sector.

But even this great monument to the Australian Labor Party is now threatened. It has been reported that this Labor Government is considering a move to amalgamate the Commonwealth Bank with National Australia Bank.

In point of fact, the Financial Review of 19 April last year, reported that on the previous day, Paul Keating had addressed a Federal Conference of the Commonwealth Bank Officers’ Association (C.B.A.) to head off opposition to a merger between the Commonwealth Bank and the National Australia Bank. the C.B.A. had a resolution on its books opposing privatisation of the Bank.

Promoting the merger option, Mr. Keating was reported as saying that this would not only shake up the Banks’ operations, but would put it in the big international league, drawing major corporate clients.

The Conference, however, stuck to its previous decision and rejected privatisation, or the proposed merger, by 22 votes to two. It called for a union campaign to maintain full public ownership of the Bank.

If the Commonwealth Bank were to be lost, every Australian would be placed at the complete mercy of the private bank connivance and greed which in the year 1911, prompted the Fisher Labor Government to establish a Peoples’ Bank with a charter to engage in full-blooded competition with the private banks.
It wasn’t required to pay dividends or taxation, and continued to function that way for nearly fifty years. In fact in 1950, even the Menzies Government rejected outright a Liberal Senator’s demand that the Government engage in the senseless exercise of taxing itself.

It is with great regret that I have to confess that the Hawke Government has allowed the Commonwealth Bank to remain in exactly the same position as when it took office -a bankers’ bank! It is no longer the People’s Bank, as former Labor Prime Ministers had insisted upon.

So, that’s why the central theme of my address this evening will relate to the Commonwealth Bank.
But what I have to say about the Commonwealth Bank applies with equal force and relevance to Telecom, AUSSAT, the Federal Airports Corporation, Australian Airlines, Australian Industry Development Corporation, Medibank Private, Australian Shipping Commission, 0. T. C., Qantas, Pipeline Authority, Snowy Mountains Engineering Authority, Commonwealth Serum Laboritories, etc., etc.
Even the Royal Australian Mint could fall into a private profit making body such as Jaggard Mint Sales Pty. Ltd.

Those who are part of the plot to hand over these public assets to private monopolists will use every device and word trickery they can think of to make it easier for the true owners of these public assets to forget that they are the common heritage of every man, woman and child.

They will first use such terminology as “Corporation” in lieu of Commission in the hope that this will disguise the nature of the public asset and ease the pain of privatisation. The Commonwealth Bank is now called a “Corporation”.

It won’t worry the conspirators that as every new born baby opens its little eyes, it becomes a part owner of all these valuable assets. But Labor’s National Conference will not allow anyone to snatch that baby’s birthright from its little hands: Conference will decide whether the A.L.P. will remain a Labor Party or become a rich man’s Liberal Party.

The Labor Party, as distinct from the Labor Government, is committed to the principles of Democratic Socialism which is not about profit and loss. It is about right and wrong.

It worried loyal Labor supporters to pick up the Weekend Australian of 21 May last year, and read of Mr. Ian McLachlan telling the Rural Press Club in Canberra, ‘I’m delighted, quite frankly, delighted with the A.L.P.’ He meant, of course, the Labor Government, not the Labor Party.

To have a leading Conservative like Ian McLachlan praising a Labor Government is like Yasser Arafat telling the Jews that Yitzhak Shamir is the best Prime Minister Israel has ever had.

But why do members of the MillionDollar Club like Peter Abeles, Rupert Murdoch, Alan Bond, Rene Rivkin, Laurie Connell and Eddie Kornhauser support the Hawke Government? Or perhaps more to the point, why wouldn’t they?

They support it because it has done more to help the rich than any Liberal Government has ever dared to do!
But allow me to now return to past Labor Governments.

The 25th day of October 1911, was one of the most important days in the history of Australia because on that day, a Labor Government introduced a Bill into the Commonwealth Parliament to give the people of this country their own Bank.
It was the first time ever, that the people of any Country had been given their own Bank.

The Head Office of the new Bank was opened on 1 June 1912, in Stanway House, King Street. In his opening address, the first Governor, Sir Denison Miller, said:

‘The Bank is being started without capital as none is required, but it is backed by the entire wealth and credit of the whole of The Commonwealth of Australia It is intended to conduct business on sound lines - and at the same time extend every reasonable facility to meet the growing requirement of our trade and commerce and the development of our National resources.

‘Its success in the measure we hope and anticipate will, to a large extent depend upon the continued prosperity of the States of The Commonwealth and the support of the people whose Bank it is and in whose interest no effort will be spared to make this National institution one of great strength and there is little doubt that in time it will be classed as one of the greatest Banks of the world.’

Ben Chifley once gave the late Tom Burke and me an inside account of why the Tories put the Commonwealth Bank under the control of a Board endowed with the prerogatives of Government. He explained that this outside group was given dictatorial powers enabling it to defy the elected representatives of the people.
It had the power to frame and enforce policy contrary to that of the elected Government.

Mr. Chifley put it this way: He said, ‘the powers of the present Commonwealth Bank Board are not based upon any principle of democracy; because democracy is an affirmation that, within the powers of the Constitution, an elected Government shall be supreme and responsible for the proper conduct of all publicly-owned enterprises.

The Board, he asserted, was a creation of Toryism; to act as an upper Chamber of veto against any elected Government that seeks to expand the functions of the Bank. He reminded us of the way the Tory Board of the Commonwealth Bank had arrogantly defied the Scullin Labor Government’s wishes to provide an £18.million note issue to relieve unemployment.

The Board did nothing to develop the general banking business of the Commonwealth Bank. Instead, it actually retarded its operations.

When the Chifley Government was defeated in 1949, the very first Bill proposed by the Menzies Government was one to re-establish a Board to control the Commonwealth Bank. And, in August 1951, the Menzies Government announced that top businessmen in the persons of Messrs. W.L. Anderson, J.W. Fletcher, A.E. Symons and G.H. Grimwade had been appointed to that Board.

I will now demonstrate how those four men were able to use cross-directorships and indirect directorships with representatives of Big Business and the private banks to fashion Commonwealth Bank policies and practices to suit the aims of their 26 business associates who sat on other boards.

Between them, those 26 business associates sat on the boards of 117 commercial and business enterprises.
These included such powerful pillars of private enterprise as Adelaide Steamship Co., B.H.P., C.S.R., Carlton & United Breweries, Elder Smith, Foster Brewing Co., G.M.H., Goldsborough Mort, H.C. Sleigh, Herald & Weekly Times, I.C.I., News Ltd., North Broken Hill, New Zealand Loan, Repco and the S.A. Brewing Co.

Their companies also included numerous Trustee Companies, Insurance Companies and no less than five of Australia’s biggest private Banks, namely: Bank of Adelaide, Bank of N.S.W., Commercial Bank, E.S. & A. Bank and the National Bank of Australasia!

Ben Chifley and the Labor Opposition opposed Menzies’ Bill to put the People’s Bank in the hands of the associates of Big Business. In fact, the 1951 National conference of the Party unanimously determined to pledge a Labor Government to restore Labor’s commitment to keeping the Bank in the hands of a Governor directly answerable to the people’s elected Government.
It directed the Labor-controlled. Senate to continue its opposition to Menzies’ Bill to place the Bank under the control of a Board.

Labor Senators deferred the Bill; and it was on that deferral that the Governor-General granted Menzies his 1951 Double Dissolution.
But the 1951 election was not fought on the issue of putting the Commonwealth Bank in the hands of a Board; it was fought entirely on the bogus issue of communism and the Communist Party Dissolution Bill. Not a word was said about the issue that caused the Double Dissolution to be granted.

The Whitlam Government inherited that legacy from. the Menzies era. The D.L.P. which held the balance of power in the Senate, made it clear that it would prevent us from abolishing the Board and placing the affairs of the Bank in the hands of a Governor and an Advisory Council of officers of the Bank and senior public servants answerable to the elected Government.
But that was no excuse for our action in re-appointing to the Board some of the Liberal appointees.

The first instance of this occurred in 1973, when Cabinet was asked to re-appoint Sir Brian Massy-Greene. I was dumfounded to find a Labor Cabinet proposing such a step! And, although my opposition delayed the appointment, Sir Brian finally got the job.

Sir Brian’s huge business interests include Santos, Hazelton Air, Pacific Dunlop, Commonwealth Mining, Dalgety, Mt. Lyell Mining, Consolidated Goldfields, Goldsworthy Mining, Bellambi Coal, Lawrenson Alumsac, Zip Holdings, Associated Minerals and Austral Bronze.

Those particulars come from the current issue of Who’s Who In Australia; but Who’s Who didn’t include all of Sir Brian’s interests, e.g. it didn’t mention his links with the National Mutual Life Association and its subsidiaries which operate in some of the fields covered by the Commonwealth Bank.

But thanks to the Hawke Government, Sir Brian actual became Chairman of the Bank’s Board; and remained in that position until he was over 70 years of age, when he was replaced by Morrish Alexander Besley, another Business tycoon.

According to Who’s Who, Mr. Besley sits, or sat, on several Boards including Monier Ltd. and the A.M.P. Society. In fact, he was a member of the Business Council of Australia.

The other Barons of Big Business who now control the Peoples’ Bank are G.H. Slee, J.T. Ralph, H.G. Schmidt and J.J. Kennedy.

It didn’t take the Board appointed by Menzies very long to compel the People’s Bank to dance to the tune set by the private banks! In less than a year, the Management was compelled to follow the dictates of its private competitors by charging a fee for keeping cheque accounts which had previously been free of charge.

When Ben Chifley was Prime Minister the people’s Bank made no charge for cheque accounts. These are now fixed at charges that correspond with the rates charged by the private banks. Its establishment fees for overdraft accounts are in line with the private banks and its fees on cheques collected and paid are the same.
Interest charges are kept in tune with the private banks and the general pattern of the Board’s behaviour violates the Bank’s original charter of “vigorous competition with the private banking establishments .”

I hold in my hand a letter dated 20 March 1952, addressed to myself and signed by Robert Gordon Menzies, the then Prime Minister of Australia, in which he frankly admits that a new Commonwealth Bank charge on cheque accounts flowed from discussions the private banks had with the Commonwealth Bank Board. His letter says:

‘I am informed that for some considerable time discussions have been taking place among the banks in Australia including the Commonwealth Bank on the question of charges generally’.
His letter concludes with this confession:

‘The whole of the banks, including the Commonwealth Bank, in conference and after full investigation decided that an increased current account fee was justified’.

So there we have an unashamed admission right from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, that the Board did force the People’s Bank to become a bankers’ bank.

If this Government really wants the Commonwealth Bank to carry out its proper charter, it must move at once to dissolve the Boards of both the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the Reserve Bank, so that these Banks will be directly answerable to the Australian people.
This action must be taken so that our Treasurer will not be forced to suffer the indignity of having to confess that he has no control over interest charges, as he did a few weeks ago.

I realise that the abolition of these two Boards will mean that former A.C.T.U. President, Cliff Dolan, will lose his emoluments as a Member of the Board.

The abolition of the Reserve Bank Board will similarly affect Charlie Fitzgibbon , a former A.C.T.U. Vice President , Bill Kelty, the current A.C.T.U. Secretary; and Bob Hawke’s friend, Sir Peter Abeles.

Even though Sir Peter has no commitment to Labor tradition, I am sure Cliff Dolan, Charlie Fitzigibbons and Bill Kelty would be happy to see the Bank returned to the kind of control the A.L.P. has advocated for so many decades.

Why hasn’t the Hawke Government repealed Menzies’ legislation and given the Bank back to its owners? Why has it forced our public utilities to pay it income tax and dividends? Why doesn’t it allow the Commonwealth Bank to engage in aggressive competition with the rich private banks instead of joining them in compelling clients to pay exorbitant charges on cheque accounts, handling cheques, servicing overdraft accounts and on withdrawals from Savings accounts?

Why has the Government sat idly by, while what used to be the People’s Bank pays its Savings Bank depositors a miserly 3.75 per cent interest, but chargesthem a massive 21 per cent on Bankcard debts which on 15 June this year, will will be further increased to 2 per cent?

I know why the Bank does it. It is to ensure that it doesn’t undercut the charges imposed upon customers of the private banks! But why, I repeat, does a Labor Government allow it to continue?

To add insult to injury, the People’s Bank has recently decided to charge its poorer customers, a fee of $1.50 per month whenever their accounts fall below $250. However, thanks to the efforts of Senator the Hon.Nick Bolkus, Minister for Consumer Affairs, certain categories of customers have now been exempted from these charges; but they still apply to the rest of the Bank’s customers.

Instead of turning the Commonwealth Bank, Telecom, Australia Post, Qantas, Australian Airlines and other public utilities into tax gatherers, why doesn’t the Labor Government allow them to be what their founders intended, instruments for providing the public with an efficient service at the cheapest possible costs. And, if there is need for capital expansion, why doesn’t our Labor Government abandon the anti-Labor practice of forcing them to pay it dividends and taxation, so that surpluses can be used for better and cheaper services or capital expansion?

On 29 March 1950, the Liberal Government of that period showed a far better appreciation of a correct role for the Bank than is now followed by our Labor Government; because on that day, Senator Malcolm Scott asked Senator Spooner, representing the treasurer, this question: -

‘Will the Government consider a charge against net profits of the Commonwealth Bank in the form of income tax so that the people can gain an honest account of the Bank’s position? ‘

Senator Spooner replied, ‘The Commonwealth Bank is a government institution. To charge the Commonwealth Bank income tax would in truth be merely to transfer money from one pocket to another. There would be little point and no advantage in requiring the Bank to pay income tax.’

That Liberal Government was correct! Why can’t we get a Labor Government to follow the same correct policies by relieving the People’s Bank from having to pay income tax and dividends so that it can meet capital costs and better serve those who own it?

Last year, the Commonwealth Bank made a record profit of $662 million. the private banks made record profits too; Westpac made a huge $1,000 million profit by charging more for money loaned than it paid to depositors for money received.

Of its $662 million profit, the commonwealth Bank paid the Government $392 million in income tax and a dividend of $129.7 million - a total of $521.7 million which should have been used for reducing charges and for meeting the cost of capital expansion.

So, for the years 1987 and 1988 the Bank’s total profit was a massive $1,112 million! It is little wonder, therefore, that the National Australia Bank Ltd. would like Paul Keating to support an amalgamation of the Commonwealth with the National by using the false claim that that is the only way the Commonwealth Bank can become big enough to function properly.

If it is valid to argue that “Big is beautiful,” why doesn’t the Government allow the Commonwealth Bank to revert to the position postulated by Senator Spooner when he rejected his Liberal colleague’s demand that it pay income tax to the Government?

That would allow the Bank to grow bigger without having to merge its proud identity with the National Australia Bank. That, indeed, is what a fair dinkum Labor Government would be doing?

The only reason the Commonwealth Bank hasn’t been able to live up to its obligation to curb the greed of private banks lies in the fact that Tory Governments handed control of the Bank to its Tory mates who had close personal, as well as business, links with those who had close personal and business links with the private banks.

It was the anti-Labor Bruce - Page Government which in 1924, gagged a Bill through the Parliament to hand over the Commonwealth Bank to a Board of rich Tory businessmen. It remained that way until the Chifley Labor Government restored it to its original status of a truly People’s Bank operating in active competition with the private banks.

Connivance gave way to active competition when Ben Chifley rep1aced the Board with a sing1e Governor and an Advisory council answerable to the elected representatives of the owners of the Bank.

The first Governor, Hugh T. Armitage, and his successor, Dr. H.G. (Nugget) Coombs, had the obligation to restore the Bank to its former greatness; and, under the guidance of the great J.B. Chifley, the Bank was; in fact, restored to its original role.

Labor voters all over Australia are yearning for the return of a Labor Government that will behave like a Labor Government.

They want a Labor Government that will not regard power as more important than purpose. They want a Labor Government that will see that purpose and power can be made to walk arm in arm.

Labor voters are angry! They are angry because they feel betrayed. They feel betrayed because while real wages are falling and prices and interest rates are rising, the rich are getting richer and the great corporations are announcing record profits and carrying a smaller proportion of the Government’s tax burden.

When we view the two-story homes being built in our fashionable suburbs and the million dollar mansions already occupied; and when we see the multi-storied skyscrapers in our cities the million dollar yachts; the $200,000 motor cars and the obscene extravagance of birthday and wedding parties costing more than a $100,000; we are looking at the property and spending habits of the drones of our society who have the ear of those who wield power.

Unlike members of the workforce who meet the full amount of their income tax obligations at the pay office and receive less than they earn, these drones produce no real wealth, and are permitted to use tax havens etc. to even avoid taxation.

When we look at the Australian people we are seeing a people which allows the rich to grow richer while the poor grow poorer. We are looking at a Society that is being brainwashed by a media monopoly into believing that it is proper that Senior Executives should receive incomes ranging from $200,000 a year, to as much as $2,000 a day from tax free dividends.

But we are also looking at a country ruled by what passes for a Labor Government, but which has done far more for the rich than the Liberals ever dared to do!

I don’t want to see the Hawke Government defeated. For more than fifty years I’ve worked and voted for the return of Labor Governments and I’m too old and too prejudiced to vote for any other Party; but there are great armies of former Labor voters who are not burdened with my political hang-up.

All I want is to see the Hawke Government perform like a Labor Government, by telling the boodlers to shove their non-reportable donations towards the “cost of Party administration” . I want the Government to remember that on election day the ballot paper belonging to Ansett’s Peter Abeles carries no greater weight in the final count than the ballot paper handed in by the poorest person entering the polling booth.

Then, and only then, will grass roots Laborites be able to hold up their heads and proudly boast: “I voted Labor.”

Fuel subsidy scrapping to hit food costs

June 03, 2009
Article from: Australian Associated Press

SCRAPPING the 9.2 cents per litre fuel subsidy could lead to overall food cost rises of 20 per cent or more, according to rural lobby group AgForce.

AgForce president John Cotter said axing the fuel rebate will increase road transport costs by 10 per cent, but the multiplier effect on freight for farm inputs and outputs could mean that figure is doubled at the supermarket check-out.

Mr Cotter said rural and regional Queenslanders would be the most severely impacted because everything must be freighted in and out.

“Increased fuel costs will impact initially on producers in the bush, but they will eventually have to be passed on and their inflationary impacts are certain to be felt by Queensland consumers in terms of increased food prices,” Mr Cotter said.

“Regional communities are already paying higher prices at the fuel pump but the downstream multiplier effect of 4-to-1 means significantly increased input costs on all small businesses as well as local government and service groups.”

He said it has been estimated that removal of the subsidy will cost about $15,000 per truck per annum in extra fuel costs from July 1.

The increase is coming on top of hikes in the cost of vehicle registration, new regulations and increasing pressure to keep up with regional freight demands, he said.

Unions demand to know where MPs stand over assets sale


By Steven Wardill

June 04, 2009

A LABOR MP has been praised for defying Premier Anna Bligh over asset sales and others have been warned they will eventually have to state where they stand.

Queensland Labor president Andrew Dettmer yesterday commended Waterford’s Evan Moorhead for voting against the suite of asset sales during Monday’s caucus meeting.

Mr Dettmer, who is also head of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, said Mr Moorhead had shown he was willing to stick up for employees set to be adversely affected by the sales.

A former researcher with the AMWU, Mr Moorhead and Bundamba’s Jo-Ann Miller were the only two MPs to vote against the plan to sell assets, including Queensland Rail’s coal arm, the Port of Brisbane and Queensland Motorways.

“He did a great job representing workers when he worked for us and he is doing a great job representing workers in the Parliament,” Mr Dettmer said.

Labor MPs are under mounting pressure over the asset sales, with the issue set to come to a head at the party’s state conference in Brisbane this weekend.

Unions predominantly from Premier Anna Bligh’s own Left faction are expected to put forward resolutions condemning the sales as a short-sighted solution.

Amid an Opposition attack, Ms Bligh continued to deny claims she knew before the election that she planned asset sales but failed to tell Queensland’s voters.

“I was very clear that when it came to making the tough Budget decisions, my number one priority would be the building program and jobs,” she said.

“That was it: jobs and the building program. That is what our decision yesterday does.”

However, unions are demanding details of what Labor MPs actually agreed to in caucus, as well as a meeting with Ms Bligh before the conference.

Australian Services Union secretary David Smith said the Government’s proposal would hurt thousands of workers, narrow the state’s revenue base and do little for the economy.

“And once you start this process it doesn’t end,” he said.

Mr Smith said Labor MPs were “all a bit quiet” but would eventually be forced to state their own positions ahead of the next election.

“If we are still in the same position as we are now I would be asking them where each of them sat,” he said.

Bureaucracy the growth industry in our state

By Craig Johnstone
June 04, 2009

THE ranks of Queensland’s public service, have grown markedly over the past five years while jobs in retailing and agriculture have shrunk.

Official figures show that the proportion of Queensland workers employed in public administration has risen by 20 per cent in five years.

However, the bureaucracy is rife with rumours of a looming cull in the number of temporary and contract positions within departments as the Bligh Government sets about making savings in next month’s Budget.

There is now one public servant employed for every two people in Queensland’s biggest labour market sector — retail trade — compared with one bureaucrat for every three in retail five years ago.

The figures are revealed in labour market analysis published by the Department of Education and Training. Those statistics put the number of people employed in public administration and safety in Queensland in February at 127,300, about 3000 less than the same time last year.

Five years ago, just 88,000 were employed in government administration and defence.

Even taking into account about 20,000 police and emergency workers who were moved into the classification two years ago, the figures show that the bureaucracy has been one of the fastest growing sections of the Queensland workforce since 2004.

Despite revealing her Government would suffer a $14 billion black hole in revenue over the next four years, Premier Anna Bligh has continued to insist she will protect public service jobs. Ms Bligh told Parliament on Tuesday that the Government did consider a public sector wages freeze but rejected it because such a move would involve reneging on agreements made with public servants. She said the Government also considered, but rejected, a program of cutting grants to community organisations, and reining in spending on concessions to seniors.

South Brisbane ALP branch votes to expel Anna Bligh from party
By Steven Wardill

June 05, 2009

ANNA Bligh’s South Brisbane Labor branch wants her expelled from the party over the $15 billion decision to sell Queensland assets.

South Brisbane branch spokesman Tony Reeves has released a statement saying members voted unanimously last night to support a motion to eject the Premier from the party.

Mr Reeves said Ms Bligh was in breach of a party rule which states: “The Party is a democratic socialist party and has the objective of the democratic socialisation of industry, production, distribution and exchange, to the extent necessary to eliminate exploitation and other anti-social features in these fields.”

The branch has also released an excerpt of a May 22 ministerial audit from Treasurer Andrew Fraser office which states: “The Bligh Government does not have a program of privatisation. Decisions about an assets ownership are never made to solve revenue problems as they are always re-invested in other public assets.”

The move is unlikely to lead to Ms Bligh’s expulsion from the party but is a major embarrassment ahead of this weekend’s Labor conference in Brisbane.

Unions and party members will protest against the sale of assets, which include Queensland Motorways, the Port of Brisbane and Queensland Rail’s coal haulage business.

Mr Reeves said he had drawn the short straw to speak for the branch but members were “enormously angry” at the proposal.

“It is not good and members feel kind of cheated,” he said.