Departure spin, super, Greens and polly backgrounds
July 14, 2008
Here are Stephen Mayne's four stories from the Crikey edition on Monday, January 30, 2006.
18. Time for more accuracy in departure spin
By Stephen Mayne
Glenn Milne was certainly talking up his efforts this morning, but poor old Ian Macdonald is now just a humble backbencher after John Howard sacked him as Fisheries and Forestry Minister ahead of last week's reshuffle. To his credit, Senator Macdonald copped it on the chin and was honest enough to put an accurate characterisation on his departure – the PM called and said he was out.
The same cannot be said for fellow Costello supporter Kay Patterson who received a similar phone call from the PM on the same night but tried to fudge the reality by declaring it was entirely her decision to resign, as she would not be seeking another six year term in the Senate from July 2008. It is not unusual for a 60-something Minister to bow out shortly before an election, but Patterson has 29 months of her term to serve.
James Hardie is another classic example of a company which hasn't exactly been open and transparent in its dealings and the resignation of director Peter Cameron two weeks ago was just the latest example.
Cameron was a partner of Allen Arthur Robinson, the law firm which came up with the disgraceful restructuring designed to dodge asbestos liabilities, and his fingerprints were all over it. The evidence given to the Jackson inquiry in 2004 made his position completely untenable.
Cameron should have been booted off the Hardie board straight away, but instead his fellow directors tolerated his ongoing presence for another 18 months and then he finally resigned on January 19 – "for health reasons" – just a few months before he would have faced re-election. Check out The SMH's coverage here and the ASX announcement.
I called the James Hardie spindoctor James Rickards this morning and asked for some more detail on Cameron's condition, but was abruptly told: "It is not appropriate to comment on a director's health."
His biography in the 2005 James Hardie annual report says he is also a managing director of investment banking at CS First Boston in Sydney. I called their office this morning and the switchboard put me straight through to his PA's voice mail, so it appears he hasn't withdrawn from this gig.
It will be interesting to see if Cameron's poor health has also lead to resignations from the advisory board of Sydney University's Law School and his membership of the Takeovers Panel.
21. The Green mayor who kept his council car
By Stephen Mayne
Greg Barber is almost certain to be elected to the Victorian upper house at this year's state election and could very well become the leader of the Greens team holding the balance of power. Barber was Victoria's first mayor in the City of Yarra and was strongly defending his financial management records in story 23 from Crikey on January 23.
However, despite this detailed profile in The Age in 2003, there is one aspect of Barber's record which hasn't been mentioned and which will certainly count against him in the Northern Metropolitan region when voters go to the polls on November 25.
Yes, despite his Green agenda and Yarra's financial predicament at the time, Barber decided to keep the mayoral car for his entire term. It was his successor at Yarra, Labor's Kay Meadows, who ditched the council car and the policy has been maintained by current mayor Jackie Fristacky, an independent with Liberal connections given she once worked for Kennett Minister Roger Hallam and is married to former Philip Lynch adviser Brian Buckley.
Getting rid of the council car and riding the bike to work is surely an obvious policy for any Green Mayor. After all, the other Green mayor from Victoria, Janet Rice in the Maribyrnong, has only been in office for two months but one of the first things she did was ditch the council car and start riding to work, which turned out to be a PR coup that generated plenty of mainstream coverage.
By way of contrast, Labor's Mark Higginbotham in neighbouring Moreland announced last July that he was buying a more environmentally friendly Toyota Prius. C'mon Mark, get with the program!
Barber, who has an MBA, certainly appeared to do a good job turning Yarra's finance around and some Greens still criticise him for being too focused on balancing the books, which isn't such a bad thing for someone on the Left aiming for mainstream political power. However, he will come to regret keeping the car and has certainly been criticised for this inside the Victorian Greens.
25. Reforming Australia's crazy super system
By Stephen Mayne, holder of at least five superannuation accounts
Peter Costello moved quickly last week to poor cold water on Nick Minchin's call for the abolition of the 15% superannuation contributions tax in this year's budget by claiming super already received special treatment.
"Superannuation is concessionally taxed," Cossie declared. "That is, if you put money into superannuation, the taxes you pay are substantially less than if you take it as income."
Yes, with Australia's punitive personal income tax rates at the top end, superannuation is taxed at a slightly concessional rate, but our super taxes still remain close to the highest in the world and our savings rate is also poor because of the debt-funded consumption binge of recent years.
Of course, if Cossie was able to contemplate comprehensive tax reform and reduce the two top income tax rates in the forthcoming budget, this would reduce the scale of the concession offered to super funds. Minchin was absolutely right to argue that abolishing the contributions tax would not overly stimulate the economy and risk an increase in interest rates, although it would add to the "weight of capital" deluging equity markets as Australia's superannuation pool races towards $1 trillion.
Cossie's blanket statement was also a little misleading because super is not concessionally taxed for low income earners. For instance, what about a local government councillor in Victoria who pockets $18,000 a year. They would be better off to take it as income.
Bizarrely, Victorian councillors and mayors are one of the few groups in the community who don't receive any superannuation, because the Bracks Government's legislation is silent on the matter. How odd that non-executive directors of listed companies must receive the 9% superannuation contribution by law, but those running Victoria's 79 councils don't get a cracker.
Bill Kelty's insistence in the late 1980s that superannuation payments include everything has led to millions of accounts being unnecessarily opened and subsequently lost. For instance, if I give a lecture at some university we often have this stupid super requirement come up.
Now that the government has got its super-choice legislation through but seemingly failed in its goal to undermine the union-associated industry funds, maybe it's time for some more meaningful super reform. Abolishing the contributions tax and a sensible winding back of the scope of what sort of payments demand super contributions would be a good start.
35. Politicians: where did they come from?
By Stephen Mayne
The lists tracking where our politicians come from continue to grow as you can see from unionists in Parliament, those who hail from local government and the journalists who made the switch. Today we're opening up a new front and looking for every Parliamentarian who was successful in a university election. This one will probably finish up at more than 100 but here are a few names to kick it off. Send all additions and corrections to smayne@crikey.com.au.
Tony Abbott: The Federal Employment and Workplace Relations Minister was a former President of the University of Sydney Student Representative Council.
Eric Abetz: the Tasmanian Liberal senator and junior minister was on the SRC at Tas Uni in the late 1970s.
Guy Barnett: the Tasmanian Liberal senator was on the SRC at Tas Uni in the early 1980s.
Steve Bracks: Victorian Premier was President of the Student Union at what is now Ballarat University in the early 1980s.
Peter Costello: cut his political teeth at Monash University in the 1970s.
Michael Danby: the federal Member for Melbourne Ports was an industrial Officer for the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association 1994-96 and was also President of the Melbourne University Student Union.
Gabrielle Harrison: former MLA for Parramatta and former Sports minister. Was chairperson of Macquarie University Students' Council which is famed for being run by colourful lefties.
Joe Hockey: The Federal Liberal Minister was President of the Sydney University SRC.
Belinda Neal: the former NSW Senator was president of Sydney University's SRC.
Sophie Panopoulos: Liberal member for Indi was prominent at Melbourne University in the late 1980s.
Louise Pratt: the WA MLC was President of the UWA Arts Faculty Student Association in 1992, President of the Guild Education Council in 1993, a member of the national executive of the National Union of Students in 1994 and was State Education Officer in the same year.
Jaye Radisich: The second youngest parliamentarian in WA history who was a delegate to, and executive member of, the National Union of Students and vice-president (Asia-Pacific) of the International Union of Socialist Youth before winning the Legislative Assembly seat of Swan Hills.
Senator Natasha Stott Despoja: the ousted Democrats leader was Student Union President at Adelaide University in 1991.
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