Australian Politics
Thursday, February 22, 2024
CEOs take risks if they get involved in broader social issues
The everlasting Glenda Korporaal (below) is right in saying that Banducci was forced out by his political amateurism. I had some dealings with Banducci a little while back and found him to be a pretty decent bloke. Wooworths may well do less well without him
The sudden announcement of the departure of Woolworths chief executive Brad Banducci has thrown a spotlight on the dangers of chief executives becoming involved in social issues.
While Banducci argued that the timing of his announcement on Wednesday had long been planned and had nothing to do with his disastrous interview this week on Four Corners, or his recent involvement in the controversy over not stocking Australia Day-themed goods, the timing of his announcement means he is exiting bruised by recent events.
While businesses have learned not to align themselves with any political party, given the real possibility of governments changing, high-profile business leaders have seen fit in recent years to become commentators on social issues of the day.
Issues such as same-sex marriage, the Indigenous voice to parliament, the merits of celebrating Australia Day and the war in the Middle East have become areas drawing in some business leaders.
But the pendulum may be swinging the other way, with the risks outweighing the perceived social halo – despite the prevailing corporate speak for having “purpose-led” organisations.
As Banducci found out, when his company tried to explain its reasons for not stocking Australia Day goods this year with a statement saying that not all staff supported the celebration of the day, taking a stand on social issues can be a high risk strategy.
The more he tried to explain the situation with full page advertisements and a media blitz, the worse it got, prompting Peter Dutton to call for a boycott of Woolworths stores.
While the same-sex marriage plebiscite was passed with a strong majority, with many business leaders who had supported it comforting themselves that they had been “on the right side of history”, the voice proved much more socially divisive issue.
While a majority of ASX top 20 companies publicly supported the voice, including Qantas, Wesfarmers, Coles, mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto, the big four banks and Telstra, in the end it could only garner support from about 40 per cent of voters.
Questions have been asked at shareholder meetings about the decision by company leaders to spend shareholders’ money supporting campaigns like the voice, with several large companies kicking in as much as $2m each.
Woolworths’ Big W was making public announcements in support of the voice during the campaign last year, but scrapped them after feedback from staff and customers.
While corporate support for the voice went down well with the Albanese government, it generated criticism from the opposition, with treasury spokesman Angus Taylor arguing that boards and senior executives should focus on their core business.
He said Australians had “never liked being told what to do by big business and big government”.
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Make no mistake, PM’s resolve is on the line over return of boat arrivals
PETA CREDLIN
The last time Australia confronted a resurgence of illegal boat arrivals I had a seat at the table, and two things have always stuck in my mind from that time.
The first was the general fear from officials that if the Abbott government didn’t stop the boats, as the Coalition had successfully done in the Howard era, we would never be able to stop them.
The second memory was walking out of a meeting of the national security committee of cabinet – after those same officials had congratulated themselves for a sustained period of no boat arrivals – and thinking to myself: you are all the same people who sat in there under Rudd and Gillard and couldn’t stop the boats.
The only difference between then and now was the change of politicians in the room and a prime minister with resolute determination that he would stop at nothing to defeat the people-smugglers and restore Australia’s sovereignty.
It was a profound lesson in the power of resolve. We had it then, and under this current government it has gone missing; that and basic ministerial competence.
Illegal migration is a scourge few countries seem able or willing to solve.
In 2013, after 50,000 people arrived by boat under Labor, the fear was the people-smuggling trade was more sophisticated than ever, the supply chain of vulnerable people ever increasing, and the use of technology made things more challenging for law enforcement.
As those who there at the time will attest, just rolling out the old Howard-era measures, such as turnbacks, temporary protection visas and offshore processing weren’t enough. The smuggler gangs were using new tactics deployed in other regions so new structures were put in place, including the unified command structure known as Operation Sovereign Borders and Australian-purchased orange lifeboats to take people back to Java after they’d scuttled their fishing boats.
And it worked: from early 2014 until 2022 there were almost no illegal boat arrivals.
That was then, though, and this is now. On top of 11 boats intercepted since the election, there have been at least two that made it undetected through to the Australian mainland: one last November, another larger vessel last week.
And that’s not really surprising given the head of the Australian Border Force told the Senate late last year that surveillance flights were down more than 20 per cent and maritime patrols were down more than 10 per cent under the current government.
It’s possible Indonesian people-smugglers have come up with new tactics, such as using military-style inflatables to speed boatpeople to our northern beaches, and for the smugglers to then escape back to what looks like an innocent fishing vessel.
The government is playing down the seriousness of these border breaches. Last Friday, Anthony Albanese avoided media questions, using the Kevin Rudd-esque tactic of claiming not to have been briefed.
I know how national security matters are handled. If the Prime Minister could not be directly contacted, his travelling team would have been, or the Australian Federal Police detail with him (their phones are always on). Either the Prime Minister was being dishonest with the media or the whole national security apparatus has gone to sleep.
Polling already shows the electorate isn’t happy about the return of people-smugglers; it’s even showing up in younger voting demographics. Hence, this week, from the Prime Minister down, the government has been at pains to emphasise that Operation Sovereign Borders remains in place and that funding has been increased (notwithstanding the ABF testimony last year).
This is because of the conflation we’re now being fed about onshore funding numbers versus offshore funding. And that has been borne out by the leaks that Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil is racing to put in a submission for urgent extra funding in the May budget. We can but hope this extra funding materialises because the last thing we need, as the world’s security situation deteriorates, is the revival of something akin to a peaceful invasion.
Back in 2007 Rudd promised he’d be tough on borders, and we all know how that turned out. On Labor’s watch, there were almost 1000 illegal boats, more than 50,000 illegal arrivals and more than 1000 deaths at sea. Back then, at any one time there were an estimated 10,000 would-be illegal migrants to Australia who’d flown into Jakarta in the hope of picking up a people-smuggling boat to Christmas Island.
If anything, the number of people willing to try their luck crossing illegally into a rich country, in the hope of a better life or, occasionally, for more nefarious purposes has only increased. Several hundred thousand people are crossing into the US every month, often swimming the Rio Grande. Last year, 30,000 people crossed the English Channel to Britain on small boats. Last year, there were almost 400,000 irregular arrivals into the EU, mostly across the Mediterranean, with nearly 3000 thought to have drowned making the attempt.
The only way to stop people-smuggling is to make it clear their occupants will never gain permanent residency in their target country. Every people-smuggling venture that doesn’t end with boatpeople returned to their starting point is a chink in the armour. Even ending up in Nauru, as the latest arrivals have, for now, gives the smugglers something to sell – given that most boatpeople on Nauru eventually got permanent residency in a Western country.
There’s little doubt, as Peter Dutton suggests, smugglers are now testing the government’s resolve. They’d be watching the shambles of 149 released foreign criminals, now all but sure to stay forever in Australia, on welfare, and telling prospective customers that if even murderers and sex offenders can be given a new life in Australia, they too will get their chance.
And while the Prime Minister now talks a big game on borders, it must never be forgotten that as a senior frontbencher Albanese voted against turnbacks as Labor policy.
It’s telling that the only senior official from 2013 who believed that Labor’s influx of boats could be stopped, and should be stopped, was then customs head Mike Pezzullo. Last year the government sacked this former Labor staffer turned bureaucrat, on flimsy grounds. Again, this is why resolve matters – because, without it, you fall at the first sign of hardship.
The bleeding hearts who think we should just accept illegal migration as a fact of life need to be reminded that Australia is one of fewer than 30 countries in the world that permanently resettles migrants; 70 per cent of the rest of the world’s nations do not. In per capita terms, we are a world leader.
So, we should never be ashamed of demanding the right to determine who comes to this country or resile from the fact a sovereign nation is only sovereign when it controls its borders.
Back to resolve, do you credibly think the Prime Minister, at 60 years of age, has now rejected his lifelong convictions about illegal migration? I think we all know that middle-aged leopards don’t change their spots, but without his resolve our country is once again at the mercy of people-smugglers.
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Commonwealth to pay coal generators nearly $1bn
Crazy. They take with one hand and give with the other. Greenies will be livid
Anthony Albanese will pay coal generators nearly $1bn in rebates under his market intervention which capped the price of coal used for electricity at $125 a tonne, according to the latest estimates from the Department of Climate Change and Energy.
Labor’s energy market intervention was triggered in December 2022 by the need to shield Australians from rising electricity prices, which were forecast in the October budget that year to increase by about 20 per cent over 2022-23 followed by a further 36 per cent rise in 2023-24.
Retail gas prices were also forecast to increase by up to 20 per cent in both 2022-23 and 2023-24. The government responded by working with NSW and Queensland to set a price cap on coal used for electricity generation at $125 a tonne, while imposing a price ceiling on new domestic wholesale gas contracts for east coast producers at $12 per gigajoule.
Under the intervention, additional financial support is supplied in cases where the costs of production exceed the cost of supply under the cap. Mr Albanese initially dismissed suggestions that compensation for generators under the arrangements could rise into the hundreds of millions.
But initial estimates provided to parliament’s cost of living committee in early 2023 by the Department of Climate Change and Energy suggested that the combined fiscal cost of the coal generator rebates to the Commonwealth, NSW and Queensland governments would be in the order of $1.5bn to $2bn, with the Commonwealth paying a 50 per cent share.
In a letter sent on Tuesday, Department Secretary David Fredericks provided an updated estimate based on the decline in the market price of thermal coal over the past year. The new estimate was in line with the department’s initial analysis, but slightly lower than the upper figure of $2bn.
“DCCEEW’s revised estimate of the maximum total fiscal cost of the rebates associated with the coal price caps is $1.85bn, with the Commonwealth government committed to paying half under the arrangement reached with the New South Wales and Queensland governments,” he said.
Responding to a request for the updated figure from Nationals Senator Matt Canavan, Mr Fredericks said the new estimate was “less than the previous estimate provided to the Senate Cost of Living Inquiry in February 2023.”
The update from Mr Fredericks suggests the Commonwealth will still need to fork out $925m for coal generators – half the estimated $1.85bn total fiscal cost of the rebates under the price cap.
The latest update from the Australian Energy Regulator revealed the cost of producing electricity in 2023 had fallen by as much as 64 per cent in a year and that wholesale electricity prices were running closer to longer-term averages.
The AER said milder weather, fewer coal supply issues and an increase in cheap wind and solar energy had helped drive the reduction. But it also noted another factor – lower fuel costs partly driven by the government’s intervention.
However, Senator Canavan argued that “massive government subsidies don’t lower electricity prices to our economy. Subsidies just transfer the cost of our inept energy policies from consumers to taxpayers.”
“To lift real wages we have to focus on lowering the costs of production. The government’s clumsy interventions have clearly chilled investment in new energy supplies in Australia. The US is doubling its LNG capacity while we remain at a standstill,” he said. “Our lack of investment in reliable energy supplies will continue to increase electricity prices for all over time.”
Leading energy economists have recently suggested there is no longer a strong rationale to extend Labor’s coal price cap beyond the middle of 2024, given the moderation in short-term coal prices.
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Stop treating child criminals like ‘little angels’, says NT Labor MP Marion Scrymgour
Youth justice laws need to stop treating [Aboriginal] criminal minors as “little angels” and start applying “tough love” to lawless children, the [black] federal Labor MP representing Alice Springs has declared.
In an extraordinary intervention against her own party’s handling of the Northern Territory youth crime crisis, Marion Scrymgour says authorities need to stop “pussyfooting around” on juveniles, that the decision to raise the age of criminal responsibility is not working, and that it is time for parents to be held accountable for their children’s actions.
It came as NT Chief Minister Eva Lawler said in a “perfect world” she would not have children in detention facilities, and linked her opening of a new youth justice centre in Alice Spring on Wednesday to the British sending convicts to Australia in the 18th century.
After revelations in The Australian of children as young as 10 driving stolen cars around the streets of Alice Springs, Ms Lawler said that young people had been in criminal trouble for “the whole history of Australia” and that the nation’s history was built on the convict system.
The NT Police Association on Wednesday alleged crime statistics in the territory were “not being reported properly” and Alice Springs locals said children were getting more out of control.
Ms Scrymgour – the federal MP for Lingiari – had her own home broken into while she was sleeping last month, and said governments needed to make serious changes to NT youth justice laws.
“There’s got to be a rethink of how we deal (with youth crime) … a bit of tough love never hurt anyone and I think that’s what needs to come into this equation,” she told The Australian.
“We’ve got to stop thinking we’re dealing with little angels here … When you look at those photos they’re laughing and smiling, they think it’s a joke, and it’s not, because they could have an accident and one of them could get killed.
“We’ve got to stop pussyfooting around here and thinking that these kids are going and they’re being taken home to a responsible adult because in a lot of these cases there isn’t a responsible adult there and the reality is these kids don’t listen.”
Ms Scrymgour did not directly call on NT Labor to reverse its decision to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 12 – the highest in the country – but said the policy was not working to bring down crime and that Alice Springs residents needed immediate action.
“At the moment, obviously lifting the age of criminal responsibility isn’t working,” she said.
“The government was saying they’d done this co-response team between police and territory families. Obviously, it’s not working, if we’ve got these kids out on the street and there’s still this issue; obviously, we’ve still got problems.
“Labor is talking about a review of the Youth Justice Act, there are some critical areas in the Youth Justice Act which can be done now … it doesn’t need to be put off for 12 months.
“I’m not left and I’m not woke, I just think we’ve got to hurry up and stop thinking that all of these measures are working, because they’re not.”
Ms Scrymgour’s comments come as Alice Springs locals say the rate of home invasions, incidents of violence on the streets and the theft of cars have “skyrocketed” rise despite Anthony Albanese’s visit to the area just over a year ago.
Locals say the children – who appear to be getting younger and younger – roam the streets late at night, when they breaking into the homes of residents and commit horrifying home invasions, stealing cars and ransacking for cash and jewellery.
Ms Lawler – who came to power only at the end of last year after her predecessor Natasha Fyles resigned, and faces an election in August – last Monday announced a review of youth justice laws as part of a public address into her priorities for 2024.
As she was opening a $32m detention centre for juvenile criminals on Wednesday, Ms Lawler conceded the crime crisis was a failure of government, but linked youth crime to colonial history.
“Overall, it would be the perfect world if we did not have a detention facility in the Northern Territory,” the Chief Minister said.
“Let’s not forget the history of Australia was built on us being colonised by a detention facility from England, so we have had young people, we’ve had people in trouble with the law for the whole history of Australia.”
NTPA president Nathan Finn on Wednesday morning claimed the Territory government was hiding crime statistics from the public as part of a “political campaign”, and that the work by police officers on the ground was “not being recorded” after the police force moved to a new $65m system.
“It’s a smoke-and-mirrors campaign as we lead into an election where crime is the biggest issue, policing is the biggest issue, safety and security of members in the public is a big issue … and the community and the police need to know this,” he told ABC radio.
Mr Finn said the new system was experiencing numerous glitches, including people being wrongly arrested, and that up to 200 domestic violence orders hadn’t been scheduled in court.
“That means possibly that there are 200 plus people out there who aren’t getting the protection they require right now.”
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‘A cross between a damp squib and a huge con job’
The Albanese government’s surface fleet plans are a dismal cross between a damp squib and a routine government defence con job.
As predicted, the announcement from Defence Minister Richard Marles offers almost no new money and no immediate acquisition of new capabilities, but abounds in grandiloquent promises for the unaccountable distant future.
Here are a few central facts. The government is dividing the surface fleet into tier 1 ships, tier 2 ships and others. The bottom line is we don’t get a new tier 1 surface combatant ship until the first of the Hunter-class frigates arrives at the now delayed date of 2034.
As everyone has commented, the Hunter frigates, with just 32 vertical launch system cells, are radically under-gunned for modern warfare. Then we build six of these under-gunned behemoths so we don’t actually get a new version of a destroyer with a lot of vertical launch cells until after the sixth Hunter frigate is built and deployed – in other words, well into the 2040s.
But, the government says, we are producing up to 11 general purpose frigates that will have lots of missiles. That, of course, is a good thing … as far as it goes.
The government is already classifying these as tier 2 vessels. In what it will market as an act of tremendous political bravery, the government says the first few of these can be built off shore by the nation that gets the contract.
In one sense, thank God for small mercies. But this is a very small mercy. These general purpose frigates do not yet exist, even in theory. They will have to be designed from scratch. We will no doubt add the usual crippling array of bespoke requirements. There will be a competitive tender. This will go over time. The whole process will take years.
But if this, uniquely in our recent defence history, all goes perfectly well, the government believes it could have four of these vessels in service by 2034.
Let’s remember, every other project we’ve done has seen massive cost blowouts and delays.
Only in Australia could a process like that be described as buying something off the shelf.
And let’s examine the empirical evidence for the delivery of grand defence visions.
In 2009, the Rudd government delivered a defence white paper which said that as a matter of extreme urgency Australia needed to acquire 12 regionally superior conventional submarines.
Here we are in 2024, 15 years later, still without a contract to build a single submarine, and only a fairly provisional and unsure agreement that we might buy one from the Americans in a decade.
Main points from the Australian Navy review
The independent review found a $25 billion funding hole in the Navy’s surface fleet program
The Albanese government will inject an additional $1.7 billion over the next Forward Estimates and $11.1 billion in additional funding over the next decade for the Navy’s surface combatant fleet and Australia’s shipbuilding industry.
The Albanese Government says it is committed to “continuous naval shipbuilding” in Australia with a promise of more than 3700 direct jobs in South Australia and Western Australia over the next decade.
Hunter class frigates and destroyers will continue to be built at Osborne Naval Shipyard in South Australia, and there is a plan for eight new general purpose frigates to be built at WA’s Henderson but the precinct is not currently configured for that.
The plan will see a doubling of the Navy’s major surface combatant fleet, from 11 warships to 20 by the mid to late 2040s in addition to six semi-autonomous Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels (LOSV).
The “larger and more lethal Australian Navy” will comprise of three upgraded Hobart class destroyers, six Hunter class frigates (rather than the initially planned nine), 11 new general purpose frigates (which will eventually replace Anzacs), six new Large Optionally Crewed Surface Vessels (LOSVs) and 25 minor war vessels.
The Albanese government will have gone an entire term in government without producing any significant increase in Australian naval capability. And indeed there will be no such increase, almost for sure, for the rest of this decade.
This is our response to the most dangerous strategic circumstances in 80 years?
The cost blowout in the Hunter frigates of $20bn, which might have moved a prudent government to scrap that program and actually buy some real frigates off the shelf, is mainly costs that have arisen over the past two years.
Who can imagine that the piddling bits of money the government has announced over the forward estimates will be enough to produce the entirely notional general purpose frigates?
As for the government’s bigger funding commitments over 10 years, that’s all meaningless. Neither Anthony Albanese nor Marles will be in their current positions in 10 years.
It’s an old, old trick for governments to announce fantastic defence capabilities in a decade or more into the future and seek to give themselves massive political rewards in the mean time. It’s still a con job.
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
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My son Joe at ANU
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