Author: Andrew Norton

Will the public support conditional welfare?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 30 Comments

Today in The Australian my CIS colleague Peter Saunders comes out in favour of ‘conditional welfare’, in which some welfare payments for parents deemed irresponsible or incompetent are restricted, so that they can only be spent on items the government deems appropriate.

So far as I am aware, this is not an idea that has been directly tested in an opinion poll. But based on answers to other questions we can take an educated guess as to what the public might say if asked.

Most of the people to whom conditional welfare would apply would presumably be on unemployment or single parent benefits, two groups which have not inspired enthusiasm among Australian voters. For example, a 2001 Saulwick poll asked about benefit levels for various beneficiary groups. Majorities supported higher payments for those who could not reasonably expected to work, the aged and disabled. But only 22% wanted more for single parents, and only 17% for the unemployed.

Both groups, perhaps, are seen as vulnerable to the moral hazards of welfare. Continue reading “Will the public support conditional welfare?” →

Is the CIS to blame for Australian greenhouse policy?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 26 Comments

I was rather surprised to find myself mentioned in the latest greenhouse book, Guy Pearse’s High and Dry. But there I am, on page 244. How I managed to make any appearance in a book on an issue that is a very long way down my list of interests requires some explanation.

High and Dry analyses why (at least until recently) the PM was a climate change sceptic. From what I have read, it is a more detailed version of Clive Hamilton’s book Scorcher, arguing that the influence of the fossil-fuel industry and ‘neo-liberal’ think-tanks explains the PM’s stance (Hamilton, one of Pearse’s PhD supervisors, draws on Pearse’s research).

To argue that ‘neo-liberal’ think-tanks influence Howard, Pearse has to show their connections to the government. And this is where I come in:

Andrew Norton, while not so vocal on greenhouse policy, is another at CIS with close links to the Howard government. He was once an adviser to former environment minister David Kemp.

‘Not so vocal’? ‘Not vocal at all’ would be closer to it. So far as I can find, my only expressed opinion on greenhouse policy was this passing reference in a blog post this February that does not support Pearse’s case:
Continue reading “Is the CIS to blame for Australian greenhouse policy?” →

Does union power still frighten voters #2?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 14 Comments

According to The Australian‘s take on a Newspoll on unions and political parties on Friday:

…the Coalition’s campaign [on union power] is not resonating with middle Australia as 55 per cent of voters rate Mr Rudd’s handling of unions as good and only 27 per cent rate his performance poorly – including 10 per cent of Labor supporters – while 50 per cent say Mr Howard is not doing a good job. …. while the Coalition claims it is on an election winner with its plans to demonise the unions, the Newspoll suggests voters will be more discerning.

This is a different conclusion to the one I came to a couple of weeks ago, when I argued that though improved union behaviour has been rewarded with significantly fewer people thinking that they have too much power, there was life yet in this issue for the Coalition.

I see two problems with the Newspoll. The first, as I noted in several posts about issue polling, stances on issues and party preferences are often closely tied together, so it is hard to know whether a person supports party X because of their stance on issue Y, or holds their opinion on issue Y because of their support for party X. Mentioning the party in the same question as the issue, as Newspoll does in this case, increases the chance that underlying party preference will drive opinions on issues.
Continue reading “Does union power still frighten voters #2?” →

The maternal state

~ Andrew Norton ~ 94 Comments

The Age reported yesterday on the first women-only political party, What Women Want Australia. Rarely has entitlement feminism been so blatant; usually at least a see-through blouse of principle covers the naked self-interest. According to The Age‘s story:

Launching the What Women Want Australia party in Brisbane today, Justine Caines said women needed better representation and were sick of being paid lip service on key issues.

These included paid maternity leave, post-natal services, access to child care, education and the environment.

Though relatively few women have held senior political positions, much more than lip service has been paid to policies affecting women. Indeed, for all the talk on this blog and elsewhere about redistributing money between income deciles and between household types, one of the biggest things the government does is redistribute income from men to women.

The ATO’s statistics show that men pay more than twice as much income tax as women. Yet they receive back less than women in return.

Nearly 60% of the recipients in the Budget’s biggest expense, the old age pension, are women. Continue reading “The maternal state” →

Where do I belong on the Crikey blogging bias-o-meter?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 38 Comments

This week Crikey has been rating various forms of media outlets by their political bias, from 0 in the middle stretching to 10 in each ideological direction, right and left. Today they turn to blogging (subscribers only).

My bias is quite open (‘Carlton’s lone classical liberal’), and I received the most votes in the best solo libertarian blog competition, but it seems that Crikey only rates me as a 1 on the right side of their bias-o-meter. My friends at Catallaxy, by contrast, score a 6.

How can this be?
Continue reading “Where do I belong on the Crikey blogging bias-o-meter?” →

Why are people satisfied with their work-life balance?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 9 Comments

According to The Age‘s report of the first Australian Work and Life Index

…work follows most people beyond the office with men especially reporting more “spillover” than women. Yet, in a seemingly contradictory finding, three-quarters of those surveyed said they were satisfied with the bargain struck between work and life. (emphasis added)

The seemingly contradictory statistics run like this: around half of workers say that work interferes with ‘activities outside work’ (combining ‘sometimes’ and ‘often/almost always’) and with ‘community connections’. Sixty percent think that it ‘interferes with ‘enough time for family and friends’. Only 16% say that they ‘never/rarely’ feel rushed for time. Yet 75% say that they are satisfied with their work-life balance.

The missing concept that leads journalists to think these results are contradictory – and a concept that is missing rather too often from labour market analysis – is trade-off. There are more worthwhile things that most of us would like to do than we can fit in a day, a week, or even a life, and this means that we cannot maximise them all in the same time period. Yet we can be satisfied with our overall work-life balance because given the objectives we have we are content with the trade-offs we have made.

This is evident in the statistics provided in Work and Life Index report. Continue reading “Why are people satisfied with their work-life balance?” →

Where are the missing HECS debtors?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 12 Comments

Today the Australian National Audit Office released a ‘performance audit’ (pdf) of the Higher Education Loan Program, which supports the three types of student loans: HECS-HELP for Commonwealth-subsidised students, FEE-HELP for full-fee students, and OS-HELP, which helps finance study overseas.

The ANAO’s audit was a box-ticking exercise that found little wrong with the administration of HELP. What’s more concerning, as I argued in my paper on FEE-HELP (pdf) last year, is the overall design of the system, which controls losses by setting arbitrary loan limits, while losing or delaying receipt of lots of money that could be recovered with better policy design.

Publications released since then highlight the problem. The DEST Higher Education Report 2005 stated that 1,121,822 people had a HECS debt as at 30 June 2005. Yet the ATO’s personal income tax report reports only 250,085 persons making a repayment through the taxation system in 2004-05. Where are the other 871,737 people?
Continue reading “Where are the missing HECS debtors?” →

Who thinks that they have low status?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 8 Comments

If leftists support “political programmes that seek to eliminate status differences or moderate their impact” then the best way to reduce the left’s opposition to free markets would be to sever the link between income and status.

Don Arthur, 10 June.

But how strong is the existing link between income and status? This issue can be approached from two directions. We can ask people what weight they give income when assessing the status of another person – I am not aware of research on this, though I’m sure somebody must have put the question in a survey. We can also ask people how they perceive their own status and compare that self-assessment with their income. A question in the Australian Survey of Social Attitudes 2005 asks:

In our society there are groups which tend to be towards the top and groups which tend to be towards the bottom. Below is a scale that runs from the top to the bottom where the top is 10 and the bottom is 1. Where would you put yourself on this scale?

Overall, whatever others may think of them, most people do not think they are on the ‘bottom’ of society. Only 2% rate themselves as ‘1’ and only 18% below 5. If we thought of society as having 10 status deciles, 40% should rate themselves below 5. Consistent with an egalitarian ethos, few rate themselves too highly either. Only 3% of respondents put themselves in the top 20% of society.

Low income is, however, associated with lower status. Continue reading “Who thinks that they have low status?” →

Does gay marriage have majority support?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 5 Comments

To coincide with the release of a HREOC report on anti-gay discrimination, political spammers GetUp! have released a Galaxy poll (pdf) on the rights of same-sex partners.

This is the first time a survey has found majority support for gay marriage, with 57% of respondents agreeing that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. As GetUp!’s media release notes, this is a big increase on the last poll on gay marriage, a 2004 Newspoll that found 38% in favour. Could things have changed that much in two years?

Actually, less than two years. Over 2005 and 2006 there were three surveys on the seemingly less contentious issue of civil unions, with the proportions in favour ranging from 45% to 52%. That gay marriage now comes out ahead of civil unions, without any major intervening debate or publicity, inevitably raises question about whether opinion has really changed or it is something to do with the survey itself.
Continue reading “Does gay marriage have majority support?” →

Do issues explain Labor’s lead?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 33 Comments

Labor’s lead in the polls is persistent and substantial, but the pundits are having trouble explaining why. Clearly Rudd personally is part of it, but his Newspoll lead over Howard as preferred PM (6%) is only half Labor lead’s on the two-party preferred (12%). The issue polling that has come out from ACNielsen and Newspoll this week helps us see what else might be going on.

Newspoll asks which party would best handle 18 issues, so it provides the widest scope for analysis. As The Australian, ever-keen to find a positive angle for the Coalition, noted this morning Labor has made no progress on probably the most discussed issue, industrial relations. I doubt this is a failure on Gillard’s part though – the labour movement has thrown everything they have into this issue for the last two years, and Labor was probably already as high as it could go.

Another traditional Labor strength, ‘health and Medicare’, has also seen only modest gains (I can’t even remember who their health spokesperson is), but it’s still the equal highest rating (45%) since Newspoll started polling this issue in July 1990. The Coalition on 33% is above their all-time low (26%), but it’s not much to show for the tidal wave of cash that it has sent over the health system- real per person spending up nearly 40% between 1995-96 and 2005-06.
Continue reading “Do issues explain Labor’s lead?” →