No charter, but too many ‘rights’

~ Andrew Norton ~ 5 Comments

The government has decided not to introduce a charter of rights. Instead, they will introduce greater human rights scrutiny into the legislative process and increase human rights education campaigns.

While on balance I think that no charter is the right decision, the process of drafting and debating it would have had one distinct advantage over the chosen policy path. This would have been to focus attention on which interests and freedoms really deserved to achieve quasi-constitutional status as ‘human rights’, and which were things that should be the stuff of ordinary political debate.

Instead, the government has decided that ‘human rights’ are all the contents of the seven international rights treaties that have been signed on our behalf by various executives (this is not a democratic process; treaties do not require ratification by parliament). New legislation and delegated legislation will need to have a statement that ‘assesses its compatibility’ with these treaties.

The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in particular has provisions that are, as Jeremy Bentham famously described rights, ‘nonsense upon stilts’. It is a social democratic wish-list. Take for example this one on higher education: Continue reading “No charter, but too many ‘rights’” →

Should we be sentencing criminals to transportation?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 17 Comments

Yesterday’s Age reported the case of Andrew Moore, who died in England of a heroin overdose. Two days before he died, Moore had been removed from Australia after his visa had been cancelled on character grounds.

The interesting aspect of this case is that, as in a number of similar cases in recent years, Moore was in all but law an Australian. Originally from Scotland, he’d lived here for 32 of his 43 years. But he had never taken out Australian citizenship. People in this situation who are convicted of a crime and sentenced to imprisonment of 12 months or more can have their visas cancelled, and be sent back to the country they originally came from.

Moore’s crime – manslaughter – was a lot more serious than just one involving a year in jail, and he was a junkie and a drunk as well. Unlike other ‘Australians’ sent back to their birth countries, he could at least speak its language. But this practice of throwing people out of the country on what looks like a technicality does seem problematic to me.

It means that imprisoning long-term non-residents can be tantamount to also sentencing them to transportation. Continue reading “Should we be sentencing criminals to transportation?” →

Migration opinion turns

~ Andrew Norton ~ 4 Comments

As recently as last month, a Morgan Poll found that the majority public support for migration that began in 1998 had been maintained. As I noted at the time, this was a little surprising given other polls were identifying concern about the consequences of population growth.

Now the latest Nielsen poll reported in the Fairfax broadsheets finds that finally the polls have turned on support for the migration program, with 54% saying that the number of migrants coming to Australia is too high. 38% say that the number is about right, while 6% say it is too low.

John Carroll repents

~ Andrew Norton ~ 28 Comments

In 1992, John Carroll and Robert Manne published Shutdown: The Failure of Economic Rationalism. This was the book that prompted me and two university friends, Chrises Jones and James, to co-edit A Defence of Economic Rationalism.

Eighteen years on, Carroll has written to The Australian to explain that he no longer supports the book’s conclusions:

To me now, the past two decades support the maxim: if in doubt, trust the free market.

Moreover, if the GFC signals anything it is to beware irresponsible government

Shutdown co-editor Robert Manne is hoping that he will be second-time lucky with Goodbye to All That: On the Failure of Neoliberalism and the Urgency of Climate Change.

It’s rare that public intellectuals will admit that they were wrong, so Carroll deserves congratulation for doing so.

The ‘human rights’ of international students

~ Andrew Norton ~ 18 Comments

This morning’s Australian reports on this speech by my U of M colleague Simon Marginson calling for extended rights for international students:

International students are temporary migrants. Nations have the option of treating them as quasi-residents, or as outsiders. Everywhere they are treated as outsiders. Nowhere do they enjoy comprehensive human rights in local law. ……..human rights should not be confined to local citizens.

…we should understand student security as an issue of comprehensive human rights…

we suggest that a strong contribution governments can make to student security is to provide affordable student housing, for a mix of local and international students, in areas where students study and work. [I have altered the sequence from the original presentation]

I am a ‘human rights’ sceptic. As a classical liberal, I unsurprisingly believe that many of the interests and freedoms that find their way into lists of ‘human rights’ are indeed important. But I don’t believe these interests and freedoms are best advocated or defended by simply asserting that they are ‘rights’. Continue reading “The ‘human rights’ of international students” →

Actual versus perceived income

~ Andrew Norton ~ 8 Comments

Andrew Leigh is reporting on 1999 research showing that many high income earners wrongly place themselves in lower income deciles and many low income earners place themselves in a higher income decile than is justified by their actual income (also cross-posted at Core Economics).

In the past (p.16) I have used this data to suggest that some people who agree to survey propositions that above-average income earners pay more tax – as 41% of people are in the latest Essential Research survey – may get a nasty shock when they find the taxman raiding their wallets.

While I still think this is likely to be the case, asking people to put themselves into the correct income decile is a big ask. I would expect more general questions such as average, below average, or above average would yield more accurate results. Using data from the 2005 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes and comparing it to 2006 census household family income data I found that accuracy improved but significant discrepancies remained.


(The image is not entirely clear: the three horizontal axis labels are below median <$52,000; median $52,000-$77,999, and above median <$78,000) Continue reading “Actual versus perceived income” →

Vertical federal competition

~ Andrew Norton ~ 4 Comments

The latest Newspoll survey on federalism sponsored by Griffith University has another small piece of evidence that the Pincus position – the idea that Australian federalism works principally through vertical interaction and competition between the Commonwealth and the states rather than horizontal competition between the states – may have popular support.

A question on features of federalism (there are several in the survey, but the answers to most have not been released) asked whether ‘different levels of government being able to collaborate on solutions to problems’ was desirable, and more than 90% said yes. While respondents may have had in mind better bureaucratic coordination, like the two houses in a bicameral system two levels of government in a federal system may offer different perspectives, interests, experiences and abilities.

The current situation in which Victoria, with extensive experience of a case-mix system of hospital funding, is putting an alternative to Kevin Rudd’s hospital funding plan into the national debate is a good example of how the policy competition that is supposed to be a feature of horizontal competition between states can also work vertically. Continue reading “Vertical federal competition” →

Sorting out asylum seeker opinion

~ Andrew Norton ~ 14 Comments

Opinion polls haven’t always been helpful in sorting out three distinct issues

1) whether we should take asylum seekers at all (and if so, how many);
2) whether or not asylum seekers who arrive by boat without prior approval should be accepted;
3) whether there are groups we should not take at all, regardless of how or why they come.

Refugee advocates have tended to think that opposition to refugees is motivated by 3, (‘xenophobia’), or to be more precise opposition to Muslim migration and perhaps other groups with a history of political violence (such as Tamils, though I doubt knowledge of the Sri Lankan civil war is widespread in Australia). As refugees tend to be disproportionately from supposedly disfavoured groups, opposing asylum seeker arrivals is a way of keeping them out.

The recent Morgan poll confirms an Essential Research finding last November that there is plurality support for taking asylum seekers. Morgan found 50% support, 41% opposition, and 9% ‘can’t say’. Essential’s figures were 45%/25%/30%, suggesting a lot of ‘soft’ opposition. The differences can probably be explained by polling methods. Essential’s surveys are online, so there is an explicit ‘no answer’ option. Morgan used a telephone poll where only support or oppose were directly offered, with ‘can’t say’ recorded where the respondent couldn’t or wouldn’t choose. If pressed, people with weak opinions tend to go negative. Continue reading “Sorting out asylum seeker opinion” →

The complexities of migration politics

~ Andrew Norton ~ 3 Comments

Over the last couple of months, several polls have identified opinion that seems to be inconsistent with migration at recent levels. An Essential Research poll last month found concern about migration on infrastructure, environmental and ‘change to society’ grounds. A Lowy Poll conducted in March found 69% opposition to the 2050 population size that continued recent levels of migration and fertility would according to the Intergenerational Report produce. A Morgan Poll also during March found that 60% wanted a population of 30 million or less by 2040, against projections of 32.6 million at current rates of population growth.

From all this I would have predicted that the Howard-era majority support for the migration program would be disappearing. But the Morgan Poll finds otherwise. 57% of those surveyed think that migration should remain about the same (46%) or increase (11%). Morgan surveys those aged 14 and over; narrowing the sample to voters 54% think migration should be the same (45%) or higher (9%). That’s almost the same as the 52% support last November. Continue reading “The complexities of migration politics” →

Privatising air space?

~ Andrew Norton ~ 12 Comments

According to RMIT academic Michael Buxton, quoted in The Age this morning, the increasing number of tall buildings on Melbourne’s skyline is bad because:

”What we’re doing with high-rise is privatising space at the public expense. If you buy your view, sure, you’ve got a wonderful view from the top of one of these towers but what you’ve done is bought airspace. So that airspace was once originally a part of the public domain … the public get no benefit.”

But how many members of the public would otherwise get to use the airspace at level 40 of a skyscraper? It seems to me that the higher the building the fewer issues ‘airspace’ use generates, at least until it reaches flight path levels (and as we don’t want low-flying planes in built-up areas, that is quite high).

There are ‘negative externality’ issues with the shadows tall buildings create, but Buxton’s dubious ideological claim does not seem to me to be helpful in deciding whether we should have more tall buildings in Melbourne.