What Australian newspapers say on Thursday, December 11, 2008

AAP General News (Australia)
12-11-2008
What Australian newspapers say on Thursday, December 11, 2008

SYDNEY, Dec 11 AAP - Human rights are a cornerstone of Australia's national life which
are best protected by democracy and the rule of law, The Australian says in an editorial.

As Jesuit lawyer Frank Brennan and his panel set about consulting Australians about
human rights policies and laws, the weight of evidence against a bill or charter of rights
is compelling. Paradoxically, it would be more likely to undermine democracy and personal
liberty than enhance them, at vast expense, as lawyers enjoyed not a picnic, but a banquet.

A week ago, The Australian says it pointed out that those clamouring for a charter
of rights have been unable to explain how the community would benefit by stripping power
from elected politicians and handing it to unelected judges. Since then, the arguments
advanced by proponents of a bill or charter have been unconvincing.

In her Human Rights Day oration, Catherine Branson, president of the Australian Human
Rights Commission, complained that innocent people, including children, had been unjustly
detained and that Australia had deported its citizens.

In its submission to the 2020 summit, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission
claimed that current legal arrangements did not adequately protect citizens from human
rights violations. In support of its case, it cited Cornelia Rau, the Australian resident
wrongfully detained by immigration authorities, and Vivian Alvarez, wrongfully deported
to The Philippines.

Those cases were prime examples of bureaucratic bungling and heartless officialdom.

They showed why our migration scheme needed reform to work more flexibly, efficiently
and humanely. Part of the slowness in processing refugee claims, too, stemmed from human
rights lawyers clogging the courts with asylum-seeker cases with little chance of success.

A charter of rights, too, could impede the system.

Australia needs a bill of rights, The Age says.

Australia is alone among liberal democracies in not having a national charter of rights.

That might be finally about to change, if the national consultation announced by federal
Attorney-General Robert McLelland finds widespread support for a charter.

The Age says it has long argued that common law and the parliament offer insufficient
protection of basic human rights, and that at least a statutory charter, adhering to the
principles underlying the Victorian charter, should be adopted nationally.

The consultation that the federal government has announced should be the beginning
of a national conversation on the rights and duties of citizens, and no aspect of the
question - including the possible entrenchment of rights in the constitution - should
be excluded from that conversation.

Some proposals before the federal government that would change how retirees can use
their superannuation risk turning Australia into a nanny state, The Herald Sun says.

The way Australians should spend their superannuation should be their decision.

Making retirees take all or part of their super as an annual income is one of the more
ludicrous options in a review of tax and retirement arrangements.

The suggestion is that your super should be some sort of annuity, meted out against
the prospect of living beyond your life expectancy.

A more realistic view would be to replace welfare payments with meaningful tax breaks
that would keep older people in the workforce and saving.

Instead of being pushed into too-early retirement, they would be able to live their
golden years in dignity and comfort.

It's rare to see real innovation in public policy, but we felt its touch this week,
The Sydney Morning Herald says.

The NSW Ports Minister, Joe Tripodi, announced his solution to the problem of under-capacity
at the port of Newcastle: ships on their way to the port to pick up coal will be monitored
using satellites, and told to slow down if there's a queue. By this simple means the long-running
problem of huge numbers of vessels waiting off the coast will be removed.

The thing has a certain genius to it, and we wonder if the same approach might be applied
elsewhere. Cars approaching the city of a morning could be told to slow down to reduce
congestion on the F3 and the M5. Ambulances bearing patients towards overcrowded hospitals
might be ordered to circle the block until the hospital staff had time to see them.

The paper said it was joking and maybe should not, given the seriousness of the problem
at Newcastle and the absurdity of the proposed "solution". Yet it's difficult to know
how else to respond to an action so emblematic of the state government's chronic inability
to plan or act in the state's interests, the paper said.

Homeowners in Sydney's west copped a belting earlier this year through high interest
rates and ridiculous fuel prices, The Daily Telegraph says.

It was as though events were conspiring against the west, Sydney's primary driving
force for growth and development. How quickly things change. And, in this case, for the
better.

Now we have the unexpected - but very welcome - situation whereby houses worth less
than $500,000 in areas like Camden and Campbelltown have actually recorded rises in market
value.

The rises aren't massive, averaging just more than 1 per cent. But in the current economic
climate this is a little like finding gold - during a mine collapse.

Still, the boost in values turns around a five-year trend of falling prices in the
west - a trend that has not been much noticed during out-of-control property boom times
in harbourside areas.

If the change in the west can be viewed as an overdue "correction", what to call the
9 per cent drop in housing values in places like Woollahra and Waverley?

This is an indicator of the first big economic shockwaves hitting our city. How we
ride this out will depend on many factors, not least among them consumer confidence. At
least the west is doing its bit to keep Sydney buoyant.

The Queensland government's new draft regional plan, which it released for comment
this week, is a high-minded, big-picture attempt to work out how to fit another 735,000
homes into southeast Queensland in the next two decades, The Courier-Mail says.

One of the keys to solving this enormous challenge is, in the words of the plan itself,
"an extensive and efficient public transport system". It is impossible to disagree with
such an obvious truth.

But, as with all such visionary and aspirational documents, the words are one thing;
turning them into action is another matter entirely. The state government will point to
its billions of dollars of new transport infrastructure now under way - its busways and
train lines and investments in new rolling stock - as evidence that it is indeed delivering
on its promises.

And that is fine, although it is fair to ask in the current economic climate, just
how much of the government's ambitious future capital works program is at risk from lack
of funding, either from the public purse or from the private sector.

AAP cmc

KEYWORD: EDITORIALS

2008 AAP Information Services Pty Limited (AAP) or its Licensors.