Crikey says: Tony's tax lesson from world leaders

You have to love the editorial from today’s edition of the online newsletter Crikey.

Crikey says: Tony's tax lesson from world leaders

"No country has ever taxed or subsidised its way to prosperity."

Of the rambling, campaign-style speech delivered by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last night, that line was an interesting one.

It was certainly an interesting crowd to tell it to. Australia's GDP per capita sits at around seventh in the world by most measures. Above it is Norway, which taxes at 50% and up, and equal or just below us -- and lacking ours and Norway's resources windfalls -- are Denmark, Sweden and Finland, also 50%-plus taxers.

And those statistics are made more revealing when you look at estimated GDP per capita figures from 1900, where Australia sits at No. 2 (behind New Zealand), riding high on the sheep's back. Sweden is 13th, Norway is 17th and Finland 20th. So we have gone down five or six places, while they have gone up, across a century in which they have applied consistently higher taxation.

When our resource boom splutters and dies and all we have are Gina Rinehart's poems bolted to rocks to show for it, Scandinavian countries will have the schools, universities, compact cities, affordable renewable energy, etc, that they paid for with taxes.

So thanks for the history lesson, Tone. Will this be on the curriculum?

Supplementary submission: Consular support for Australian women overseas

In Submission on Consular Strategy 2014-16 I provided the text of a submission which my colleagues Andrew Farran, Garry Woodard and I lodged with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in relation to the current Review of Consular Strategy 2014-16.

Subsequently, Andrew Farran and I lodged a Supplementary Submission on an aspect of consular support practice which seems to warrant particular attention, namely the support to be provided to Australian women fighting custody battles in foreign jurisdictions, often involving domestic violence and/or child abuse, sometimes involving abductions. If we want to ensure that the available resources are directed to the most vulnerable, this group should not be overlooked.

The text of this submission appears below. For anyone who wishes to take up this particular issue, you need do no more than email a letter setting out your views to consularstrategy@dfat.gov.au by 31 January 2014. We would certainly welcome your support.

SUPPLEMENTARY SUBMISSION by Andrew Farran and Paul Barratt in response to the Foreign Minister's Invitation to Comment on Consular Strategy 2014-16

Further to our Submission dated December 7, 2013 we wish to make a Supplementary Submission on an area of Consular practice that has come to our attention, one which derives from one of the matters noted by the Foreign Minister in her Invitation to Comment, namely the fact that one of the factors contributing to the international mobility of Australians and hence the consular workload is the number of Australians marrying overseas – or more generally, we would suggest, the number of Australians living with non-Australian spouses in foreign jurisdictions, which takes in Australians who may marry a foreigner in Australia and subsequently move overseas.

The matter we wish to raise in this Supplementary Submission is the plight of Australian women fighting custody battles in foreign jurisdictions, often involving domestic violence and/or child abuse, sometimes involving abductions. While these cases must of course be governed initially by the law of the country concerned, the women fighting them can face a number of potential problems in their efforts to obtain a just outcome – one which is just not only for them but for their children, who depending upon the circumstances may or may not be Australian citizens. These may involve a failure to deliver on an agreed/negotiated process for considering custody, or a failure to accord natural justice, or even allegations of failure on the part of the relevant assessment authorities to bring all of the relevant information before the court. All of these would seem to be matters warranting consular assistance.

In raising this kind of matter we are not advocating that the Department should deploy its consular capacities on the merits of the custody claims per se. Our concern is that the deliberative processes that determine custody should observe the basic principles of natural justice and not involve any abuse of process. If such be the case then the provisions of and rights arising from relevant international treaties come into play. Their observation should be a matter of the government's responsibility to uphold in so far as they apply to Australian citizens. These provide a basis from which the government can and should rely in its interventions when seeking other governments to uphold and discharge their responsibilities in their own jurisdictions.

While the Convention on the Rights of the Child clearly applies in many such cases, so might the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Such abduction might not only arise from the actions of a parent. It could be the consequence of judicial abuse of process. Whether that might or not be argued we come back to the citation from Oppenheimer in our original submission where it is stated that: "It has been repeatedly laid down that there exists ... a minimum standard of civilisation, and that a State which fails to measure up to that standard incurs international liability".

An international legal system committed to order and security is the strongest safeguard of Australia's long-term interests. Naturally if we do not respect and observe our obligations under the system we should not be surprised if other nations do not reciprocate. The fact that some do not do so regardless, is not a reason for Australia to take lightly its own commitments, both to the international community and to its own citizens. Without consular support their rights may prove illusory.

One hears of such cases. Because of their potential complexity (involving both treaty and domestic law) they may be beyond the resources of the Consular Section of the Department to address. Perhaps there should be a dedicated section within DFAT to handle these cases in conjunction with professional consular staff overseas. A private person having initially sought legal assistance in the relevant jurisdiction could not possibly be expected to manage and pay for all that is involved across jurisdictions in these matters to secure a just outcome particularly in circumstances where they have felt obliged for the safety of themselves and/or their children to exit the family home.

We commend to you these additional observations.

Andrew Farran and Paul Barratt

Andrew Farran is a former Australian diplomat, senior law academic (Monash University: 1972-86), and trade policy adviser. Previous vice-president of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. Currently, company director (UK and Australia).

Paul Barratt is a former Secretary of the Department of Defence, former Deputy Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and former Executive Director, Business Council of Australia.

Crikey says: the ship has now sailed

Below is the text of the editorial from today’s edition of the online newsletter Crikey. It would be hard to disagree:

We may have declared war on Indonesia. Accidentally, of course.

It's hard to know the more laughable revelation from Immigration Minister Scott Morrison's humiliating press conference this morning: that in chasing asylum seeker boats away as part of "Operational Sovereign Borders" we breached the sovereignty of Indonesia, or that our naval navigation systems are so poor commanders couldn't have avoided it.

Morrison and the poor sap he plucked from the army to run this ramshackle operation, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, got down on their knees and issued a grovelling apology to our neighbour and ally. A review will be launched! It will never happen again! Foreign Minister Julie Bishop got on the blower to her Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa to offer an explanation, but it seems he's no longer taking her calls.

And who could blame him.

This government has vowed to stop at nothing to stop the boats. On that, at least, it is keeping its promise. But we couldn't have imagined just how far it would go -- and how much damage to foreign relations they'd do in the process.

Moving on from Australia’s exclusionary approach to citizenship

Below are the biographical note, and abstract and introductory paragraphs of the contribution by Professor Kim Rubinstein and Jacqueline Field to the Australia21 publication Refugees and asylum seekers: finding a better way.

Who we are not is not who we are: Moving on from Australia’s exclusionary approach to citizenship

Kim Rubinstein and Jacqueline Field

Kim Rubinstein is Professor and Director of the Centre for International and Public Law at the Australian National University. She is an acknowledged expert on citizenship law. Jacqueline Field has been working with Professor Rubinstein on the Australian Research Council project: Small Mercies, Big Futures (ARC Linkage LP100200596) since 2012. She is currently based in Singapore, with an NGO that advocates migrant workers’ rights.

Abstract

Contemporary Governments’ treatment of asylum seekers and refugees is symptomatic of an enduring focus on excluding outsiders in immigration and citizenship policy. Australia’s constitutional history illustrates that the process of defining the nation itself was grounded ina social and political climate of racism and exclusion. It is significant that in the years since Federation, immigration and citizenship legislation in Australia has largely been based on the Commonwealth’s power to make laws for ‘naturalisation and aliens’. The distinction between citizens and aliens is the foundation of Australian immigration law, which has led to the use of Australian citizenship as a political device of exclusion. But we, as Australians, should not let our history define us. We can engage with the question of what it means to be Australian. We can seek to address the missed opportunities of the past, and reclaim the politicised debates in the refugee and asylum seeker context.

Essay begins

In 2013, both major Australian political parties took radical steps to prevent asylum seekers and refugees from reaching and remaining on Australia’s shores. The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees by current Governments is symptomatic of an enduring focus on excluding outsiders in immigration and citizenship policy. Since the creation of Australia as a Federation, the exclusion of outsiders has been a fundamental policy attitude. This exclusionary focus is grounded in an Australian Constitution that defines its members not by who they are, but rather by who they are not. It reflects a history of Australian citizenship law that has created a community defined by those it excludes. From a constitutional and legal point of view, Australia has never really come to terms with who its members are. In order to move the discourse on asylum-seekers and refugees away from one of exclusion, we as Australian citizens must depart from our historical fixation on who we are not, and seek to define what it means to belong to the Australian community.

To read the full essay

The full essay can be obtained by accessing the complete publication which can be downloaded as a PDF file at no charge from the Australia21 website here.

If you would like to buy a hard copy for $25 including postage you may do so from here.

Note:

Please remember that Australia21 is dependent upon public donations to continue its work. If you would like to make a donation you can do so by visiting the Australia21 website at www.australia21.org.au. Donations over $2 are tax deductible.

A twilight cruise on Sydney Harbour

Last Friday evening 10 January a friend took me as a passenger in a twilight race out of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia at Rushcutters Bay (first  home of the Royal Australian Navy).

Of course I had my trusty iPhone along and managed not to drop it in the water so here are some of the photos: