Please consider assisting Australia21

Some of you will know I chair an organisation called Australia21. We’re an independent, not for profit think tank promoting fair, sustainable and inclusive public policy through evidence-based research.

We tackle real-world social issues and environmental problems that defy simple solutions (so-called “wicked problems") and we think there are a lot of issues right now that need some evidence-based discussion, especially in this era of fake news and spin.

That is why I am posting this end-of-financial year request for your help.

Even though we run on a very tight budget, we’re able to achieve a great deal, thanks to our reputation as a respected non-partisan think tank, the expertise of our high-level hands-on Board and the pro bono contributions of the diverse networks we’re able to draw on. (All our Board members are listed on our website: www.australia21.org.au/evidence-and-expertise/our-people/our-team)

Last financial year we mobilised around 1300 hours of pro bono work including contributions from 45 external experts from around the country. This year we’ll exceed that with a long list of work on complex issues. For example, over the last 12 months we’ve:

-   finalised our third report on illicit drugs that Jeff Kennett and Bob Carr launched for us in March. This was an important step forward, because the senior law enforcement officers who put their names to it came to the conclusion that law reform is essential to saving lives and minimising harm from drugs. The media follow up and discussion since has helped to move the debate about illicit drug policy along;

-   launched a volume of essays on trauma-related stress in Australia drawing out the diverse groups of people affected and the huge cost to individuals and Australian society PTSD poses;

-   followed up with a large roundtable meeting of first responders (police, ambulance, fire and emergency services, and experts on the issue from Defence) to talk about better ways to respond to PTSD in our front line emergency responders – we’re writing up the report now;

-   run a multidisciplinary roundtable on the potential for algal farming to contribute to food and fuel security – we had scientists, business people, government policy makers, and a politician in the same room talking about what’s possible and how we might make it happen. The report is due for launch by Senator Janet Rice in August;

-   run a forum on mindfulness, empathy and compassion and launched the Mindful Futures Network, a venture that will provide a national space to map and develop the application of mindfulness, empathy and compassion at a systems level, particularly to improve the health and proficiency of Australia’s public and private organisations. UK MP Chris Ruane, who pioneered cross-party and public service mindfulness training in Britain helped launch the Network at our webinar in May;

-   run a Young Australia21 group, feeding their ideas into our projects;

-   through our Young Australia21 group and in collaboration with the Australian Lions Drug Awareness Foundation finalised and are about to launch a conversation pack aimed at starting discussions with young people about drugs and drug policy;

-   started work on a project looking at young people and the future of work – Making our Future Work – where we’ll seek to add to the research base by talking directly to young people about how they feel about the future and work, to provide insight for policy makers across a range of policy areas;

-   supported an Adelaide primary school to pilot a drug awareness education program inspired by our 2014 Smarter about Drugs forum for young people; and

-   started discussions for a project called ‘Imagining Equality’ canvassing possible solutions to growing inequality in Australia, following from our 2014 inequality roundtable and report.

We need funding to support and promote these projects, and to run our very effective small office.

-   We have the equivalent of one half time staff member managing our office and operations, raising funds, supporting projects and managing volunteers. Salary and organisation overheads cost us around $70,000 a year.

-   And we’ve identified we need to invest in expert communications help so our work is spread far and wide in the public arena. Our collaboration with a communications expert over the last six months has really paid off – the launch of our illicit drug report is a great example with solid media coverage and comment lasting well beyond the day of the launch helping to move public debate along in this area.

-   For each project that communications expertise costs us around $13,000.

We don’t receive any large government or corporate funding. We rely on project specific grants, and support from our donors. We need help to continue doing this work and this year we’re running an unusual end of financial year donations drive. A group of very generous supporters has pledged to multiply donations made to Australia21 in the next two weeks.

-   The first $21,000 we raise from 16-30 June will be multiplied 5 times thanks to our generous matching donors.

-   Every $1 donated will unlock $5. And if we reach our goal of $21,000 in the next two weeks we’ll release $105,000 for Australia21 to continue its work.

-   The drive is running for the last fortnight of June (16-30 June) and all donations of $2 or more are tax deductible.

There are a few ways you can help us.

-   We would very much appreciate any donation you could make, however big or small. We’d love to reach our $21,000 goal so we unlock the maximum of $105,000. Every contribution will make a difference. You can donate by going to our website www.australia21.org.au and clicking on the yellow donate button. Or you can go directly to our online donation site at www.givenow.com.au/australia21, donate directly to our bank account (bsb: 313 140, Account No: 2319 3882) or send a cheque to Australia21 Limited, PO Box 3244, Weston  ACT 2611. I can send you these details.

-   We don’t have a marketing budget for this drive so we’re relying on networks and word of mouth. I would be grateful if you would pass this message and the link to our short video https://youtu.be/8nRnHpS3w0g on to your own networks and help us reach out to a broader community.

-   Do you know any philanthropists that might be interested in our work? Would you be willing to talk to them and put us in contact?

We’d appreciate any help you can give us. Thanks!

Additional information

·        Australia21 Board members work directly on projects: running roundtables and forums; forming discussion networks and project teams; talking to politicians, researchers, policy experts and analysts, business leaders, young people, and people experiencing first-hand the issues we explore; writing reports; organising logistics; working with the media.

·        Running a roundtable costs about $61,000, and mobilises around $100,000 of pro bono work.

·        $127,000 would allow us to run the whole Making our Future Work project including four workshops with young people, a roundtable meeting, and a report. We’d mobilise about $83,000 of pro bono work.

A Soviet-era joke for our times

For some reason the Tony Abbott’s moves to abolish the three climate change agencies brings back to mind a Soviet-era joke which runs something like this:

Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev are travelling together across the Soviet steppes on a train. The train breaks down in the middle of nowhere and comes to a shuddering halt.

Lenin declares, “I shall go up to the front of the train and make a fiery speech urging the drivers on in the name of the Revolution”.

Stalin waves his hand dismissively and says, “No, that will never work. I shall go up to the front of the train and have the drivers shot for their crimes against the state, and we will get new drivers”.

Khrushchev says, “No, we don’t do that anymore. I shall go up to the front of the train and tell the drivers they had better get the problem fixed or we will send them to a labour camp”.

Brezhnev says, “Why don’t we just pull down the blinds – then we won’t know whether the train is moving or not”.

Why the asylum seeker problem is like the drug problem

Today’s edition of the Australian academia-linked website The Conversation carries a 10,000 word essay by Desmond Manderson, Professor in Law and the Humanities, and ARC Future Fellow at the Australian National University, on the subject of why the asylum seeker problem is like the drug problem – a thought which has often occurred to me as my involvement in Australia21’s roundtables on the drug problem made me more familiar with our disastrous approach to that issue.

In his introductory paragraphs Professor Manderson says:

I began to write this essay because I was so frustrated by the lack of clear information around asylum seekers. I wanted to clarify as well as I could a debate I couldn’t make sense of. But seeing the problem afresh, the hysteria that surrounds it suddenly reminded me of a political debate from ten or twenty years ago.

The asylum problem now is like the drug problem then. Debate is framed in a moral language that excites a crisis completely unrelated to the dimensions of the problem. The asylum seeker, like the drug addict, is depicted as a piteous victim who must be locked up for their own good; the “trafficker” or “smuggler” is considered a villain against whom no action is too harsh.

Policy settings in both cases depend on a zero-tolerance approach built around hugely expensive law enforcement strategies. The underlying assumption is that if only our laws are severe enough, people’s behaviour will change. But the prohibition of drugs and the prohibition of boats make the same mistake. Supply-side responses to demand-side problems often fail to make real inroads into the underlying problems.

Indeed, the case of drug policies shows that sometimes harsh law enforcement does not merely fail to stop the problem. It can actually make matters worse; much worse. Raising the stakes and driving people underground creates more profit, causes more deaths, and leads to more suffering. But rational arguments have little purchase in a climate fashioned by false assumptions as to what law can achieve, and a wilful blindness as to its unintended consequences.

In what follows, I explore the issues around Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers by developing this comparison with drug policy. My aim is not only to demonstrate that we have been this way before, with disastrous results. What is especially interesting about the drug debate is that, remarkably, something has changed in the past ten years. The shift from zero-tolerance to harm-reduction strategies provides us with a model for how to rethink a policy agenda, which is just making things worse.

To access the full article see Groundhog day: why the asylum problem is like the drug problem.

ALP Caucus gives asylum seekers short shrift

According to today’s edition of Crikey, a motion by Labor Left MP Laura Smyth on the no-advantage test for asylum seekers, seconded by Janelle Saffin, was lost on the voices. Immigration minister Brendan O'Connor spoke against it. As Crikey says, it makes for interesting reading:

That this caucus calls for 1) an immediate independent assessment of the circumstances of asylum seekers held in offshore processing centres. In particular the assessment should address the condition of health infrastructure, mental health facilities and accommodation available to asylum seekers held at those facilities; and 2) the immediate development of guidelines pursuant to which the 'no-advantage principle' is to operate at the discretion of the minister of the day.

In other words, the ALP Caucus as a body would prefer to remain in ignorance of the circumstances of asylum seekers held in offshore processing centres, and what the “no disadvantage principle’ actually means.

We are not well served.

Meanwhile, according to an article by Greg Sheridan and Lauren Wilson in the 22 June 2013 edition of The Australian:

FOREIGN Minister Bob Carr has told a gathering of 40 non-government organisations in Canberra that their rhetoric about asylum-seekers is out of date, unhelpful and won't be accepted by the Australian people.

In the meeting on Thursday, Senator Carr told the leaders of more than 40 organisations that the old rhetoric about human rights and asylum-seekers no longer described the reality of Australia's situation.

Instead, Sri Lankans, Iranians and people of many nationalities with no genuine claims to refugee status were coming to Australia by boat. This, he said, was now a sophisticated and well-financed illegal immigration issue. The numbers, at 3000 a month, were intolerably high, Senator Carr said.

This is a highly irresponsible statement by our Foreign Minister who, under the Administrative Arrangements Order of 16May 2013, has general responsibility for “External Affairs, including … treaties …” The UN Convention on the Status of Refugees, which Australia was one of the first countries to sign when it was opened for signature in 1951, is, of course, a treaty. Under it, we have an obligation to assess on their individual merits the claims of all refugees who arrive in the jurisdiction. It makes no reference to a notion of a particular number of arrivals being tolerable or “intolerably high” as a factor to be taken into account in assessing those claims.

I am not sure how, in support of his remarkable claims, Senator Carr would explain the fact that the success rate of asylum claims by boat arrivals runs at about 94%, or how it is that the principal source countries for these arrivals (Sri Lanka, Iran and Afghanistan) are countries of which it is reasonable to believe that some of their citizens would have “a well-founded fear of persecution”.

Our Foreign Minister should be arguing for full-blooded performance of our obligations under the Convention, not making unfounded assertions to the effect that boat arrivals are just people seeking a better life.

Productivity Commission referral: imported processed fruit and tomatoes

Following is the text of a joint media release issued this afternoon by The Hon Dr Craig Emerson MP, Minister for Trade and Competitiveness, and The Hon David Bradbury MP, Assistant Treasurer and Minister Assisting on Deregulation.

Media release

The Assistant Treasurer David Bradbury and the Minister for Trade and Competitiveness Craig Emerson today announced that the Productivity Commission would undertake separate safeguard inquiries into the impact of imports of processed fruit and tomatoes on Australian producers.

The inquiries follow a request by SPC Ardmona to introduce safeguards measures against imports of canned tomatoes and multi-serve canned fruit products.

SPC Ardmona is one of Australia's largest food processors, employing more than 800 full-time-equivalent staff directly, and makes a substantial contribution to the economy of the Goulburn Valley.

As a World Trade Organization (WTO) Member, Australia has made binding commitments in relation to the trade of goods and services.

The WTO Safeguards Agreement allows Members to investigate whether safeguard measures are justified. Following an investigation by the Productivity Commission, WTO rules allow safeguard measures to be applied to respond to unexpected and unforeseen increases in imports which are causing or threatening to cause serious injury to the domestic industry.

The Productivity Commission is Australia's competent authority to investigate whether safeguard measures are justified under WTO rules.

It will conduct the inquiries in accordance with Australia's safeguards procedures. Australia will notify the WTO and relevant trading partners of these investigations.

As well as investigating whether there are grounds for definitive safeguard measures, the Commission has also been asked to provide an accelerated report examining whether critical circumstances exist to justify provisional safeguard measures.

The Commission is to provide the accelerated report to the Government as soon as practicable and, in any event, within three months.

Mr Paul Barratt AO has been appointed as an Associate Commissioner to the inquiries. Mr Barratt, an independent consultant and Chair of Australia 21 Limited, has more than 40 years' experience in policy advising and international negotiations.

His past appointments include Secretary of Defence and of Primary Industries and Energy; Deputy Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; Special Trade Representative to North Asia; and Executive Director of the Business Council of Australia.

The Commission will seek expressions of interest from parties wishing to participate in the inquiry. All interested parties are invited to make a submission.

To register an interest in the inquiry or to find out more, details are available from the Commission at www.pc.gov.au. Terms of reference are attached.

Terms of Reference

Safeguard Inquiry into the Import of Processed Tomato Products
Productivity Commission Act 1998

I, David Bradbury, Assistant Treasurer, pursuant to Parts 2 and 3 of the Productivity Commission Act 1998, hereby request that the Productivity Commission undertake an inquiry into whether safeguard action is warranted against imports of processed tomato products falling within tariff subheading 2002.10.00.60 of the Australian Customs Tariff.

The inquiry is to be undertaken in accordance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) safeguard investigation procedures published in the Gazette of S297 of 25 June 1998, as amended by GN39 of 5 October 2005.

The Commission is to report on:

• whether conditions are such that safeguard measures would be justified under the WTO Agreement;
• if so, what measures would be necessary to prevent or remedy serious injury and to facilitate adjustment; and
• whether, having regard to the Government's requirements for assessing the impact of regulation which affects business, those measures should be implemented.

In undertaking the inquiry, the Commission is to consider and provide an accelerated report on whether critical circumstances exist where delay in applying measures would cause damage which it would be difficult to repair. If such circumstances exist, and pursuant to a preliminary determination that there is clear evidence that increased imports have caused or are threatening to cause serious injury, the Commission is to recommend what provisional safeguard measures (to apply for no more than 200 days) would be appropriate.

The Commission is to provide the accelerated report to the Government as soon as possible but not later than 3 months and a final report within 6 months of receipt of this reference. The reports will be published as soon as practicable.

The Commission is to consult widely, hold hearings and call for submissions for the purpose of the inquiry.

DAVID BRADBURY
Assistant Treasurer

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Terms of Reference

Safeguard Inquiry into the Import of Processed Fruit Products
Productivity Commission Act 1998

I, David Bradbury, Assistant Treasurer, pursuant to Parts 2 and 3 of the Productivity Commission Act 1998, hereby request that the Productivity Commission undertake an inquiry into whether safeguard action is warranted against imports of the following processed fruit products of the Australian Customs Tariff:

2008.30.00	Citrus fruit;
2008.40.00	Pears;
2008.50.00	Apricots;
2008.70.00	Peaches, including nectarines;
2008.97.00	Mixtures;
2008.99.00	Other.

The inquiry is to be undertaken in accordance with the World Trade Organization (WTO) safeguard investigation procedures published in the Gazette of S297 of 25 June 1998, as amended by GN39 of 5 October 2005.

The Commission is to report on:

• whether conditions are such that safeguard measures would be justified under the WTO Agreement;
• if so, what measures would be necessary to prevent or remedy serious injury and to facilitate adjustment; and
• whether, having regard to the Government's requirements for assessing the impact of regulation which affects business, those measures should be implemented.

In undertaking the inquiry, the Commission is to consider and provide an accelerated report on whether critical circumstances exist where delay in applying measures would cause damage which it would be difficult to repair. If such circumstances exist, and pursuant to a preliminary determination that there is clear evidence that increased imports have caused or are threatening to cause serious injury, the Commission is to recommend what provisional safeguard measures (to apply for no more than 200 days) would be appropriate.

The Commission is to provide the accelerated report to the Government as soon as possible but not later than 3 months and a final report within 6 months of receipt of this reference. The reports will be published as soon as practicable.

The Commission is to consult widely, hold hearings and call for submissions for the purpose of the inquiry.

DAVID BRADBURY
Assistant Treasurer