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Pied Piper 
Joined: 20 May 2003
Location: Pig City
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| Post subject: pokies - how the rent-seekers won again. |  |
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On Friction. It seems to me the most salient point of Gillard's welching on her deal with Wilkie has been missed.
http://andrew-stafford.blogspot.com/2012/01/pokies-rent-seekers-win-again.html
| Pied Piper wrote: | THE gnashing of teeth over Julia Gillard's betrayal of Andrew Wilkie over pokies reform has been entirely predictable. Is this some kind of political masterstroke? Is it just another demonstration of Gillard's fundamental untrustworthiness? It's all as telegraphed as an old boxer's jab, and irrevocably lashed to the 24-hour news cycle. About the furthest anyone's looking into this situation is the polls, and what it does to Gillard's chances of re-election.
The far more important point about what Gillard's backdown says about Australia's rotten political culture has been almost entirely overlooked. And that is that the rent-seekers have won again.
They won in 2010, when some of the world's largest and richest mining companies saw off the Resources Super Profits Tax with a $22 million advertising campaign that, in the end, helped kill off a popularly elected Prime Minister (not that Kevin 07, perhaps soon be be known as Kevin 12, was exactly blameless in his demise, but that's another story).
That occasion saw the likes of Gina Rinehart, Twiggy Forrest and Clive Palmer marching in the streets and carrying on like they'd all be rooned, I tells ya. The sight of Australia's richest men and women playing the victim card - Rinehart (wealthiest of the lot) leading the chant of "Axe the tax!" - was so galling in its cheek that it's a wonder the #Occupy movement didn't start in Perth 2010, instead of New York 2011. Haven't we heard all this somewhere before?
Let me digress for a minute longer before I get back to the pokies debacle. As reported yesterday, Rinehart's wealth practically doubled last week by a cool $10 billion. She is so stupidly rich (it helps that she's the dual beneficiary of her father Lang Hancock's estate, and the longest resources boom in the country's history) and her fortune growing so fast that, according to the revealing profile by Jane Cadzow that accompanied yesterday's story, "it's difficult for financial analysts to keep track of it".
These days, when she's not digging stuff up and squabbling with her children over control of her empire, she lends her considerable financial influence to matters of public policy. And it's not just the millions she and her buddies poured into the anti-RSPT campaign. It's the $165 million she sunk into buying a 10 percent stake of Channel 10, money seen as crucial to arch-brute Andrew Bolt getting a TV pulpit to add to his print and radio platforms. Then there's the $120 million that's bought her about four percent of Fairfax.
There's also the money she's used to fund the tours of fellow climate change sceptics like Christopher Monckton and lunches with Ian Plimer last year, as she railed against the introduction of the carbon tax.
Had the RSPT been introduced, according to 2010 Treasury modelling, the average worker would have been $450 a year better off. Gross Domestic Product would have increased by 0.7 percent; investment would have increased by 2.1 percent and prices on food, clothing, housing and transport were all expected to fall. This was meant to be the cure to our current two-speed economy, where mining of finite resources is galloping ahead of a field otherwise stuck in the starting blocks.
In an excellent op-ed by Sydney Morning Herald economics writer Jessica Irvine late last year, rent-seeking used to be carried out away from the public eye, through political donations and long lunches. Now, with well-meaning laws aimed at circumventing such bribery, it's done in public, through advertising campaigns.
Which brings me, finally, to Clubs Australia's expensive and very successful "Won't work, will hurt" campaign, despite polling showing overall support for the introduction of mandatory pre-commitment technology to poker machines running as high as 62 percent - but perhaps not in the marginal seats where the organisation is targeting its campaign.
Like Big Tobacco's absurd astroturf-fronted putsch against plain packaging of cigarettes (which, in the interests of balance, I should mention that the government has so far stared down), "Won't work, will hurt" is based on a logical contradiction: that a measure aimed at restricting the amount a person is able to gamble, via mandatory pre-commitment, can be completely ineffective - according to Clubs Australia boss Anthony Ball, it "won't help a single problem gambler" - while at the same time killing off businesses, jobs and entire communities.
It's an argument so inherently rhetorically unstable that it totters before you even need to produce figures to blow the whole teetering edifice over, starting with the fact that, according to the Australia Institute, Clubs Australia has overestimated the cost of implementing the technology by a factor of 10. Add to this deception the leaked industry document which revealed that the estimated drop in gaming revenues through the pre-commitment scheme would be 10-20 percent - half of that publicly estimated by Clubs Australia.
While not as obscenely cashed up as the mining industry, Clubs Australia hasn't minded splashing the dough around in protecting its interests - around $3 million for its public campaign so far (remember "It's UnAustralian"?), with plenty more in the bank. That's not including the $200,000 it poured into the New South Wales Liberal and National Parties last year, according to The Power Index. Forty percent of the nation's pokies are in New South Wales. In the lead-up to the NSW election last month, Liberal leader Barry O'Farrell signed a memorandum with Clubs Australia giving them $300 million of tax breaks on pokie revenues.
As Bernard Keane pointed out in Crikey yesterday, we shouldn't be too surprised that Gillard has bailed on Wilkie as soon as it was practical to do so (ooh, about as long as it took for Peter Slipper to get comfy in the Speaker's chair). Taking on the the clubs lobby in search of a meaningful solution to problem gambling was never Labor's idea of a good time.
But as Irvine wrote back in October, we need to work out that we're the ones ultimately being played for mugs by an advertising industry that's helping to convince the public that what's good for business is good for the country and good for you, too.
Because, well, they would say that. Wouldn't they? |
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"The greatest thing that could happen to the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquillity, and no one would know anything." - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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I think you missed a fundamental point in your argument about the organisations using their financial clout to change government policy.
The NSW right is still the key power base in the Labor Party and it didn't support the pokies reform. The lobbying by Clubs Australia is window dressing.
The way you used the article to attack Rinehart displays your obvious bias. Rather than focusing on the issue of pokies or even of lobby groups having too much influence, you tangent off about Rinehart's shareholdings and personal issues with her family.
When you refer to Lobby groups and their influence, you also repeatedly neglect to mention the most obvious recent example, the ACTU campaign that gifted government to Kevin Rudd and Labor.
Just some constructive criticism, I quite like most of your work, even if I don't often agree with it.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Pied Piper
Joined: 20 May 2003
Location: Pig City
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I don't think I've ignored the first point you make. I acknowledge the ALP was never enthusiastic about this reform in the final pars (and castigate them for it).
Bias? Well, it is an opinion article, not a news piece, so no apologies there! The point is how politics in Australia is being bought off, and Rinehart's dealings are a shining example.
And the ACTU aren't the only ones who sink their power and influence into a political party - the coalition has the various pro-business think tanks, most notably the Institute of Public Affairs.
I don't have a problem with them; the way I see it that's part of the ideological cut and thrust of politics in this country. Essentially the major parties in Australia have been historically divided along capital lines.
_________________
"The greatest thing that could happen to the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquillity, and no one would know anything." - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen |
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Black_White 
Joined: 19 Mar 2001
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| Non-core promise. |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Pied Piper wrote: | | I don't think I've ignored the first point you make. I acknowledge the ALP was never enthusiastic about this reform in the final pars (and castigate them for it). |
Fair enough. I missed that on the first read and it is less obvious as the blame is still pitched at the lobby group, with no mention of the NSW right
| Quote: |
Bias? Well, it is an opinion article, not a news piece, so no apologies there! The point is how politics in Australia is being bought off, and Rinehart's dealings are a shining example. |
no apology required, but if you're trying to influence opinion rather than just writing to the people who already agree with you, you may want to make it a tad more subtle  )
| Quote: |
And the ACTU aren't the only ones who sink their power and influence into a political party - the coalition has the various pro-business think tanks, most notably the Institute of Public Affairs. |
I didn't say the ACTU were the only ones, but they are clearly the most obvious case of a lobby groups influence. They had a direct influence in the changing of a government, yet you don't include them when you use examples.
| Quote: |
I don't have a problem with them; the way I see it that's part of the ideological cut and thrust of politics in this country. Essentially the major parties in Australia have been historically divided along capital lines. |
No argument there, but while you acknowledge your bias, if the issue is lobby groups having disproportionate amount of influence on public policy, you can't just tar one side of politics and ignore exactly the same behaviour from the other side.
The ANF has spent $3 million running a media campaign to gather public support for their wages claim, and have made a lot of factually inaccurate statements as I understand it. I'm not going to elaborate on that, if VHIA or the Government choose not to, I'm not, I'm just using it as an example.
As we discussed in another thread, I agree that it's a fundamental issue that public policy can be changed simply because someone who has the means to spend money to garner support for their view. However, if the action is wrong, it's wrong, regardless of who does it.
_________________
Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Pied Piper
Joined: 20 May 2003
Location: Pig City
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Stui, mate, you know I loves ya but I don't recall ever influencing your opinion on anything here in the VPT. I didn't presume to start now
_________________
"The greatest thing that could happen to the nation is when we get rid of all the media. Then we could live in peace and tranquillity, and no one would know anything." - Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| Pied Piper wrote: | | Stui, mate, you know I loves ya but I don't recall ever influencing your opinion on anything here in the VPT. I didn't presume to start now |
LOL, I loves ya too mate and believe it or not, you have influenced my opinion quite a few times. You haven't necessarily changed it, but you have introduced new factors for consideration.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | | ...if the issue is lobby groups having disproportionate amount of influence on public policy, you can't just tar one side of politics and ignore exactly the same behaviour from the other side. |
True, but let's not confuse say major unions and mainstream churches, which represent very large constituencies, with powerful lobbies funded by a tiny constituency. That would be disingenuous whether you agreed with the union or not.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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stui magpie
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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| pietillidie wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | ...if the issue is lobby groups having disproportionate amount of influence on public policy, you can't just tar one side of politics and ignore exactly the same behaviour from the other side. |
True, but let's not confuse say major unions and mainstream churches, which represent very large constituencies, to lobbies funded by a tiny constituency. That would be disingenuous whether you agreed with the union or not. |
I disagree. It doesn't matter how many people comprise the lobby group. If it's a majority of people, they won't need to spend millions to sway public opinion.
The issue is, it seems, is that anyone with the cash can change public policy.
The Church is one, Business is another (and can be several), unions are another.
If the act is wrong, it's wrong. If it's OK for one group, it's OK for the rest. You can't choose which ones acceptable based on whether you agree with their views or not.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Dragme
Screaming.
Joined: 09 Feb 2007
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My opinion won't be swayed.
Gillard is a non magnetic tool.
The unions suck shit.
The monk is a religious nut.
Industry and business look after their own.
I get reamed the harder I work.
Next.......
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Born, Live and Die a Magpie |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | | pietillidie wrote: | | stui magpie wrote: | | ...if the issue is lobby groups having disproportionate amount of influence on public policy, you can't just tar one side of politics and ignore exactly the same behaviour from the other side. |
True, but let's not confuse say major unions and mainstream churches, which represent very large constituencies, to lobbies funded by a tiny constituency. That would be disingenuous whether you agreed with the union or not. |
I disagree. It doesn't matter how many people comprise the lobby group. If it's a majority of people, they won't need to spend millions to sway public opinion. |
You don't strike me as a utopian, but that doesn't make sense. In the real world capital buys influence outside the ballot box; obviously the more representative that capital is the better. Democracy is not just about a single decision every few years; it's about ongoing checks and balances to an ongoing decision-making process.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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pietillidie
Joined: 07 Jan 2005
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| stui magpie wrote: | | If the act is wrong, it's wrong. If it's OK for one group, it's OK for the rest. You can't choose which ones acceptable based on whether you agree with their views or not. |
Except I'm sure I agreed with that. It's about limiting the influence of capital; right or wrong in any particular instance is irrelevant.
_________________
In the end the rain comes down, washes clean the streets of a blue sky town.
Help Nick's: http://www.magpies.net/nick/bb/fundraising.htm |
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jack_spain
Joined: 03 May 2008
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Gillard couldn't sleep straight in bed if she tried! 
She's a pathological liar and that's the nicest thing I can say about our worst PM ever!
Bring on the election - NOW! |
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Big T
Joined: 18 Oct 2003
Location: Torino, Italy
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| jack_spain wrote: | Gillard couldn't sleep straight in bed if she tried!
She's a pathological liar and that's the nicest thing I can say about our worst PM ever!
Bring on the election - NOW! |
They are all pathological liars. The challenge is to find the ones who can make a positive difference and have a track record of improving respective industries for the betterment of all.
They exist in both parties at state and federal level. People need to use their resources and initiative (to quote Covey) to find the programs and people who assist.
Whinging about which government is in power is just a cop out.
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Buon Giorno |
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