Childcare Costs? Thank Unions And Government

In case you didn't notice, Tuesday was Keep Your Children Home Day — in other words, a nationwide childcare workers' strike.  The campaign represents yet another assault on childcare affordability from the union movement, whose agenda has been driving up prices for years.

"If you have a child in early learning, please keep them home on 27 March", bleated the website of United Voice, the childcare sector union, "and register your support to be a part of securing the best outcomes for every child and their educator".

Unfortunately, for many parents there was no choice, with the union boasting about "rolling closures" at over 300 childcare centres.

Part of the justification for the strike is that current wages no longer reflect "the qualifications and skills required to educate our children" given that "the sector has changed [and] everyone must [by law] have qualifications".

In some ways, the union has a point.  Minimum tertiary qualification requirements were slapped on childcare workers in 2012, as part of a broader suite of red tape imposed on the sector by the Gillard Government known as the National Quality Framework.

Naturally, these minimum qualifications have created a substantial barrier to entry for would-be childcare workers.  My research estimates that it can take over 300 hours of work for childcare staff to "break even" on the thousands of dollars needed to get the necessary qualifications.

But unfortunately for the union, this overcredentialisation of the childcare sector is a problem of their own making.  United Voice (then known by its former name, the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union) lobbied extensively for the NQF prior to its introduction.  In its submission to an inquiry in 2009, the union argued that:

In addition to the mandating of 4 year qualified ECEC [early childhood qualification and care] staff to implement "across the long day" preschool programs, LHMU would argue for an introduction of mandatory minimum qualifications for all staff working in early childhood ... We would propose that the entry level qualification be pegged to an AQF Certificate III in Children's Services.

United Voice argued then (and still does) that such requirements are a vital to ensuring quality in the sector.  But like many regulatory solutions in search of a problem, the NQF has created a red tape burden on childcare centres with questionable benefits.

The Australian Childcare Alliance, for example, has claimed that "[s]ervices are struggling under the financial costs of the implementation of the NQF, in particular costs related to increases in staffing requirements and increased paperwork".  A subsequent survey by the group's NSW branch found that around 60 per cent of operators believe that the NQF had a negative impact on the cost of running a childcare centre and increased their time spent on paperwork.  Less than 15 per cent reported improvement to educational outcomes.

Unsurprisingly, many childcare centres — particularly smaller ones — have expressed frustration directly.  In a submission to a Productivity Commission inquiry into the sector, one operator claimed that:

As soon as government determined that staff should all hold certifications, wages started spiralling.  Certification alone does not provide better staff.  I have never been asked by a parent, and I am in centres seeing parents every day, about a staff member's qualifications ... You do not need a 4 year university educated teacher to teach early childhood to preschoolers.  I know this and so do other operators.

But while the quality gains of the NQF are questionable, the cost impact is clear.  The introduction of the package saw prices soar, rising by over 50 per cent to date.  These costs have largely been borne by the taxpayer, with federal government spending alone doubling since the NQF's introduction.  Expenditure is projected to swell to over $10 billion within four years, which will make childcare subsidies one of the federal government's most expensive programmes.

The pay rises demanded by United Voice would add even greater cost pressures to a sector whose costs are already spiralling out of control, thanks to the red tape for which the union lobbied in the first place.

United Voice will continue to caterwaul about "better outcomes for every child and their educator".  But all that their agitation has given us thus far is barriers to entry for would-be childcare workers, soaring costs for parents and a debt burden for future taxpayers — many of whom are the childcare-age children of today.

Women In Uni Debates Don't Need Ridiculous Quotas

ONE can only assume that the people from the University of Sydney Union responsible for writing and imposing the new gender and diversity quotas on the Debating Society have not met the women that this is supposed to "help".

Women in debating do not need a leg up or your pity.  As someone who competed at a state level in high school I found that the most intelligent, engaging and ferocious debaters were quite often female, and had the ability to intimidate even some of the most seasoned of their male counterparts.  This infantilisation of women suggests that these masters of rhetoric are unable to be heard due to a dominating male presence, which is both insulting and untrue.

The President of the student union Courtney Thompson told The Australian that "Our quotas for gender and, more recently, for ethnicity and students from non-elite schools, recognise the fact that traditionally, the profile of debating skews overwhelmingly towards affluent, white and privately educated students".  But can Courtney Thompson prove that the predominance of white men in debating is caused by discrimination rather than other factors?

The assumption that because men dominate a field must mean it is due to discrimination is deeply flawed, and it never seems to be applied when females dominate a field.  The most likely reason for what male predominance there is in debating is that older male private schools emphasise their debating programs and have developed a culture that encourages it.  This is a good thing that should be encouraged in all schools.  The Debating Society and the USU would be better off spending time in local public or even regional schools introducing students to debating and encouraging more young people to get involved.

Debating teaches you important life skills such as critical thinking, eloquent speech and the ability to distil an argument to its core.  It also exposes you to both sides of an argument, something that is increasingly rare these days.  This leads to healthy political debate and could reduce the increasing polarisation we are seeing on campus.  The importance of debating and rhetoric for healthy political discourse has been recognised throughout history.  Ancient Greeks and Romans were obsessed with the art form, at it also became a core of the curriculum in the earliest universities of the medieval West.

If the USU insists that discrimination is at the heart of this discrepancy what is the source of it?  Are debating adjudicator's racist and sexist?  Has the society in the past been caught discriminating against female or ethnic students?  A drastic and in essence discriminatory policy such as this should have to provide evidence for the reason of its introduction.  Even so, it is difficult to see how further discrimination is a cure to discrimination.

It is true that a diverse team of debaters is a better team, but not diversity of race or gender, those are incidental, but diversity of rhetoric and style.  The best teams generally are comprised of a mix of big personalities, all different from each other but gelling together in the core of their argument.  Teams like these are also better left to naturally develop and come together on their own, not forced together by quotas.  Policies that divide and judge students on race and gender rather than merit are not only wrong and inherently bigoted, but they also are bound to cause tension within the society and could lead to a break down of the camaraderie within the ranks.

The policy uses the term "person of colour" instead of a term like racial minority, which is the term more commonly used in Australia.  This use of an Americanism indicates the copy cat like quality of this push, as if the union is trying to mimic the virtue signalling social justice warriors prominent in campuses across the US.

One of the things that is most disturbing about this push is that I cannot think of a field where race, gender, background or any other factor matter less than in debating.  It is one of the great equalisers and those who succeed do so through a combination of talent and a lot of hard work.  My own school team wiped the floor with multiple elite private school teams, and on the rare occasion those students did underestimate our team because of our schools reputation, they quickly regretted it.  Debating is a meritocracy at its core and those who seek to introduce quotas are insulting that tradition and delegitimising the hard work of those who succeed.

Why We Will Always Get Stung On Super

Tony Abbott made some blunders as prime minister.  He raised the top rate of income tax, ruled out curtailing health and education spending, and he walked away from his commitments on freedom of speech.

But for all of this, there's one mistake he didn't make.  He didn't throw into chaos the plans of tens of thousands of self-funded retirees — which is what Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison did with their retrospective changes to superannuation in the 2016 federal budget, and which is what Bill Shorten and Chris Bowen are now threatening to do with planned changes to dividend imputation.

In the 2013 federal election campaign, Abbott said:  "To help Australians have confidence again in superannuation we pledge not to make any unexpected detrimental changes to superannuation."  It's a promise Abbott kept for the two years he was prime minister.  Keeping that promise makes Abbott and his treasurer Joe Hockey look better and better as every day passes.

The constant changes the Coalition and Labor make to superannuation policy are good arguments for abolishing compulsory superannuation.  If superannuation is compulsory the laws governing it should at least be predictable and stable.  Indeed, it's precisely because it's compulsory for Australians to pay 9.5 per cent of their income into compulsory superannuation that the Coalition and Labor feel they can raid people's retirement savings with impunity — no matter how much tax is taken out of superannuation, people are still forced to pay it.

IRON LAW

Individuals should have the choice to opt out of compulsory superannuation and opt out of any claim to the pension.  If superannuation is in fact as good a financial and tax deal as governments like to make out then individuals would continue to contribute to superannuation voluntarily.

Of course, the ALP would never support such a policy because as my research has revealed trade unions received almost $20 million between 2013 and 2017 from superannuation funds via directors' fees.  But nothing is stopping the Coalition from making superannuation voluntary.

In The Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago, Ross Gittins neatly explained the iron law of the politics of superannuation.  "As a political force, Grey Power has one large weakness:  of all the age groups, the over-65s are those least likely to change their vote.  The great majority vote for the Coalition, so Labor doesn't have a lot to lose [when it raises taxes on superannuation]."

He could have added the Coalition doesn't have a lot to lose either because it's made the calculation that no matter what it does to self-funded retirees they're nevertheless unlikely to vote Labor.

It's amusing to hear Turnbull and Morrison in recent days complain about Labor's "tax grab on superannuation" when the Coalition started the process the ALP is simply continuing.  Labor's rhetoric that "tax breaks" must be curbed because Australia can no longer afford the largesse of the Howard and Costello years is exactly the same language as the Coalition used two years ago.

CAPITAL GAINS

It's also amusing to read in the pages of this newspaper about the concerns of Frank Argondizzo, a former union official in Melbourne and a self-described "rusted-on Labor voter".

Frank owns two properties — his own home and an investment property in his superannuation fund.  That investment property will be subject to Labor's higher taxes on capital gains.  Talking of Bill Shorten, who leads the party that Argondizzo votes for, Argondizzo said "It's [a] very bad thing to work 40 or 50 years and all of a sudden he comes up and says, 'You'll have to pay more [tax]'."

Frank Argondizzo's plight brings to mind the fable of the scorpion and the frog.

A scorpion asks a frog to carry him across a river.  The frog at first refuses for fear the scorpion will sting him as they cross.  The scorpion replies he wouldn't because if he did they'd both drown.  Satisfied with this response the frog agrees to take the scorpion.  Sure enough, half-way across the river the scorpion stings the frog.  While they're drowning together the frog asks the scorpion why he had stung him.  The scorpion replied "Because it's in my nature".

When it comes to taxes on superannauation, the government are scorpions and the public are frogs.

UK Is Right To Take A Stand Against Putin's Aggression

Britain's reaction to Russia's aggression on its soil is tough and right.  This is the type of response we should expect from a post-Brexit Britain, which is not bound by the lowest common denominator responses of the European Union, but defends its sovereignty, values and national interest against rising revisionist powers.

Russia's attempted murder of former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, isn't the first time it has undertaken a targeted killing on British soil.

The case of Russian FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006 made global headlines, but there are apparently 14 other unexplained Russia-related deaths in the UK as well.  The contrast between British Prime Minister Theresa May's response to the Skripal case with that of then PM Gordon Brown in 2006 to Litvinenko's murder couldn't be starker.

After a short deadline passed for Russia to respond to allegations that they were not responsible for the use of their own military grade nerve agent on British soil, May announced that she would expel 23 Russian intelligence officers, as well as cancel plans for members of the royal family and British government to attend soccer's World Cup in Russia.

Relations between the UK and Russia are now effectively on ice, with all high-level bilateral contacts suspended and tougher sanctions likely.  In contrast, Brown expelled only four Russian diplomats and demanded the extradition of the suspected murderer — a request which Russia ignored.

After pressure from Litvinenko's family, the UK government eventually ordered an inquest eight years later, which in 2016 concluded what was already known:  Russian nationals had murdered Litvinenko on the orders of the Russian secret service, most likely with the approval of President Vladimir Putin.

Since 2006, the EU has been painfully slow in realising that it must take a tougher approach to Russia's aggression.  It took Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 for the EU to impose trade and financial sanctions, including targeted individual sanctions on certain government officials.

That was followed by Russian-backed rebels shooting down a Malaysian Airlines flight over Ukraine, killing 298 crew and passengers, including 37 Australian citizens and permanent residents.

The issue for the UK and the EU more broadly is the balancing of two concerns:  taking a firm stand against Russian aggression and revisionism while maintaining a trade and investment relationship with it.

Britain is the largest foreign investor in Russia, particularly in the oil and gas industries, and the City of London is the stomping ground of many Russian oligarchs.

Russia now supplies about 40 per cent of the Europe's gas.

This dilemma in Europe and the UK is an issue we in Australia need to contend with when it comes to balancing our growing economic dependence on China while standing up for our values.

The Trump administration has made it clear that the central challenge to US prosperity and security is competition with the revisionist powers of Russia and China, which "want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian model — gaining veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic, and security decisions".

This explains, in part, the motivation behind the Skripal hit.

For Russia, this was about sending a message to its diaspora that it is watching them, irrespective of time or distance, and that they are never safe.  But it was also about testing an (almost) post-Brexit UK's resolve to stand up to Russian aggression and the strength of the democratic West in general to stand up to authoritarian aggression.  Pleasingly, the US, France and Germany joined the UK in issuing a stern joint statement pinning the blame on Russia for "(threatening) the security of us all".

But what about the rest of the UK's friends in the West?  The EU's failure to join this statement is an indictment of its fecklessness in the face of authoritarianism.

SA Labor's Passion For Renewable Energy Is Madness

Tomorrow's election in South Australia will be a referendum on electricity and renewable energy.  If re-elected, Labor has promised to double down on its favouritism of renewables by increasing South Australia's renewable energy target to 75 per cent by 2025.  This is madness.

South Australia already has one of the most reckless energy policies in Australia, with heavy confiscation of taxpayer funds and forced cross-subsidisation feeding the present 50 per cent renewables target.

And with the rise of renewables have come skyrocketing prices, reduced supply reliability and economic dislocation.

Recent analysis by the Australian Energy Council shows electricity prices in South Australia during the recent summer were about 260 per cent higher than in the summer of 2014-15.  That is an eye-watering 41 times the growth in average wages.

It is no wonder businesses and people are fleeing the state.  According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, private-sector business investment in South Australia has collapsed by 29 per cent in just three years.

The unemployment rate sits at 6 per cent, the second highest in the country behind Queensland.  And 23,000 people have abandoned South Australia over the past five years for a future elsewhere.

Beneath these statistics are real people and businesses that have been thrown against the rocks.

According to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, the annual electricity bill for a South Australian small-to-­medium enterprise is $16,000.

Imagine if just half of that could go to higher wages instead of paying the bills.  In June last year, a family-run recycling business in Kilburn, in Adelaide's inner north, announced it would be closing after 38 years, putting 35 people out of work.

The trigger was a spike in its monthly electricity bill from $80,000 to $180,000.

And even South Australia's world-class wine region isn't safe.  According to the ACCC, a large winery in South Australia faced a 160 per cent annual increase to its electricity costs, seriously jeopardising its export potential.

The culprit for this damage is renewable energy, and the shortsighted government policy that forces it on the market too early and in too great a quantity.

First, renewable energy is more expensive than coal.  If this were not the case, then there would be no need for it to be sub­sidised.

Yet, as analysis on these pages last September showed, the renewables industry is set to receive $60 billion in subsidies by 2030.

Second, renewables are unreliable.  According to the Clean Energy Regulator, in 2016-17 coal-fired stations in the National Energy Market operated at 76 per cent capacity, while wind operated at just 32 per cent capacity.

And during January and last month, wind farms in South Australia operated at less than 50 per cent of their registered capacity 89 per cent of the time.

Third, renewables cannot cope with surges in demand, such as when it is very hot or cold.  During January and last month, South Australia was importing electricity from Victoria 64 per cent of the time.  And what is the main source of energy generation in Victoria?  Brown coal.

If renewables boosters really believe South Australia can stand on its own with renewables, then perhaps they should cut off the interconnector with Victoria.  Now that, to use the words of Premier Jay Weatherill, would be "a bit of an international experiment".

However, the most bizarre aspect of the obsession with renewables is the absence of any offsetting benefits.  Renewable energy subsidisation is notionally designed to reduce carbon emissions.

Yet Australia accounts for just 1.5 per cent of global carbon dioxide emissions.

And according to the International Energy Agency and the Climate Council of Australia, the national RET resulted in just 0.0004 per cent less emissions a year on average from 2001 to 2014.  South Australia contributes to just a fraction of that.

Energy policy should not be a contest for who can get the most favours from government.  Energy generators and retailers should be focused on providing affordable and reliable energy to households and businesses.  Governments should be completely technologically neutral.

South Australia is not without prospects, but it has been let down by years of government mismanagement.

This has been most apparent in the electricity market.  Renewables do, and will, continue to play a role.  But it is economic self-harm to force them on to market before they can deliver reliability and affordability.  And on this count, coal is still king.

Judges Who Want To Politicise The Bench Should Run For Office

Serving judges have no business inserting themselves into contemporary political debates.

If they simply can't help themselves they should leave the bench, and, if they truly want to pursue their political ambitions, become politicians.

For years, judges have been sharing their well considered and important thoughts on weighty matters of public interest with other members of the legal fraternity and the public at large.

At law school functions and at law conference gala dinners, ­judges are often called upon as speakers and guests of honour.  General rules of judicial conduct dictate that judges ought not to comment publicly on issues that might come before them.

Practically, this requirement is in place to avoid a judge being ­disqualified for bias.

Preconceptions about matters before the court would breach the archetypal judicial character ­described by Edmund Burke in 1794 — "the cold neutrality of an ­impartial judge".

Or, as decided by the High Court in Johnson v Johnson in the context of apprehended bias, "whether a fair-minded lay ­observer might reasonably apprehend that the judge might not bring an impartial and unprejudiced mind to the resolution of the question the judge is required to decide".

The obvious problem faced by judges when intervening in public debate is that it's not obvious how the rule against bias might apply to a future case at the time such an intervention is made.  Often the statement becomes legally problematic only after the fact.

Of course, there is a simple answer:  don't be a participant in political debate.

Avoiding judicial entanglement in the realm of politics is also a good idea in general.  More ­distinct lines between the arms of government help individual ­participants better understand their role and their place in our democratic system.

There are a number of recent examples of where judges have failed to meet this standard.

Last month at the constitutional law dinner 2018, organised by the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, West ­Australian Supreme Court Chief Justice Wayne Stewart Martin gave an extraordinary speech for such a senior judicial officer.

His honour spoke about the ­recent cases heard before the High Court under section 44 of the Australian constitution, ­making clear his view that dual citizens should be allowed to take their seats in the parliament.  His honour even referred to "the draconian operation of section 44".

In relation to the ongoing ­debate on the matter of constitutional recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, his honour said it wasn't his purpose "to suggest which of these ­competing arguments is to be ­preferred".

But it is hard to see how the Chief Justice of the WA Supreme Court does not have a clear view on the issue when he says in the following paragraph:  "As one who sees first hand and all too often the disastrous consequences of colonisation and our continuing failure to properly and meaningfully recognise Aboriginal people, the consequences of which are played out every day in police stations, courts, hospitals and prisons all around Australia, I sincerely hope the movement for constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people does not suffer a similar fate."

As if the use of a politically loaded term like "colonisation" is not enough, the WA Chief ­Justice's views on the substantive matter of whether the constitution should be changed to ­recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders could not be more obvious.

Perhaps his honour believes he will never have to hear cases ­regarding the constitutional ­matters he addressed last month.  Given that High Court Justice James Edelman won't be forced to retire until 2044, it's possible ­Martin believes the West Australian quota has been filled.

But potential future appointments, and potential questions of bias aside, his comments are a clear intrusion by a member of the judiciary into the realm of politics.

Victorian Supreme Court judge Lex Lasry found himself in hot water earlier this year after ­directing criticism at Home ­Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.  Lasry eventually deleted tweets directed at Dutton, following the minister's comments on criminal behaviour in Victoria.

Despite the apparent willingness of judges to dip in and out of political debates when it suits them, they don't like it when the shoe is on the other foot.  Federal ministers Greg Hunt, Alan Tudge and Michael Sukkar discovered this when they made reasonable comments — later retracted after the glass-jawed Victorian ­Supreme Court considered ­contempt of court proceedings against them — about what they saw as soft sentencing of terrorism in Victoria.

This looks awfully like a one-way street.

Whatever the reason, the ­developing trend of judges participating in political debate must end, especially given their demands for the protections from criticism ­afforded to the judiciary.

If judges want to be politicians, they should join the branch of government that does politics.

Labor's Tax Plan Is A Raid On Every Australian's Super Fund

The next federal election campaign got under way this week.  It looks like debt, deficit, and taxation will dominate our lives for the next year or so.  Not nearly as exciting as citizenship and sex scandals, but ultimately more important to the long-term prosperity of the nation.

The differences are quite clear and stark.

The coalition government is arguing, from a position of budget deficit and growing national debt, for lower company and personal taxes.  The Labor opposition is arguing for higher taxation, and presumably higher levels of spending.

What makes this situation particularly interesting is that the government's position, given the budget situation, is weak, while Labor, rightly or wrong, is perceived to be weak on economic management.

All that suggests that we are in for an ugly debate that generates more heat than light.

The government's arguments for lower tax burdens are quite good.  The Australian company tax rate is quite high by international standards.  The consensus amongst economists is that the economic burden of company tax falls on consumers and workers.  So a company tax cut that primarily benefits foreign shareholders will ultimately translate into benefits for Australian consumers and workers.  This was Labor party policy in 2010.

Of course, company tax cuts won't immediately benefit Australians much and so personal tax cuts would provide a bigger economic (and not to mention political) bang for buck.

What makes these arguments a hard sell for the government is the persistent budget deficits and growing debt that Australia has sustained since 2008.  It's all very well the government claiming that tax cuts are factored into the return to surplus, but the very basic problem is that we've heard this before.  Wayne Swan promised surpluses in 2012.  To paraphrase Jerry Maguire — show us the surplus.

Labor's problem is that they are being too clever by half.  They want to increase taxes without clearly saying so.  That is profoundly dishonest.  Receiving a tax refund is not welfare.  In the same way receiving your change from the supermarket isn't corporate charity — it is a return of your own money.  Millions of Australians overpay their tax liabilities each and every year and receive a refund from the government.  Labor proposes to stop paying refunds to older Australians — both now and in the future.

Australia's tax system is quite complex and politicians often rely on that complexity and a lack of community understanding of taxation to their own benefit.  Not just politicians — the Australian Broadcasting Corporation recently published an article arguing against company tax cuts while confusing the difference between revenue and income.

Australia's dividend imputation system was introduced in the late 1980s.  It was intended to tax company distributions at the shareholders' marginal tax rate.  For Australian tax residents the company tax became a withholding tax.  Those Australian shareholders with a marginal tax rate above the company tax rate generally had to pay in and Australian shareholders with a marginal tax rate below the company tax rate generally got a refund.

At the time a pragmatic decision was taken to only refund the amount that extinguished any outstanding tax liability.  Taxpayers entitled to more simply lost out.  In 2000 the Howard government made the principled decision to refund the entire amount that could be owed the taxpayer.  Labor proposes to revert to the pre-2000 pragmatic approach.

So the important question becomes, who are these taxpayers likely to be losing out?  Answer:  current and future elderly Australians are the losers.  Labor's policy is not just a raid on the living standards of the currently retired (former workers), it is a raid on the superannuation funds of every currently working Australian, too.

By invoking a return to Paul Keating's original policy Labor must have hoped to ignite some nostalgia for a bygone era of prosperity when it had a reputation for sound economic management.  Labor's greatest economic asset, Paul Keating, would be in the forefront fighting a weakened coalition government on economic policy.  That does sound like a winning formula.

Yet it immediately contradicts Keating's greatest achievement — superannuation.  The fact is this is just another raid on super.  Now there may be good reasons why super funds should effectively pay more in tax, but it is up to Labor to spell out those reasons and not simply hope that nobody will notice a tax increase.

Stick To Being The Prophets Of Profit

When companies get religion on the "social purpose" of business, they are only going to end up looking bad.

If business isn't careful it will go the way of Christianity.

Of course Christianity still exists and people still attend church on Sunday, but the Christian voice in public debate in Australia is now either ignored or non-existent It's difficult to think of a single policy issue of recent years in which the Christian perspective has prevailed.

There's many reasons for what's happened, not the least of which is the determined effort of secularists to label religious viewpoints as illegitimate and incompatible with modernity.  But most of the responsibility for the current position of Christianity in Australia rests with the churches themselves.

When they strayed from their core mission of saving souls to sideline ventures like saving polar bears, the churches became irrelevant.  Christianity abandoned the line of business in which it had some expertise and became indistinguishable from every other not-for-profit chasing attention and trying to be popular while saving the world.

The way in which Christianity in Australia cast aside its purpose in search of popularity has been thoughtfully examined by Fr James Grant a former Anglican minister now a Catholic priest in his book Let There Be Light:  Parish Leadership for the 21st Century.

The desire to be liked is a theme permeating a speech Ken Henry, the former Treasury secretary and now chairman of NAB, delivered last week and it also runs through the remarks made by a number of business leaders at The Australian Financial Review Business Summit this week.

Henry lamented that business found it "difficult to occupy positions of trust and respect in society".  He's right.  According to the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer less than half of Australians trust business.  Corporate Australia's leverage with the public is close to zero.  CEOs have failed in their efforts to convince the public of the need for a cut in company tax, and they've given up entirely talking about reducing red tape and industrial relations reform.  Part of the reason why corporate leaders these days seem so eager to talk about social instead of business issues is because when they discuss the latter no one wants to listen.  Henry suggests that if business talks about its broader "social purpose" and engages on issues like the environment it can regain the community's respect.  Whether Henry's solution will have business regain the trust of the community is debatable.

The "social purpose" of business sounds suspiciously like that 1990s buzz phrase "corporate social responsibility".  Three decades of CSR have done nothing for the standing of business.

There's a more fundamental problem with Henry's conception of the "social purpose" of business.  He believes it's possible for us to all agree on what the purpose is.

While he acknowledges that different "businesses will articulate their social purpose in different ways" Henry hopes there will be a "common thread" that unites "all of us in business" to improve "the wellbeing of our community".  Once such a shared purpose is agreed upon Henry then wants "leaders in politics" and "leaders in business" and "leaders in the community sector" to agree on a "unifying" narrative for national development.

The narrative Henry wants business to agree to is but one alternative of many.  In his speech he emphasised the importance of a narrative that protects the environment.  While Henry prioritises climate change, others might place a higher priority on overcoming unemployment or reducing the size of government or something else entirely.

In perhaps the most controversial part of his speech Henry said:  "When business commits to improving community wellbeing, it creates room for government to pursue a higher ambition."

Only someone who has spent nearly all their adult life working for the government could utter something like this.  Many small business owners would be surprised to learn the reason they get out of bed every morning at 5.30 is so they can "create room" for government to get bigger.

Hopefully most people in business would say they create community wellbeing by employing people and generating wealth, thereby allowing individuals and families to make their own decisions about how best to lead their lives.

The business of business is to generate profit and wealth.  Anyone who forgets their core mission does so at their peril.  Just ask any priest or bishop.

The Choice Between Hard Or Soft Brexit

It's been almost a year since the United Kingdom formally notified the European Union of its intention to leave the EU.  Since then, the UK and EU have been engaged in intense negotiations about the mechanics of Brexit, all with a view to the UK's formal departure on 29 March 2019.  In the meantime, British Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap general election in June 2017 in order to boost her majority and negotiating mandate — a strategy that failed dismally and delivered her a minority government and shaky hold on her own job.

The atmosphere in the UK is still intensely divided, with polls indicating support for Leave and Remain almost neck and neck.  That said, more Britons than not think the UK should go ahead with Brexit rather than attempt to reverse the referendum result.

UK-EU negotiations have been tetchy and at times chaotic.  There is no precedent for leaving the EU, only acceding to it, so both sides are in uncharted territory trying to disentangle the mess that is a 45-year EU membership.  Further, the referendum result gave the UK Government no direction on the nature of the post-Brexit relationship with the EU.  Among those who sensibly accept that Brexit is a fait accompli, two sides claim legitimacy for their own version of the result:  the choice between hard or soft Brexit.

Hard Brexit means leaving both the EU's Customs Union and Single Market, ending the EU budget payments and withdrawing from the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice.  Soft Brexit means the UK leaves the EU but remains part of the Customs Union and/or Single Market, as a sort of quasi-EU member without voting power and perhaps with less constraints on its sovereignty.

If the UK wants to sign its own Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) — and all indications are that it does aspire to FTAs with Australia, the United States, and even to joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership — then it must leave the Customs Union.  The EU Customs Union creates a trading area with a common external tariff, but within which there are no tariffs or quotas.  Individual member states do not have the authority to enter into their own FTAs.  Rather, the European Commission negotiates and enters into these agreements on behalf of the EU.

If the UK wants to restrict the movement of EU citizens to the UK — and, again, the indications are that the British people want this — then it cannot be a member of the Single Market whose "four freedoms" require member states to grant the free movement of people, goods, services, and capital.

Simply put, Theresa May and her government are largely in favour of a hard Brexit (articulated in May's recent Mansion House speech), while the Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn favours a have-your-cake-and-eat-it soft Brexit.

With elections not due until May 2022, Corbyn's position on Brexit as laid out in his recent Coventry speech is more posture than policy.  (He wants a new, bespoke UK-EU Customs Union that would allow the UK to enter into its own trade agreements.)  Brexit will be done and dusted by the time he gets a chance at the top job.  Corbyn's agenda, rather, is to place maximum pressure on an already weakened Theresa May, perhaps claim her scalp, and set himself up to lead Labour to a win in four years' time.

In the meantime, when she's not taking heat from Corbyn during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Commons, May must deal with the European Commission's Chief Negotiator, Frenchmen Michel Barnier.

The EU's latest offering in the negotiations is the Draft Withdrawal Agreement released on 28 February 2018.  While the document raised many contentious issues, including the nature and length of the implementation or transition period, the biggest debate has raged over the treatment of the EU-UK border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.  May has made the maintenance of a "soft border" between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland a negotiating red line for the UK, given the impact any change could have on the hard-won peace in Northern Ireland.

While much remains up in the air in the UK-EU negotiations, a few issues have settled relatively quickly.  For example, the rights of EU citizens currently living in the UK, and vice versa, are secure.  These citizens can remain in their host country indefinitely after 29 March 2019 by applying for "settled status", and then citizenship.  Further, on the so-called Brexit divorce bill, depending on the final agreement, the UK has agreed to pay the EU a staggering £35-39 billion.

Whatever the nature of the final deal struck, it will need approval by the British Parliament.  May's numbers in the House of Commons are wafer thin — she holds government with the support of 10 Democratic Unionist Party MPs from Northern Ireland — and the 11 Brexit rebels in her own party could prove problematic if they don't like the final deal.

The Brexit negotiations, the implementation of the final deal, and the ramifications of whatever is agreed are not going away anytime soon.  Britain might be technically free of the EU on 30 March 2019, but just how free remains an extremely vexed question.

Leaving Us Hungry

Food, nutrition and human behaviour are far too complex to be regulated with a star rating system

Mandatory food labelling is a bureaucrat's dream and a consumer's nightmare.

Just take the commonwealth government's health star rating system for example.  It's so bad that Coles beer batter steakhouse chips receive a four-star rating (out of five).  Coles execs must have a good chuckle about that one.

And that's not to say those beerbattered chips aren't delicious.  They are.  But hot potato chips aren't front of mind when people are considering healthy options for dinner.  And imposing a labelling system that gives them a health rating of four out of five is patently absurd.

This is because the relationship between diet and health is complex.

Much more complex than the health bureaucrats who dreamt up this scheme are willing to admit.

In fact, we're still in the early days when it comes to the science of nutrition.

While simple rules can get you some of the way — for example, reducing your intake of sugar might help you to lose weight — distilling all relevant dietary information into a single fraction is impossible due to the differences between individuals.

Right now, it's apparently way beyond the government's capabilities.

An example of the stupidity of the health star rating was on display last week.  Following pressure from activists — you know, the ones who just hate it when other people are enjoying themselves — Nestle took a decision to remove the health star rating from the label of Milo.

To be fair to the public health nannies, Milo did have a 4.5-star rating, which almost seems as bad as the potato wrapped in batter example.  The difference, of course, is that Milo isn't designed to be eaten directly from the tin.  Nestle recommends having three teaspoons dissolved in a glass of skim milk.  The activists say that's not how people actually consume it in the real world.  And they're probably right.

There's a multitude of ways to enjoy the popular malt powder.

I've been known to use slightly more than the recommended ratio of Milo powder to milk.  And skim milk is super gross so I wickedly use full-fat milk instead.

A health star rating can't take into account the weird and wonderful ways that individuals eat Milo.

Queensland LNP senator James McGrath is perhaps Australia's most famous Milo consumer.  He once lobbied McDonald's Australia for the introduction of a Milo McFlurry.  But traditionally McGrath has his Milo generously sprinkled over vanilla ice cream with a nip of Bundy Rum.

If the way in which a product is consumed is an important part of the health star rating system, how does such a scheme take McGrath's consumption habits into account?

The public health activists at the centre of this inane dispute are so desperate to exert control over people's lives that they've missed the very practical point at the heart of this whole episode — it's about individuals.  The key reason the health star rating system fails is that it has no way of taking individual context into account.  No context of other consumption decisions.  No context of natural physical attributes or exercise habits.  It's simplistic and atomistic.

Sadly, I don't hold out a lot of hope that the current formal five-year review of the health star rating system will recommend the abolition of the scheme.  It's more likely that, in typical government fashion, the outcome of a review into a program that doesn't work will be a recommendation that the existing framework is expanded and that more taxpayer money should be shovelled into the furnace.

It's more likely that the leadership will have to come from the Health Minister and the cabinet if the program is to be abolished.

Because self-interested bureaucrats, who thrive on the existence of government programs whether they work or not, will never lobby for the abolition of an existing government program.

They'll never ask the question that needs to be asked:  why is this dumb, expensive failure of a system still in place?

Ask The States Why Money Isn't Spent On Schools

It's almost budget time.  That means that every rent-seeker in the country is off to Canberra with their begging bowl:  Please Mr Morrison can we have some more?  To be fair to Morrison there are an infinite number of worthy causes calling out for increased expenditure.

Take national security, for example.  We live in a dangerous world where any number of ideologues and self-proclaimed religious fanatics want to kill us.  While it isn't clear that diesel submarines are the solution it does seem sensible that the federal government spend money on defence.

But is there an argument for increased federal expenditure on education and health?

Here the situation becomes complicated by our federal system of government.  As much as Australians are in denial about federation, the fact is that Australia is a federation, and education and health are largely state responsibilities.

Rather than run to Canberra for increased school spending, parents and teachers (read teacher unions) should focus their effects closer to home.

This year the Australian Education Union is claiming that the Turnbull government is funding ballet centres and orchestra pits in private schools while public schools require buildings.

In the very first instance the arts are a very important component of any education and it reflects poorly on the education union to suggest otherwise.

The far more important point, however, is that the union argument is highly misleading.  This is not a case of the federal government funding the haves at the expense of the have-nots.

The federal government tops up parents who chose to fund their own children's education.  The state governments finance the education of those students whose parents either cannot afford to pay for their own children's education, or are too cheap to pay for their own children's education.  Historically the quantum of public (both federal and state) money going to schools has favoured public schools over non-public schools.

Yet many people criticise the federal government for underfunding public schools.  Much is being made of the Turnbull government cutting $1.9 billion from school funding.  They should look in the first instance to their own state government.

The NSW government, for example, has $5.4 billion surplus.  The federal government has a $23.6 billion deficit.  To the extent that NSW public schools need capital improvements, or don't have ballet centres or even orchestra pits, that is because NSW has chosen not to spend the money.

Now there is no good reason why Australian taxpayers should fund NSW public schools when the NSW government has chosen not to do so.

Blaming Canberra for all the ills of the world is cheap and lazy politics — especially given our federal system of government.

While it is true that Canberra raises the bulk of tax revenue and the states are responsible for the bulk of social expenditure the presence of state surpluses while the federal budget is in deficit implies that education unions in those states should be looking to their own state government for increased education funding.

No Sex Please, We're Progressive

The Prime Minister's recent puritanical edicts regarding relationships between ministers and their staff do not have roots in conservative Christianity, but in progressive Leftism which has an historical precedent dating back to the Victorian era.

In 1888, English publisher and writer Henry Vizetelly was prosecuted for obscene libel after he translated Émile Zola's La Terre.  The following year, Vizetelly was fined £200 and imprisoned for three months for having dared to reissue Zola's novels.  This rather dampened the spirits of Vizetelly's colleagues, who promptly fell into a slump of self-censorship in order to avoid the same fate.

The writer's arrest and imprisonment came about because he had been targeted by an organisation called the National Vigilance Association which had been formed just three years earlier for the "enforcement and improvement of the laws of the repression of criminal vice and public immorality".  Judging from the 27 boxes of minutes, annual reports, correspondence and campaigning files it left in its wake, the National Vigilance Associate was, if nothing else, thoroughly vigilant.

That the National Vigilance Association blossomed during the Victorian century would surprise few.  Victorianism remains synonymous with prudishness, priggishness and puritanism.  In a recent lamentation penned by Matt Ridley for the Times, he described our current generation of intolerant and censorious millennials as new "Victorians".

Ridley is only partially right.  What would surprise most people today is that the most intolerant and censorious Victorians did not hail from mainstream society, but rather from its radical fringes.  Counter-intuitively, the puritanical movement was spearheaded by feminists, socialists, and trade unionists.

Today's progressives have more in common with (mostly female) zealots who were hell-bent on policing the morals and behaviour of their fellow citizens for much of the 19th century in Britain.

The ultimate aim of this moralising minority was the attainment of Utopia.  The Victorian radicals were inspired by an anti-sensualist, highly rationalist movement which had emerged amid the excesses of 18th century Regency Britain.  Its underlying philosophy, grounded in Gnosticism, was that lust was both a primitive and sensual urge which obstructed the pursuit of equality.

For the feminist, the inequality between the sexes could be overcome if women relinquished such encumbrances as male desire.  Indeed, the 18th century feminist and philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft argued that reproductive inclinations rendered women weaker because they risked becoming "prey to their own senses".

For the Victorian socialist, the working classes could only attain true socio-economic equality through the attainment of "respectability" which was equated with puritanical attitudes towards sex.  For example, one particular socialist community in Surrey which adhered to the utopian philosophy of Robert Owen, a 19th century reformer, dictated that married members should not have sex more than once in two or three years.

Victorian progressives were highly skilled at employing both politics and the law by forming themselves into powerful and effective lobby groups.  In the 1860s, they organised a number of social purity campaigns to undertake a moral cleansing of society by attempting to abolish a range of sexual activities including prostitution.  By the 1880s, feminists, Fabian socialists, and labour organisations had so much control over London that they were referred to as "Municipal Puritans".

Victorian Londoners were compelled to endure years of repression and interference at the hands of an activist minority who dictated the rules and regulations for human relationships.  The hounding, arrest and subsequent death of Oscar Wilde was the tragic apogee of this movement's moral policing.

It is no coincidence that the aggressive puritanism, general illiberalism and political correctness we are witnessing in 2018 is coming not from the conservative Right, but from the progressive Left.  As history repeats itself, the most moralising individuals in our society today are feminists, Marxists and other Utopians.  Theirs is the voice of an extremist minority;  yet their tentacles of influence extend through academia, government and the media.  Take a look at any HR code of conduct in any public organisation and one will essentially find a set of ethical, moral and social behavioural codes which the employee is compelled to adopt in the workplace.

According to the managing director of its commercial operations, Formula One's "grid girls" must be banned because "they no longer reflect modern day societal norms".  This is symptomatic of contemporary Victorianism.  The #MeToo movement aims to bring all manifestations of male sexuality under control by re-defining normal desires as pathological.  It should come as a shock to nobody that the Greens have given Malcolm Turnbull's Big Brother sex ban the loudest and most enthusiastic support.

Malcolm Turnbull declared at a press conference earlier this month (presumably after gaining counsel from his wife) that "most of the ministers ... most of the bosses in the building ... are men and there is a gender, a real gender perspective here".  By employing the language of identity politics, which is taken straight out of our humanities departments, the Prime Minister is signalling that he believes, as did our 19th century feminists, in the idea of a patriarchy.  He believes that men hold power to the exclusion of women, and until this power is equalised, evenly distributed, or taken away from men altogether, Utopia will remain elusive.

We have arrived at a time in our nation's history when politicians are now dictating what should and should not happen between consenting adults.  This is a massive illiberal overreach of government.  The fact that it is prepared to sacrifice personal freedoms in the name of equality reveals that the present government is not a conservative, but a progressive one.