A new tax slug
In a piece of shabby demagogy, Victorian and NSW premiers Joan Kirner and Nick Greiner are trying to blame their latest round of tax rises on inequities in the distribution of federal funds among the states. The truth is, these higher taxes were already in the pipeline; both Kirner and Greiner must have prepared their packages of higher charges well in advance to have been able to announce them within hours of last week's premiers' conference.
Most of the other states and territories are also likely to increase taxes and cut services in the near future. South Australian Premier John Bannon has already said his government will increase charges, and WA and ACT leaders have hinted at cuts to services.
This is part of a general pattern that has persisted for most of the past decade in accordance with the nonsensical theories of economic "rationalism", which hold that cuts in the public sector will promote growth of the private sector and greater prosperity for all. Nowhere is the fallacy of this theory more evident than in South Australia, where Premier Bannon admits 20,000 jobs have been cut from the public sector in the past year. SA now has the highest unemployment of any state: 12.4% of the work force.
As might be expected, the Greiner Liberals' package is by far the most savage, slugging wage-earners' cars and bank accounts, as well as raising public transport prices and increasing taxes on beer, cigarettes and gambling. The public transport fare rises are particularly short-sighted at a time when Australia's two largest cities are already choking on traffic fumes, and cheaper, more efficient public transport is the only real solution. Kirner has been a little more restrained, concentrating on bank charges, beer and cigarettes.
These tax rises might be more acceptable if there were any evidence that Australia's governments, state and federal, were likely to use their revenues in socially responsible ways. But it's clear not a cent of the new taxes will go, for example, towards providing jobs for the unemployed through socially useful public works programs. Too much will disappear into interest payments on ruinous loans taken out in conjunction with private companies, and other direct and indirect subsidies for private companies, including below-cost provision of infrastructure and services to them. The tax rises hurt all the more in the certainty that governments will continue their irresponsible gambling with the funds that we pay in the expectation that they will make our society a better place in which to live.
Terra nullius
The High Court's decision overturning the concept of terra nullius is a long-overdue recognition of the injustice done to the Aboriginal people through the seizure of their land, begun a little over 200 years ago. Legally, the seizure of the Aborigines' land s carried out behind the fiction that Australia was empty land — terra nullius. In fact, the British occupying authorities' real attitude — one inherited by the Australian legal system — was a refusal to recognise non-European laws.
Unfortunately, the court ruling alone changes little. The real questions remain Aboriginal land rights, just compensation for the seizure of Aboriginal land, recognition of the right of Aboriginal communities to run their own affairs, and adequate funding for programs to overcome the legacy of 200 years of genocide and marginalisation. It remains to be seen what impact the court ruling will have on these and other vital issues. Capitalist Australia has never given the Aboriginal people anything without a struggle, and there is no sign that that is about to change.