“Progressive fusionism”

A few bloggers have recently written progressive fusionism. Skeptic Lawyer (otherwise known as Helen Dale who I kind-of-knew from University of Qld days) has written a piece on it over at her blog.

She writes:

The idea that libertarians and ‘progressives’ could hammer out some of their differences and reach a compromise far more workable than that between conservatives and libertarians is an interesting one.

It looks like an enjoyable read. There may be some areas in which Liberal and Social Democrat thought are very similar and on which people can work together. I wonder if the essential difference between Liberal thought and Social Democratic thought is different conceptions of property rights and its importance.

On other matters, I’ve printed out a set of game theory lecture notes to read through - I’ve never learnt game theory and it might be interesting and even useful in my work.

Same-sex marriages in Australia

The recent announcement by the federal Attorney-General to appropriately incorporate de facto same-sex relationships into Commonwealth legislation is sensible and welcome, but his explanation on last night’s 7:30 Report about why the marriage laws won’t be changed was unconvincing.

Of course, the major reason they won’t be changed is that Labor doesn’t want to upset swinging voters and it thinks that recognising same-sex marriages may do this. Another reason is that there are many socially conservative ALP members, unions (the SDA is one) and supporters, and the ALP doesn’t want to alienate them.

While the actual electoral impacts of changing the marriage laws seems uncertain, I can see no substantive reason they should not be changed. And by not changing the marriage laws, same-sex couples married overseas will presumably not have their marriages recognised in Australia. Australia should recognise these overseas marriages and change Australian law to recognise same-sex marriages.

Potential problems with proposal to ban private political donations in NSW

As watchers of NSW politics would know, the NSW government is proposing to ban all private donations to political parties, although the details are unclear. The NSW government is also suggesting public funding.

Some questions immediately arise:

1. how do independent candidates, new parties and small parties fund their election campaigns? How does it affect the entry of independent and new parties into electoral politics?
2. who would the public funding work? Would the funding for an upcoming election depend on the last election results? Is this reasonable?
3. would this system have effectively stopped the Greens moving from being a very small party 20 years ago to their current third-party status?
4. does this make the political system less flexible in responding to the electorate? Does it ossify it?

These questions need to be answered.

The proposed Fuelwatch scheme

Here is a link to a press release from the federal government about its proposed Fuelwatch scheme.

While I agree with increased information transparency for consumers about prices in the market, I wonder about the requirement that prices be fixed for 24 hours. I don’t know whether service station operators currently change their prices more than once a day, but even if they don’t, it is conceivable that a service station operator may want to change their prices during a day.

No doubt there are costs and benefits in all schemes like this - a key question is what the net benefit is and how the net benefits are distributed.

What’s happening to property rights in NSW?

According to the Sydney Morning Herald,

[NSW] Homeowners will not lose their property to developers under proposed compulsory acquisition laws, unless an urban renewal project is in the works, NSW Planning Minister Frank Sartor says.

Governments can already compulsorarily acquire land for roads and railways. This is generally accepted. However, being also able to compulsorarily acquire land for an urban renewal project is going too far.

Some more ideas for the 2020 summit

1. local (and other) governments doing genuine community consultation (the City of Sydney needs to learn this), including releasing completed commissioned reports (any confidential material can be withheld)

2. services run by governments being properly responsive to users’ needs. Governments are often extremely unresponsive to users’ actual needs, e.g. in providing bus services in inner-Sydney. This includes  education, health, public transport, community and public transport services.

3. removing unnecessary transaction costs and ensuring consistency in policy across jurisdictions where appropriate

4. public policy experiments to inform education policy - the focus must be on the outcomes rather than the processes 

5. having civil union registers in all states and territories that are recognised in other states and territories. Ensuring that couples in “civil unions” are treated by governments and under law/policy the same as those who are married. Also changing the definition of marriage to extend to same-sex couples.

6. local businesses “adopting” local areas (I saw this in Manhattan)

“My idea” for the 2020 summit

Well, many people’s idea - but I’d put it forward as it’s one of the most important ones:

Experiments in public policy including in education, health, research and governance.

And of course, implementing as well.

Short update

I’ve been quite busy with work and the 2011 Residents’ Association in the last few weeks, including drafting objections to DAs and letters/submissions along with letters to the editor. It’s surprising how long these activities can take.

I’ll try to write and publish something more interesting shortly!

On the Brisbane City Council election

The recent Brisbane City Council election result reminds me of Sally-Anne Atkinson’s win in 1988, although I think that Sally-Anne did slightly better.

In 1988, Sally-Anne received about 2/3 of the vote, and the Liberal Party won 17 of the 26 wards.  The Labor Party won 9 wards: essentially it’s then-stronger wards of Deagon, Eagle Farm (similar to Northgate), Spring Hill (covering a large part of the existing Central), Paddington, The Gabba, Doboy, Wynnum-Manly, Inala and Enoggera. 

Problems in the financial markets

Where will the problems in the financial markets stop?  What will be their impacts? Will there be recessions, or even depressions?  Are the problems in the financial markets an example of what can happen when entities don’t trust each other - if so, is this a graphic example of the importance of trust between entities in non-command economies?