Miranda Devine
The Sydney Morning Herald |
As the debate over water heats up in NSW, “Dubai Bob,” as Bob Carr is becoming known, has had a “road to Damascus conversion” on desalination, says Miranda Devine. The globe-trotting premier seems to have come around to such schemes, heralded by his ill-received announcement of a desalination plant in Kurnell. It just goes to show how desperate he is to stave off the “inevitability” of planning another dam for Sydney, says Devine. According to Carr’s “water tsar,” Utilities Minister Frank Sartor, the desalination plant could boost the falling dam levels with fresh water within three years. It’s what he calls a “contingency plan.” But before we spend $2 billion in Kurnell, Carr might want to heed the lessons of Florida, where bugs at the Apollo Beach desalination plant will cost as much as $50 million to fix. Carr’s Kurnell surprise smells like “another gimmick,” and it looks like one too, with government sources admitting there’s only a 30-50% chance it will be built at all. |
Crikey Says: Water policy is beginning to become the topic de jour, and it will be a reckless politician – and columnist – who doesn’t have a firm view about it. Rating: |
Kenneth Davidson
The Age |
Is opposition to the government’s IR changes simply opposition to the unknown? So claimed John Howard at the Sydney Institute earlier this week, adding that once the legislation was in place, opposition would evaporate as workers saw how much better off they would be. Howard cited statistics from New Zealand labour market reform to prove his point. But Kenneth Davidson says that if Howard were truly interested in what was happening in New Zealand he would find that “the economic impact of the NZ reforms was plummeting productivity as bosses switched from capital-intensive methods of production to cheaper labour and a growing skills deficit as the incentive for employers to invest in a disposable labour force diminished.” However successive industry ministers have refused requests to survey employer attitudes to the existing labour market structure or how government changes might affect their business. Indeed it seems “there has been no proper employer survey since 1995,” says Davidson, “because it is not certain that the results would back Howard’s pre-determined ‘reforms’.” |
Crikey Says: The debate over the impending IR changes has taken on features of a tennis match, except that in this case it will be decided by the spectators rather than the players. Rating: |
Ratings:
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