The former Midnight Oil frontman said of Labor’s insulation program: “We’re seeing a relatively small number of complaints in the system, given the scale of the system, about 0.5 per cent of complaints given the totality of the system. It has been a very successful program . . .” Two weeks later he was demoted and the program was cancelled.

As Coalition education spokesman Christopher Pyne pointed out last week, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd are running a very similar line about the much hyped Building the Education Revolution program, citing complaints in a mere 0.76 per cent of schools.
By the government’s own measure, Gillard has done an even worse job than Garrett. Yet the school hall rip-off continues at a cracking pace and Gillard continues to preside over the disaster-riddled education portfolio.

It is astonishing enough that it took five deaths and 120 house fires for the government to act on the insulation program, but when it comes to the BER, the government seems perfectly comfortable that millions of dollars are evaporating from the program almost daily.

Gillard describes the problems as small bumps in the road. On the face of it, her response appears uncaring and arrogant.

Announced in February last year, the BER started life as a $14.7 billion stimulus spend designed to provide additional infrastructure support to Australian schools. This was a very exciting announcement, especially for the public education sector, long neglected by the states and desperate for any capital investment.

At the time it was claimed that, in addition to improving education, the money was also meant to stimulate the local economy and create jobs in communities.

From the outset, the program’s design was flawed.

Unlike the previous federal government, which gave money directly to schools for projects, the Rudd government opted to entrust the states with the roll-out and, as a result, it has been the public education system that has lost out big time in this once in a generation spend.

In turn, the states have handed over the projects to a handful of multinational construction companies that have pocketed the windfall along with their suppliers.

Local tradesmen and suppliers have largely missed out on contracts, or have been given minor jobs.

Often, wealthy independent schools have been able to manage their own projects and squeeze every dollar, but it is a regional public school that is forced to take delivery of a prefabricated library delivered on the back of a truck, with barely a cent left for outfitting. In one well-reported example, the building, once delivered, didn’t even fit the foundations.

Almost two months after the program began, the first problem was reported in the media. Since that time complaints have exploded, climaxing in the extraordinary situation towards the end of last year where the government announced a $1.7bn blow-out in the primary schools component of the package. At that time, the guidelines were also revised (not for the last time) to include the words “value for money”.

With almost 99 per cent of complaints coming from public schools, it seems the great champion of public education, the Labor Party, has dropped the ball.

All the while in the media, Gillard routinely has laughed off complaints. Similarly in parliamentary question time, she derided the opposition for raising significant concerns from its electorates.

Meanwhile, the widespread discontent has continued to spread. Along with other media outlets, this newspaper has continued to publish many examples of systemic price gouging, rorting and waste.

To top it all off, just last week even the well performing federal Treasurer, Wayne Swan, admitted rorting was occurring in the BER.

Little wonder then that the federal auditor-general extended his investigation into the administration and reporting requirements of the project. He is due to report next month.

So what has the government been doing about all this? As with Garrett’s insulation stimulus, it seems it has been seriously inactive until significantly caught out.

This year we have discovered that hundreds of projects were being audited in NSW, although little is known about the findings after the process was concluded. This was in response to the negative media reports coming out of the state; a transparent attempt at playing catch-up long after decisive action was needed.

Similarly Queensland has had some high-profile BER disasters, including the failure to put the $490 million first round of the primary schools program out to tender. The stories emerging in some of these schools are heartbreaking.

In response, the federal opposition has this week set a challenge for the government to begin a judicial inquiry into the program. If the federal government is correct and it is largely running well, then it should not have anything to fear.

Rudd made his name attacking the previous government over the AWB scandal concerning the UN oil for food program in Iraq. The Howard government initiated the Cole royal commission to investigate the claims in an open and transparent way.

It is time for the federal Labor government to demonstrate some courage and send a clear message to the taxpayers of Australia that the good management of billions of tax dollars is more important than petty party politics.

Rather than denying what is increasingly obvious, which is what Gillard still seems intent on doing, Rudd has an opportunity to seize the moment and show he is prepared to acknowledge there are problems and work to fix them.

Agreeing to a judicial inquiry is the obvious first step. It might also be a chance to put his very ambitious deputy back in her box.

The Weekend Australian

The decision of judge David Lloyd on August31 exposes land developers in NSW to crippling uncertainty.

Perhaps more worrying is the fact that the state Labor government and the planning minister in particular immediately signalled that they would not challenge the decision. The handling of this crucial planning matter highlights the weakness of the government, which does not appear to have the courage to provide certainty to investors and the community whenever it fears political pain.

The facts of the matter are these. In 2008 a local resident action group began a legal challenge against the NSW planning minister’s decision to approve developments at Catherine Hill Bay and at Gwandalan, both near Newcastle. The basis of their case was that the state Labor government, through the then minister for planning and then minister for the environment, signed a non-binding memoranda of understanding with the land owner, Rose Corporation, which provided that if the land was rezoned and development approved, then various lands would be transferred to the Department of the Environment and Climate Change to be incorporated into the state’s national parks.

The MOU was part of a package of similar in-principle agreements throughout the Lower Hunter, which would have seen a total of up to 12,000ha of land in private ownership transferred into public ownership if various developments were ultimately approved. This was adopted by cabinet late in 2006 under then premier Morris Iemma as part of the Lower Hunter Strategy to provide enough local housing for the next 25 years. Together with public lands, this provided for 22,000ha of new conservation lands and formed part of the Lower Hunter Conservation Strategy.

The resident action group, represented by the Environmental Defender’s Office, did not challenge the rezoning but challenged various development approvals on the sites. Justice Lloyd found the development approvals void because in his view, the then planning minister, Frank Sartor, was biased towards approving the applications in exchange for environmental lands. Yet the development approvals at Catherine Hill Bay and Gwandalan were subject to inquiry by an independent review panel chaired by the extremely capable Gabrielle Kibble, former NSW director-general of planning.

The review panel rejected the original applications and the developer was forced to submit new applications. The new applications were also examined by the review panel and ultimately recommended for approval after a lengthy process. The minister subsequently approved the applications and the land was duly transferred to the Department of the Environment and Climate Change.

Sartor’s action to rezone land for residential purposes was not challenged and still stands, yet the development applications, independently assessed and supported by the panel, were found to be illegal. The result is clearly nonsense.

The judge seemed to rely on the wording in the original MOU (approved by the whole cabinet and drafted by the government’s lawyers), and other miscellaneous bits of correspondence. At no time was Sartor, also a former mayor of Sydney, called as a witness.

The former minister has claimed that some of the judge’s factual inferences are not correct. The decision also raises a significant legal precedent issue. It follows that whenever a government gives in-principle support for a project (such as a railway line) the planning minister may be prejudiced in determining the application. Given this reasoning Kevin Rudd’s recent announcement that the Gorgon Gas Project will go ahead could be argued to have prejudiced the future decision of the federal Minister for the Environment, Peter Garrett, on the application.

The decision of the present Planning Minister, Kristina Keneally, not to appeal the matter has caused consternation among the property and development industry. There is a similar case under way concerning the 7000-dwelling Huntley township proposal near Branxton. It is clear that sooner or later the law will need to be clarified, as the present unsatisfactory situation will create uncertainty.

It is fascinating to record that a government source leaked its own senior counsel’s advice on the day the case began in the Land and Environment Court saying that the government faced a real prospect of losing. This was then featured on the front page of The Sydney Morning Herald. It made the story of the court decision bigger than it otherwise would have been.

Along with the talented John Della Bosca, in the last month or so the energetic Sartor has been widely touted as a replacement for the lacklustre Labor premier Nathan Rees. It is at least also conceivable that the NSW government dissociated itself from the case so as to label it as a Sartor mistake and hence damage his reputation. Keneally immediately described it as a decision of the former minister and decided not to appeal within hours without the normal post-judgment legal analysis.

The government also ruled out a legislative response, even though this issue is causing deep uncertainty in the industry. Indeed other developers of other projects in NSW are reporting calls from banks concerned about its implications in that new developments are now vulnerable to other court challenges on similar grounds.

Sartor’s Lower Hunter Regional Strategy is good public policy. Don’t be surprised if, in a few months, Sartor and Della Bosca bounce back to form a joint ticket and come to lead NSW Labor before the next election.

Ross Fitzgerald THE AUSTRALIAN September 12, 2009

But what has largely been ignored is the role of gas-fired energy generation.

The deleterious impact of emissions trading on our economy will be felt most severely in the Latrobe Valley of Victoria where such a scheme will result in significant job losses in a number of brown-coal fired power stations. The same applies to New South Wales, because its power stations are old and predominantly fuelled by black coal.

While the federal Government may consider compensation and adjustment packages, in reality they will be, at best, band-aid solutions to what will become a major economic adjustment for Australia. Queensland, however, is well placed to withstand the economic storm, because the State Labor Government spent the best part of the last decade preparing for the eventuality of emissions trading.

In 2000, the Beattie Government introduced an energy policy — the Cleaner Energy Strategy — which, among other requirements, insisted that, by 2005, at least 13% of electricity would be sourced from gas-fired power generation. As a result, there are four new gas-fired power stations in the Sunshine State, contributing over 1000 megawatts of capacity to the system.

This forward thinking energy policy has been the catalyst for the development of a whole new industry in Queensland — the coal seam gas sector. Billions of dollars have already been invested in this sector and the coal seam gas fields in the Surat and Bowen Basins are now one of Australia’s great energy provinces rivaling the Bowen Basin coalfields and which potentially has greater gas reserves than the North West shelf. As a consequence, major multinational energy companies such as Shell, BP and the BG Group are currently trying to buy into Queensland’s coal seam gas assets.

Gas is the fuel source of the immediate future. If we are to reduce our reliance on coal for power, gas is the most viable option for power generation. New investment in power-generation will occur where there are abundant cheap sources of gas. In terms of east coat Australia, that means southern and central Queensland.

NSW has only limited access to indigenous gas reserves and while Victoria has access to Bass Strait and other sources, there are questions over the amount of available gas for power generation.

Under this scenario, an emissions trading scheme will result in further investment in Queensland at the expense of other eastern States. This will exacerbate the two-paced economy that currently exists in Australia: the crucial divide between the resource-rich, export-focused states of Queensland and Western Australia, and all the other states.

In a macroeconomic environment where the Australian Government is trying to balance excessive demand pressures of the growth States against the subdued performance of the southern States, emissions trading will only make the task harder.

So do we need a national emissions trading regime to achieve the greenhouse gas reduction targets that we expect?

There’s no need to rush in and implement an Emissions Trading Scheme. Australia will meet its Kyoto protocol targets, largely as a result of the Queensland Government’s decision to ban broad-scale tree- clearing. So we have some time to get it right and, more fundamentally, lay the foundations for an energy sector that transitions from its reliance on coal to gas and ultimately renewable energy.

The alternative is for individual States to establish mandatory targets for the production of electricity from gas-fired generation. This doesn’t have to be at the 13% level established by Queensland, but it should be at a level that will result in the development of new gas fired power stations, particularly in NSW and in Victoria where a target can be set so that it doesn’t wipe out the viability of the brown coal fired generators in the Latrobe Valley.

As Queensland has demonstrated, the gas target does not merely result in the development of power stations, but also in the encouragement of new gas resources, which are essential for Australia’s long term economic development.

The gas scheme can co-exist with other programs such as the Mandatory Renewable Energy Target, which can be maintained at modest levels to encourage the development of the renewable energy sector. Once we have established new gas-fired generators in Victoria and NSW and have developed new viable sources of gas supply, it is then that the federal Government should consider implementing emissions trading.

These suggestions may jar with policy makers in Canberra who want a national scheme, not a number of State based schemes. However, before our federal policy makers jump to premature conclusions, they should closely look at Queensland’s energy policy and its impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and developing the gas sector.

Ross Fitzgerald is Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at Griffith University. Professor Fitzgerald is the author of 29 books, most recently The Pope’s Battalions: B.A.Santamaria and the Labor Split. He is contributing co-editor of Growing Old (Dis)Gracefully: 35 Australians reflect on life over 50, recently published by ABC Books.