Howard Years Research Articles

Gender Equity in the Tax-Transfer System for Fiscal Sustainability

In the 1980s the Australian Personal Income Tax was highly progressive and family payments were universal. The system ranked well in terms of gender equity and female labour supply incentives. During the Howard years the progressivity of the rate scale declined dramatically despite rising inequality in wages, income and wealth, and the individual as the unit of taxation for families was replaced by a system of “quasi-joint” taxation. As a result many partnered mothers as second earners now face effective marginal tax rates that are well above the top rate on personal income. At the same time, many face high child care costs in a largely privatised system. In addition, women, typically on lower pay, cannot gain equally from tax advantaged superannuation. This paper presents an analysis that highlights the counterproductive effects of the gender discrimination in these policies on female labour supply, household saving and the tax base, and argues for policies that promote gender equity for fiscal sustainability in an economy undergoing the far-reaching effects of demographic change.

Keep us simple, keep us safe: The post-9/11 comeback of the Average Australian Bloke

Long before 9/11, the conservative shift in Australian politics that was marked by John Howard’s first election to Prime Minister in 1996, as well as the rise, during the same period, of the extreme-right party One Nation, signalled the triumph of a culture of masculinist and xenophobic whiteness, of anti-intellectualism, of petty-bourgeois gender roles and social conservatism that had been historically ingrained into Australia’s collective psyche. By the time 9/11 happened, half of the post-9/11 political damage had, in fact, already been done. That said, 9/11, along with asylum seeker crises, gave Howard the xenophobic “security” agenda, based on a politics of fear, that he needed in the face of a mounting domestic campaign against unpopular cutbacks to a range of public services, notably health and education His government managed to turn probable defeat into certain victory in November 2001, with one of the largest swings to an incumbent government in Australian history. Howard remained in power almost 12 years, and in the second half of that period, 9/11 became mobilised in purely local ways, around local conversations, in which asylum and refugee and indigenous rights, and the rights of Muslim minorities, loomed large−the rights of women also. Howard increasingly couched government discourse in the language of “protection” and “our” (Australian-US) shared values. Even though Howard was voted out in 2007. Yet, Howardism profoundly influenced the Australian psyche: the country has become yet more pro-US and much more timid, about practically everything and rights−and public funding for health, education and welfare−removed in the Howard years have not been restored.

Australia and East Timor During the Howard Years: An International Law Perspective

This paper considers the range of international law challenges faced by the Howard Government in Australia with respect to its relationship with Timor Leste.

Making Medicare: the Politics of Universal Health Care in Australia

MAKING MEDICARE: THE POLITICS OF UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN AUSTRALIA Anne-marie Boxall and James A. Gillespie New South Publishing, 2013. ISBN: 9781742233437, 223 pages.This is an excellent book. It should be required reading for anyone involved in health and health financing policy, most particularly Commonwealth public servants advising the new Abbott Government.The book is a fair and balanced account of the long history of development and consolidation of Australia's universal health insurance system. It includes careful analysis of both the policy issues involved and the practical considerations of conflicting interests, implementation challenges, political factors and broader contextual environments. Although there may well be a broad consensus now about the basic framework for Medicare, much of this book's analysis is as pertinent today as it was in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or 1990s when that framework was being debated so heatedly. There are many issues yet to be resolved and new challenges to be faced that require both expert policy analysis and pragmatic understanding of politics and administration.The book's carefully researched history is presented so as to test several theories of political discourse when it comes to health and health financing. The main one, highlighted in the book's substantial introduction, is the balance between the roles of ideas, interests and institutions. Correctly, in my view, but disappointingly, the authors conclude that although all three matter, interests and institutions have dominated the Australian debates. In the last chapter they state that the highly politicised context in which Medicare became a fixture in Australian life was more marked than in any comparable country, and that the structural problems that have emerged have not benefited from rational debate.The book includes chapters on each stage of Medicare's history, beginning with a summary of developments before the 1950sthat led to the Menzies-Pagescheme, followedby chapters on the background to Whitlam's Medibank proposals (1960-74), making Medibank a reality (1974-75), the Fraser health system reform (1976-81), the introduction of Medicare by Hawke, the politics of Medicare (1984-96) and the Howard years. These chapters are more than descriptions of events, although the descriptions are detailed and well researched: they include considerable analysis of the various factors at work during each period. This analysis is supplemented by several chapters focusing on some key debates: 'Organised medicine versus Medibank', 'Medibank weighed in the balance' and 'Why Fraser abolished Medibank'.Afinal chapter discusses current issues and future challenges.There are many fascinating aspects of the history. Despite the partisan nature of the heated debates at each stage of health reform, any ongoing philosophical divide between the major parties is overshadowed by the debates within each party that continued over decades. Menzies resigned in 1939 when his proposed national contributory scheme, which would have provided universal cover, was shelved. His later support for a voluntary private health insurance system was for him a second- bestapproach. KeyLabourPartyfigureswerestillfirmlyopposed to Medibank and its fee-for-service approach, even after the dismissal of the Whitlam Government in 1975, whereas key Coalition ministers, including even Fraser, genuinely intended to maintain Medibank even if they were never passionate supporters.More important than the 'ideas' were the interests and institutions. The medical profession won the battle in the 1940s for fee-for-service against not only the advocates of a salaried national health system along the lines of the British National Health Service, but also against advocates of private approaches, who saw advantage in the friendly societies' use of 'lodge payments', which were like capitation grants. The subsequent challenge, debated for decades (and still relevant today), was to find an affordable and equitable system consistent with fee-for-service. …

Abortion Politics during the Howard Years: Beyond Liberalisation

This article describes the politics of abortion during the Howard years (1996–2007) as a time of significant turbulence. It considers four separate significant developments in abortion discourse in the actions of federal and state governments and parliaments and in the publication of an influential anti-abortion text. It argues that while support for women's choice as a framework for understanding abortion prevailed during the Howard years, the definition of what an abortion is changed significantly towards an experience that is contrary to, rather than consistent with, women's health and well-being. This shift is attributed to the Howard government, the most pro-actively anti-abortion federal government since the early 1970s, and broader white patriarchal discourses of gender that elevated maternity as a moral imperative for women and constructed abortion as a harm.

Unions and collective bargaining in Australia in 2012

In 2012, the big issues for unions were working hours, insecurity, supply chain intervention, collective rights, public sector employment and, of course, organisation and membership. Membership and density were fairly stable. Disputation rose but was well below the levels of the Workplace Relations Act era. Disputes became longer and retained their focus on bargaining under the Fair Work Act. Unions continued to attempt to widen sources of collective power that had been severely constricted during the Howard years. They developed new policies and a slightly broader range of tactics, and undertook some internal restructuring at the Australian Council of Trade Unions. The unions’ relationship with the federal government was relatively stable. In contrast, in state public sectors there was increasing unrest, with unions using a variety of tactics to counter attacks on job security and long-standing conditions. Unions also faced challenges from restructuring and redundancies in industries such as airlines and coal.

What can the unemployed teach us about work?

This article explores two discourse communities made up of income support recipients who articulate disparate discourses of work. By analysing their responses to the Mutual Obligation welfare reforms of the Howard years, which were designed to move them into (more) paid work, I demonstrate that a broader discourse of work lends itself to different understandings of, and responses to, this suite of policies. This article does not suggest policy solutions nor does it advocate cultural change. Its aim is modest: to ask what the unemployed can teach us about work. It surveys a particular group of people in Australia who have an alternative understanding of work and aims to give some insight into the impact these understandings have on their everyday life practices. It contends that understandings of work that extend beyond a narrow focus on employment shape the everyday life experiences of income support recipients by emphasizing the value of unpaid activities and diminishing the emphasis on employment for its own sake.

Before the Bride Really Wore Pink

Before the Bride Really Wore Pink

Right to the City, Desire for the Suburb?

The 2000s have been a lively decade for cities. The Worldwatch Institute estimated that 2007 was the first year in human history that more people worldwide lived in cities than the countryside. Globalisation and new digital media technologies have generated the seemingly paradoxical outcome that spatial location came to be more rather than less important, as combinations of firms, industries, cultural activities and creative talents have increasingly clustered around a select node of what have been termed “creative cities,” that are in turn highly networked into global circuits of economic capital, political power and entertainment media. Intellectually, the period has seen what the UCLA geographer Ed Soja refers to as the spatial turn in social theory, where “whatever your interests may be, they can be significantly advanced by adopting a critical spatial perspective”. This is related to the dynamic properties of socially constructed space itself, or what Soja terms “the powerful forces that arise from socially produced spaces such as urban agglomerations and cohesive regional economies,” with the result that “what can be called the stimulus of socio-spatial agglomeration is today being assertively described as the primary cause of economic development, technological innovation, and cultural creativity”

Underbelly, true crime and the cultural economy of infamy

By putting the vocabulary of aspiration in the mouths of criminals, and by situating them in the suburbs, Underbelly suggests that ruthless, murderous competition may not be incompatible with the Australian Dream. Exposing a generation's denial of the criminal elements behind ecstasy's fetishized status, it problematizes celebratory accounts of club culture, and suggests dark externalities for the ‘night-time economy’ of our inner cities. As well as connecting country, suburb and city in repressed criminality, by virtue of its casting choices at the very least, the series blurs the lines between ordinariness, celebrity and infamy. It is in these unresolved tensions that Underbelly constitutes a televisual history of Australia's present that countervails the official pieties of the ordinary that characterized the Howard years.

Surviving the Gang Bang Theory of Nature: The Environment Movement during the Howard Years

This article investigates the Australian environment movement during the Howard years, 1996–2007. First, the author maps out key issues which emerged during this period of governance, and then focuses on outlining the strategic and tactical repertoire of the movement at this time. The author argues the case that the movement embraced a neoliberal ideology often expressed within the dominant discourses shared by the state and big business, as the movement sought to operate more and more on business principles. In addition, environmentalists pursued a neoconservative moral agenda, so typical of the Howard years, right across the policy-making realm. Finally, the article concludes with the argument that the Australian green movement, mistaking a neoliberal geo-economic agenda as postmodernity, reorganized itself in such a way as to deliver political wins to its traditional adversaries, fundamentally weakening its position within Australian society as an advocate of radical social change.

Introduction to ‘Surviving Neoliberalism: The Persistence of Australian Social Movements’

This article considers the survival tactics and successes of Australian social movements during the Howard years (1996–2007). It explores how movements might operate in a political environment that is hostile and bereft of opportunities, and where the strategies of government seek to exclude deliberately progressive collective voices. The article examines theories of neoliberalism and neoconservatism and shows how these came together in the Australian example. Key theories of social movements are also discussed to foreground the empirical case studies that comprise the bulk of this special issue of Social Movement Studies. Précis of the articles making up this issue are then provided. The article concludes by reflecting on the prospects for change post-Howard.

Surviving the Assault? The Australian Disability Movement and the Neoliberal Workfare State

This article provides an analysis of the key areas of struggle for the Australian disability movement during the Howard years of government. After providing a brief overview of the Australian disability movement and its historical development, we then move to situate the struggles of the Australian disability movement within the broader context of welfare to work, one of the central tenets of neoliberal social policy restructuring. From here, three sites of struggle emerge that have been central to the Australian disability movement's struggles for representation, recognition and redistribution and principally include state restructuring of disability open labour market supports, state legitimation of disability sheltered workshops and, finally, the pensioner-categorization of disability within social security law and policy.

Lessons to be learned: Reviving advocacy organisations after the neo-con men

The article assesses the impact of the Howard years on non-government advocacy organisations in Australia. It stresses the importance of advocacy in civil society, and in representative democracy. It outlines how this role was undermined, including with regard to the manipulation of contracting-out arrangements. It argues that to regain their former role advocacy organisations will need to reassess their relationships with government—including their funding relationships—and reassert their role as independent analysts and legitimate critics of government power and policy.

Recover

Recover

Hasten Slowly: Urgency, Discretion and Review - a Counter-Terrorism Legislative Agenda and Legacy

<p>This article examines the practice by the Howard government from 2003 of invoking a paradigm of urgency in the introduction and enactment of multiple examples of counter terrorism legislation, with claims that review and remediation of that legislation best occur after rapid enactment. Speedy<br />legislative passage was frequently accompanied by few amendments, a discounting of parliamentary and other review recommendations and a contrasting unwillingness or neglect to subsequently review and amend enacted legislation to strengthen safeguards and increase accountability. By<br />examining selected major examples of counter-terrorism legislation, a comprehensive understanding of the applications of urgency as a legislative mechanism in counter-terrorism law reform from the Howard years can be<br />obtained. These applications range between the obtaining of immediate political advantage and an ongoing concentration of executive power. Several serious and distinctive features adversely impacting upon representative democracy were also generated by this urgency paradigm in counter-terrorism legislative enactments. The Rudd government has inherited the considerable legacy of this urgency bound legislative agenda. Questions now arise as to whether proper review of that legislation will occur and whether the culture of urgency will persist in a different government’s legislative responses to terrorism.</p>

Individual Ministerial Responsibility During the Howard Years: 1996–2007

Upon winning the 1996 election, John Howard became the first Australian prime minister to codify his understanding of individual ministerial responsibility by publishing A Guide on Key Elements of Ministerial Responsibility. This article examines how this ministerial code of conduct was applied to significant allegations of ministerial impropriety that occurred during the 1996–2007 Howard era, and highlights the relationship between the media, the Prime Minister's response and the ultimate outcome. It finds that Howard's early rigorous application of the Guide to allegations of conflicts of interest involved political pain and instigated its decline. Howard retreated, redefined ministerial responsibility as requiring deliberate wrongdoing and raised the threshold required for a minister's dismissal. His inability to firmly apply the Guide to instances of ministerial misconduct betrays the traditional view that ministers are responsible for their own actions. The contemporary practice is that ministers do not resign for departmental failures for which they are not personally responsible, irrespective of the gravity of that wrongdoing.

Australia and East Timor during the Howard Years: An International Law Perspective

This paper considers the range of international law challenges faced by the Howard Government in Australia with respect to its relationship with Timor Leste.

Refugee Protection in the Howard Years: Obstructing the Right to Seek Asylum

Refugee Protection in the Howard Years: Obstructing the Right to Seek Asylum

Australian Approaches to International Environmental Law during the Howard Years

This paper provides an overview of major Australian developments in international environmental law during the term of the Howard government.