Month: August 2004

Double or nothing

John Quiggin15 Comments

Not content with humiliating Labor over the FTA, John Howard has decided to raise the stakes, by rejecting a face-saving Labor amendment cutting off a minor loophole with respect to the PBS. On recent track record, Howard’s judgement looks sound. Labor will probably cave yet again, and look even weaker than before. This was, of course, precisely the judgement the Americans made on Howard and Vaile. By the end, the Yanks knew Howard would sign anything and proceeded to dictate one of the most lopsided treaties ever seen (in the absence of actual gunboats to enforce signature).

But maybe the worm will turn. The PBS is the most vulnerable single aspect of the deal. If Labor can’t fight and win on this, they can’t fight and win on anything. It seems unlikely, but perhaps Howard has overplayed his hand.

PPP = painless private profits?

John Quiggin5 Comments

There was an interesting report in Monday’s Fin (subscription required) showing how little hope there is for a coherent policy on Public-Private Partnerships. Over the past few years, all the state governments including Queensland’s, have produced impressive-looking policy documents saying that the idea of PPPs is to get reduce the cost of public projects (‘value for money’ is the key slogan) through efficiently sharing risk with the private sector. The documents are notable for denying that the idea is fund projects that would not go ahead otherwise, or that PPPs provide a way of getting infrastructure without debt.

But, as the Fin reports, the potential private partners have other ideas. They don’t want to take on risk and they don’t want the government to worry too much about saving money. What they want, it’s pretty clear, is private-sector rates of return on public projects, with the government ready to pick up the pieces if anything goes wrong.
Read More »

The small target strategy lives (and dies)

John Quiggin36 Comments

The report that Labor Senators will back the proposed FTA with the US, and that Caucus will almost certainly follow suit, is an indication that Labor has reverted to the small target strategy adopted in 1998 and 2001. The analysis done for the Committee made it clear that the economic benefits of the Agreement for Australia were trivial. This is on the assumption that there are no effects on the PBS. Since this assumption will almost certainly prove false, it’s reasonable to conclude that the deal was harmful in economic terms.

But this was always a political issue, and Labor has been comprehensively thrashed in political terms. In retrospect, it would have been better to capitulate immediately. Given that this hasn’t been done, it would have been better to withhold support and propose to renegotiate the deal after the US and Australian elections. Labor was under a lot of pressure over Iraq and the FTA, and it would have been hard to hold the line on both issues. But caving in on both, with the reinstatement of Beazley and the acceptance of the FTA is a total disaster.

Moreover, there’s no reason to expect anything better from the (still announced) tax policy, or anything new and significant in terms of health and education expenditure. My guess, FWIW, is that we can look forward to another three years of Howard. Of course, nothing is certain. The government is still unpopular, and could lose. Even if Howard gets back in, the economy could turn sour, and he could get the push from Costello. Finally, I suppose there’s a chance he might retire voluntarily.

Negligible net national saving

John Quiggin4 Comments

Alan Wood of the Oz, an occasional reader of this blog, has a piece in today’s Oz which links neatly to this post which in turn links back to Ross Garnaut in the Oz (thanks to Jack Strocchi for the link).

One striking feature is the statement that ”

total national savings – household, government and corporate – have plugged on at about 19 per cent of GDP

. This is superficially inconsistent with my observation, a while ago that net national savings are close to zero (I guessed 3 or 4 per cent of GDP). As this piece from the ABS shows, the actual rate is about 3 per cent. Wood’s observation presumably refers to gross national saving, which includes depreciation. I haven’t checked it carefully, but the number seems plausible.

It’s true that both gross and net national saving have been stable for the last decade or so, but I can’t say that’s comforting. A long expansion ought, I think, to have produced a recovery in national saving, rather than chronic reliance on overseas borrowing.

While I’m less sanguine than Wood, I agree entirely that

Slamming on the brakes now because of fears about our external debt and deficit would be a silly response, particularly as recent history has shown monetary policy cannot fix a current account deficit problem.

The correct lesson of the debate about the CAD launched by John Pitchford in 1990 was not that “deficits don’t matter”, but that contractionary macro policies are rarely a sensible response.

Monday Message Board

John Quiggin11 Comments

It’s Monday again, and time for the Monday Message Board. Post your comments on any topic (civilised discussion and no coarse language, please). As a discussion-starter, I’d be interested in thoughts on the likelihood a Kerry victory and its implications for Australia.