20 December 2012

Some modest proposals for ACT Governance [With poll]

| johnboy
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In the budget submissions story PantsMan made some suggestions which struck me as worthy of a wider audience:

PantsMan
2012/12/20 at 10:45 am

Here are some ideas:

    * Sell our public art collection to Macquarie Bank and lease it back for 50 years. (What this would achieve, I don’t know, but it would be the final ridiculous cherry on that public expenditure disaster.)

    * Close the Commerce and Works Directorate. Contract with a big four accounting firm to perform their functions.

    * Close ACT Health (after the Royal Commission) and pay NSW to provide all healthcare in the ACT.

    * Take sports funding out of Andrew Barr’s hands and place it under the control of an expert advisory board.

    * repeal the Human Rights Act, close the Human Right Commission, and refer our powers in this area to the Commonwealth.

    * Repeal the Heritage Act.

    * Split ACTION into two companies, privatise one. Then offer government subsidies on a competitive tendering basis. If ACTION cannot make a profit in five years, close it.

    * Hold a commission of inquiry into what “Transport Officers” do. If they do noting more than talk to their mates-who are actually driving the buses-at the Civic Interchange, sack them.

    * Sell ACTEW. Or at least ban any expenditure by ACTEW sponsorships and corporate hospitality. (I never though about buying water until I saw an ACTEW ad on TV.)

    * Increase land release until housing prices fall 50 per cent. Remove all planing restrictions that prevent high density housing.

    * Close the ACT Public Library system, and give people free bus tickets to the National Library.

    * Close any school that is not 80 per cent full.

    * Enter into a MoU with NSW to have the NSW Auditor-General and the NSW ICAC oversight the ACT.

So what do you think of the PantsMan agenda and would you vote for it?

Would you support the PantsMan agenda?

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How can I get a bus to the national library if ACTION is shut down?

* Hold a commission of inquiry into what “Transport Officers” do. If they do noting more than talk to their mates-who are actually driving the buses-at the Civic Interchange, sack them.

aww, they do a good spot of pointing, too…

Just to debate one of these … “Sell Actew”. Why? Is there any particular evidence that private ownership of natural monopolies (and tap water supply is pretty much as natural a monopoly as you can get) is particularly more efficient and effective? Conceding that Actew is charging above what the cost of water really is (hence why it can afford all the sponsorship and patronage), any private company would presumably charge about the same (if you’ve been able to persuade customers to pay X amount for a particular product, why would you ask them to pay less?), and the excess amount would then be going into private hands rather than into community groups.

I wanted to vote yes for some and no for others. There is some wheat amongst the chaff in the list, but quite a few are too ‘broad brush’ and therefore betray Mr PantsMan’s ignorance.
Totally agree about land release, but not unrestricted high rise (which goes against why people live here).
Libraries and buses are services and are not meant to ‘make a profit’; though there is no doubt that the buses would get more patronage if there were more weekend and weekday ‘burbs services. My experience of private buses (in Syd) is that they are sh!t as they are trying to make a profit in an area that cannot. Privatisation is almost always more expensive in the long run, less cohesive and duplicating (especially when split over several private entities) and more shoddy – not an ideal mix in a tight budget environment.
However, I totally support getting ACTEW to cease all sponsorship – and why do we pay for a ‘CEO’? He should be on a more public service-equivalent salary, not a corporate salary. After all, we part-own it. Besides, what does he actually DO?
Schools – depends what you mean by ‘full’. Schools, like hospitals, are staffed according to the numbers of people (in this case students) accessing it. Last time the ACT Govt was closing schools, it tried to tell Gilmore Pmy they were ‘under capacity and should be closed’ when one demountable that had been used to address significant over capacity was removed. The school was still significantly over the originally intended capacity of the brick and mortar buildings.
Finally, ‘art’ – art has its place but not in the middle of a median strip where it is a distraction and a hazard if accidentally ploughed into. Besides, most recent works are both incredibly expensive and abhorrent to most.

screaming banshee6:53 am 21 Dec 12

Zed?

aussielyn said :

• Directorate DGs will get bonuses when they downsize

Errrr, that’s a good idea!

Will have to tweak the library one, but other than that, a good response to my vision for Canberra.

Closing the libraries is a bridge too far, but notwithstanding that, I agree with enough of what you said to vote for you pantsman

davo101 said :

Hilarious. I’m guessing that PantsMan:

1. Hates public arts.
2. Likes sport.
3. Thinks that outsourcing doesn’t end up just costing more.
4. Doesn’t use buses.
5. Doesn’t like old stuff.
6. Thinks NSW would be stupid enough to take over the running of our hospital system (or if they did trusts that they wont just gouge us stupid).
7. Doesn’t own a house.
8. Doesn’t use the library (or doesn’t understand that the National Library is not a lending library).
9. Has numerous hang ups about a small number of things that really don’t add up to much.

Don’t be put off by the haters pantsman – I loved your work.

By the way Davo, I’m guessing you are a long term Canberra resident and public servant who is quite comfortable with systemic waste of ACT taxpayers money by a town council government masquerading as a state government. I also would be willing to bet my house (if I had one) that you own a house and are quite keen for the government to keep interfering with the market to manipulate prices as high as possible!

Gungahlin Al5:13 pm 20 Dec 12

davo101 said :

Hilarious. I’m guessing that PantsMan:

1. Hates public arts.
2. Likes sport.
3. Thinks that outsourcing doesn’t end up just costing more.
4. Doesn’t use buses.
5. Doesn’t like old stuff.
6. Thinks NSW would be stupid enough to take over the running of our hospital system (or if they did trusts that they wont just gouge us stupid).
7. Doesn’t own a house.
8. Doesn’t use the library (or doesn’t understand that the National Library is not a lending library).
9. Has numerous hang ups about a small number of things that really don’t add up to much.

THIS ^^

I blame the ready availability of illegal drugs

I like all his suggestions, apart from the library one.

trevar said :

What? Planing is restricted? I was planning to do some planing this weekend! How much am I allowed to plane? Is it measured in the amount of timber removed or the number of passes of the plane? Crikey; those damned numpties and their bloody restrictions are just mucking up everything!

Don’t forget the GST. After all you are value adding to your piece of timber. Probably cheaper to get a plane tree and become a primary producer…

NoImRight said :

So NSW Health is the standard that we wish to attain? How are they doing better than us? And what say would we have in it when public perception in NSW is they must be subsidising us?

The idea of releasing land until house prices fall 50% is an economic nonsense.

Most of the other “ideas” seem like personal axes he wants to grind.

I agree. Firstly I don’t think any health system in Australia is significantly better than the ACT system. Also yes the health system is far from perfect, but have you seen what they have elsewhere? Yes it needs improving, but at what cost. Healthcare spending could increase 100% and the system would still have issues and we may only get a 10% improvement.

There are people who own houses and I dare say no home owner wants their property to decrease in value. Just like low interest rates are good for home owners they are bad for investment. HYaving said that look at the last election, Labour/greens went in with a policy to remove stamp duty and increase rates. That nearly cost them the election as Libs jumped all over it. Yet the policy actually would make initial home ownership cheaper. Sure you may pay more over your lifetime in rates, but you do that anyway by taking out loans and credit cards.

Looks like the mad hatters Tea Party is in formulating policy mode with Qld fire-ants in pants.
• All ACT Govt disposal of assets should be contracted out to Cash Converters who can pay commission to privatised ACT Treasury.
• Parking inspectors should be on commission. Turn all major arterial roads into tollways using existing and future camera technology.
• LDA could be run by CBRE
• The Property Council could run ACTPLA.
• Corporatize AFP, the Judicial System & AMC so they run a profit. AMC detainees could be deployed by TAMS.
• Directorate DGs will get bonuses when they downsize
• Investigate possibility of increasing charges on Commonwealth property.
Levy payroll tax on the military.

Bat guano crazy. I suspect it will be quite popular.

johnboy said :

That NSW finds corruption and we do not doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it does.

I understand that, but for example, we don’t have too many farms that you can buy and then resell for a +++ profit when a mining license magically appears!
While any corruption = corruption, there’s simply just not enough $$ here to be on the same scale as in NSW!
I still stand by my point that I wouldn’t be running to NSW under the impression that they will do a better job!

So NSW Health is the standard that we wish to attain? How are they doing better than us? And what say would we have in it when public perception in NSW is they must be subsidising us?

The idea of releasing land until house prices fall 50% is an economic nonsense.

Most of the other “ideas” seem like personal axes he wants to grind.

Hahaha! A couple may be OK, but frankly, anything linking us to NSW re: Health or (anti-)corruption is frightening!

http://www.mailtimes.com.au/story/1186227/emergency-nsw-dominates-list-of-worst-hospitals/?cs=27

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-14/dempster-corruption-allegations-at-the-heart-of-the-alp/4426510
They may be attempting to clean it up now, but could you trust any State with that recent history?

They’d both be a case of out of the frying pan and into the blast furnace!
Vic health would be a better bet though…. 🙂

That NSW finds corruption and we do not doesn’t necessarily mean what you think it does.

What? Planing is restricted? I was planning to do some planing this weekend! How much am I allowed to plane? Is it measured in the amount of timber removed or the number of passes of the plane? Crikey; those damned numpties and their bloody restrictions are just mucking up everything!

davo101 said :

Hilarious. I’m guessing that PantsMan:

1. Hates public arts.
2. Likes sport.
3. Thinks that outsourcing doesn’t end up just costing more.
4. Doesn’t use buses.
5. Doesn’t like old stuff.
6. Thinks NSW would be stupid enough to take over the running of our hospital system (or if they did trusts that they wont just gouge us stupid).
7. Doesn’t own a house.
8. Doesn’t use the library (or doesn’t understand that the National Library is not a lending library).
9. Has numerous hang ups about a small number of things that really don’t add up to much.

seems a fair summation

Hilarious. I’m guessing that PantsMan:

1. Hates public arts.
2. Likes sport.
3. Thinks that outsourcing doesn’t end up just costing more.
4. Doesn’t use buses.
5. Doesn’t like old stuff.
6. Thinks NSW would be stupid enough to take over the running of our hospital system (or if they did trusts that they wont just gouge us stupid).
7. Doesn’t own a house.
8. Doesn’t use the library (or doesn’t understand that the National Library is not a lending library).
9. Has numerous hang ups about a small number of things that really don’t add up to much.

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