Ten big ideas governments seem to be ignoring

Only a few world leaders have been in power longer than the state’s Labor government – Robert Mugabe and Muamma Al-Gaddafii among them, quipped Paul Ritchie who spoke at a Kings Cross and Potts Point Business Partnership last week.

Mr Ritchie, Public Affairs Manager for the NSW Business Chamber, was spruiking “Ten Big Ideas to grow NSW” his 5,000-member group wants the government to adopt.

But even as he spoke, a series of major government decisions ran counter to many of the ideas.

Mr Ritchie said business was too often presented negatively, and reporting too-often ignored the fact that business creates the jobs, grow the economy and keeps the taxes rolling in.

“If you transported Sydney into the US, it would be the third largest city there after LA and New York,” he said.

Hence the importance of the first big idea, which is to audit Sydney’s $55 billion  annual expenditure to see where it was delivering value.

“A two per cent increase in productivity would yield an extra $1 billion, which could be used to cut taxes such as stamp duties,” Mr Ritchie said.

Stamp duties contributed to the city’s housing shortage because they discouraged older ‘empty-nesters’ from selling their large family homes and downsizing.

But the Keneally government then announced steep new taxes on real estate purchases over $500,000.

The second big idea is to reduce payroll tax which costs on average $1,800 per employee in NSW compared to $1,200 in Victoria. Tax collection could be made more efficient by collecting through a single agency rather than dealing with both the ATO and the state Revenue Office.

Third, the Business Chamber wants NSW to receive a bigger share of GST revenue.

“NSW sends $15 billion to other states each year, including Queensland” he said.

“Yet Queensland has a higher growth rate, better employment rates and lower taxes – what’s the sense in that?”

Fourth is Federal control of hospitals because ever-increasing health budgets were unsustainable for the states.

Fifth was the creation of a Department of Business Growth because it was easier to grow existing businesses that to attract new players to the state.

Next was the promotion of regional growth, to take some pressure off Sydney. A good example was Southern Cross University in the Lismore region which not only boosted then local economy but provided skilled workers in tourism, averting a skills shortage. The Chamber did not want ongoing handouts for business but did support incentives such as help with relocation costs.

Idea 7 is to establish “Infrastructure NSW” along the lines of the federal “Infrastructure Australia”, as the state’s record had been “not too smart over the last decade.”

As if on cue, the federal budget later in the same week failed to allocate major new funding to NSW, following a pattern driven by the state’s unsatisfactory infrastructure planning.

The next idea is to integrate the state’s 12 transport agencies into one, to properly co-ordinate transport and get the balance right between road and rail.

But rail then suffered a blow as the Senate voted down Greens Leader Bob Brown’s motion advocating a feasibility study into a high-speed passenger rail service linking Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne.

“This is a good idea derailed by sheer ignorance,” Senator Brown said.

“High Speed Rail is established or being built in Japan, China France, Britain, Spain, the USA and Saudi Arabia. It would get passengers from Sydney to Melbourne in
three to four hours.”

Idea 9 was to amalgamate Sydney’s councils, reducing the number from 41 to ten super-councils. Kings Cross Partnership Chair Adrian Bartels suggested such a move should include the devolution of power to community organisations for control over such matters as signage and awnings.

Mr Ritchie advocated the creation of Suburb Managers as a point person for local areas, and a formalised democratic precinct management system to overcome the lack of local focus in a super council.

Amalgamation would enable better quality councillors and staff to rise to the top. Mr Ritchie said that before Christmas he had seen City of Sydney Councillors, who are part-time, presented with a 1,492 page agenda just a few days before the meeting in which they had to vote.

“Councillors are therefore not dealing properly with many issues,” he said.

The final idea was to reform the HSC to provide more options for students who did not intend to enter university.

One big idea conspicuous for its absence was addressing climate change. Didn’t that expose NSW to disadvantage from paying high carbon levies in future if the state continues to depend on fossil fuels for its energy?

“That probably should have been the 11th idea,” said Mr Ritchie, then suggesting that many micro-reforms looked to be the way forward.

You can visit 10bigideas.com.au for more.

by Michael Gormly