Brown vs Rudd

Last week Gordon Brown marked his first year anniversary as Prime Minister. Over here Kevin Rudd is hot on his heels, coming up to seven months at the helm.

So how do these two stack up? When Gordon got a kicking in May’s local elections he said his premiership would be about a renewed focus on ‘listening and leading’.

What does listening and leading mean in this context? I’d suggest:

• Listen: have an ear for subtle shifts in the public mood, weave together competing viewpoints into your narrative, distinguish the genuine from the loudest


• Lead: set a clear direction, make tough choices, inspire party and public
  

But these aren’t the only character traits required for the job. A few others…

• Learn: okay so being PM is not an apprenticeship, but nonetheless all jobs require learning over time and this one’s no different. So if personality, policy, or presentation isn’t working a good PM has capacity to learn from mistakes, adapt and move on.
  
  
• Likable: it’d be a bad PM that pandered for day-to-day popularity. But being likable can take many forms. At his best Blair was likeable for his charisma; Sarkoszy at the start at the start at least for his boldness; Clinton for his sheer brilliance.
  
  
• Be Lucky: in its purest form luck is obviously not something within a PM’s command. But some people make their own luck. More probably some PMs are such masters of strategy that it looks to all others as though fortune is always on their side.


• Be ready to ‘Let go’: the job is huge, there are a near infinite number of issues to get involved in and multiple tiers of detail. Even workaholics can’t manage it all. It’s key to be know when, where and on what to let go and hand down to others.
  

Listen. I’d score Brown 2/5; Rudd 4/5.

(Brown’s talked a lot about ‘listening’ over the last year – whether to the Cabinet, to the Labour party, to Parliament, to the public. There’s little evidence of this actually happening though. After all when did you last see Gordon in front of a studio audience? Rudd on the other hand has made some real attempts to more systematically listen to the Australian public. For example, there’s been a blitz through a national ‘2020’ policy forum, regular community cabinets across the country and televised PM ‘question time’ formats on TV.)

Lead. Brown 2/5; Rudd 4/5

(Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Brown’s period as PM. So much was expected from him to be the grand strategist and lead Labour into a new phase. There was probably a deal of misattribution of leadership in those early summer months of plague, fire and pestilence. It’s not completely fallen away though; he at least retains command over party and Cabinet. Rudd meanwhile has steered a very straight policy course and held his nerve to date when required e.g. on carbon trading)

Learn. Brown 2/5; Rudd 4/5

(Probably a bit too soon to say on Rudd. Though given he and most of his Cabinet are new to Government one has to be impressed with their capacity to quickly adapt to modern government. There’s little evidence of Brown learn to adapt either package or presentation.)

Likable. Brown: 1/5; Rudd 5/5.

(Many PM’s have vocal groups who intensely dis-like them, and Brown and Rudd are not alone in this. What’s probably unique in Brown is that it’s incredibly hard to find anyone who now actively likes him. At best he seems to manage grudging respect. Rudd meanwhile retains a 48 point lead as preferred PM and is widely liked.)

Lucky. Brown 2/5; Rudd 3/5.

(Both seem to have an uncanny knack of getting messages slightly wrong, timings imperfect. For example Rudd’s unfortunate words on the public service and leak over petrol price policy watching represented some poor judgment but also some unfortunate combination of events and news cycles to take maximum effect.)

Let go. Brown 1/5; Rudd 1/5.

(Together they are probably the most controlling and workaholic politicians in recent history. Rudd is still known as ‘Dr Death’ or the ‘bean counter’ in the Queensland public service for the excessive demands he placed; the ‘Stalinist’ Brown is meanwhile famous for his 4 am starts, hands-on approach and inability to devolve to others.)

Overall scores: Brown 10/30. Rudd 21/30.

Result: Yet another head-to-head victory for the Aussies. Time for unconstitutional take-over?

'Queenslander' buildings

Hiring a car today I headed west to explore some rural areas of Queensland. The roads were dusty and quiet, the radio waves filled with Banjo players extolling the virtues of a God fearing existence.

But I came across a couple of gems. One was an excellent train museum in a industrial town called Ipswich. As many good museums do, it manages to mix its theme with some well researched and presented social history.

The other was some great examples of the 'Queenslander' architectural style. Most of these were built in the mid to late 19th century, with the notable features being the large verandahs, timber builds (often raised on stumps), and plenty of windows and doors to ventilate.

As the photos show they make for really attractive buidings; the 'Architecture of Happiness' guru, Alain de Botton, would be pleased with them I'm sure.

What's in a name?

Something that’s really struck me since arriving in Australia, and which Bill Bryson also notes in his excellent Down Under book, are the small number of incredibly commonplace names.

To make the point, there is, for example, a Macquarie Harbour, Macquarie Island, Macquarie Marsh, Macquarie River, Macquarie Fields, Macquarie Pass, Macquarie Plains, Macquarie Lake, Port Macquarie, Mrs Maquarie’s Chair, Macquarie Point, and a Macquarie town. Not content with this, there’s also a Macquarie bank, a Macquarie University, a national ‘Macquarie’ dictionary, a Macquarie shopping centre, Macquarie Lighthouse, Macquarie Park and Macquarie Hospital, not to mention a main ‘Macquarie’ street running through central Sydney.

There’s then a Darling Harbour, Darling Drive, Darling Island, Darling Point, Darlinghust, Darlington, Darling Downs and Darling Ranges, a slew of Daringtons and a River Darling. Apparently, what isn’t called Darling or Macquarie is often called Hunter or Murray. Awfully confusing.

Making matters worse there are also a lot of places named Sturt or Stuart such as the Sturt and Stuart Highways, both of which leave Adelaide, one of which takes you to Sydney, the other 3,994 kilometers off to Darwin. Clearly would be a tad costly mistake to miss the ‘a’ when you are shooting around the ring road.

So who were these people who so successfully managed to implant their family name all over an entire continent?

Perhaps unsurprisingly it turns out they all had what might be termed a well defined sense of self. Some were more deserving than others to have the legacy.

• Lachan Macquarie was one of the first colonial administrators of Australia (indeed it was he who first used the term ‘Australia’ in official documents) and seems to have had some relatively progressive ideas like re-integrating convicts back into positions in society.
  


• Ralph Darling on the other hand appears to have been guilty of both that common mix of egoism and tyranny, for example insisting prisoners “worked in irons that the example may deter others from the commission of crime” and reportedly many other torturing to death.


• Sturt and Stuart were both Australian explorers of the 19th Century; the former who made the first pioneering explorations inland from Botany Bay, the latter who was the first to traverse the continent from south to north.

Death of the 20th Century model of public service

One of the major issues facing the Queensland Government is recruiting and retaining a highly productive and motivated workforce – a topic featuring prominently in some public service reform work I’m undertaking here. Queensland is by no means alone in this; most governments around the world are dealing with the same challenge. The finger of blame is often pointed at either poor pay and conditions or a supposed loss in the value of public service.

The unfortunate but common reaction is often to focus effort on internal HR policies like graduate programmes, obscure and weakly transparent ‘talent management’ pools, or ill fitting workforce skills measures. An annoying example of the latter can be found in the UK’s ‘Professional Skills for Government’ model which not only delivered an absurd pre-Adam Smith approach to centrally proscribing generalisation but also used this as a deliberate sleight of hand to avoiding more pressing civil service reform issues.

I’m sure some of these HR policies have a role to play. What they miss though is the more fundamental issue that the ‘offer’ of a career in public service is still too rooted in a 20th Century concept of working life. The hallmarks of that are:

• Hierarchy: a long and weary trudge upwards which pays off when you get to the top of tree but requires excessive amounts of deference and subservience on the way up.
  


• Lack of autonomy: a reluctance to grant autonomy or devolve responsibility to more junior staff. Worse still, holding of power on many of the small but significant employment matters like secondment rules by organisational administrators who wield these in an inappropriate and untargeted manner.
  


• Deferred benefits: most obviously in pensions but also in a more hidden way in eligibility for wider-ranging and juicier roles with experience. These might help motivate when people stick in a single career for 30 years or more but have little relevance to employee aspirations today.
  


• Emphasis on stability and security not reward for risk or testing of boundaries: obvious in both public sector reward strategies and the softer culture and work practices.
  


• Presumption that status still holds or matters to people: I think people have developed a much healthier notion of what individuals are about. So even if the status of senior bureaucrats still stands (which I’m sure it probably doesn’t) it probably has a weaker motivating factor for people in attaining it.
  


• An idle assumption that the traditional concept of ‘public value’ holds: I actually think people still care about contributing to betterment of society. But they do so in a much sharper way – where in the past it could manifest in a more abstract way (e.g. like working in back office or support role of a ‘good’ institution) I think now people want a clearer demonstration of how they individually make a difference.
  

Much more recognition should be given to such changes in the underlying motivations, values and aspirations of employees. People want flexibility, control, better rewards for when they get things right, and a clearer sense of how they individually are making a difference. Therefore I’d suggest a more fundamental package of reform should include to:

• Remove restrictions on entry to public service: there’s still too much monopsonistic activity going on under the guise of recruitment and promotion rules, or irrelevant professional groupings. Even when roles are advertised outside they are often obfuscated in style or mode. Let the people who really want to work in the public service do so, and those who don’t move on.
  


• Be more flexible on pay and conditions: moving away from large numbers of rigid grades to looser banding of roles and more flexibility in reward and role.
  


• Abolish the concept of ‘interchange’ (which only serves to reinforce artificial barriers and too often ends up mired in HR bureaucraticese), instead rewarding wider experience where it genuinely adds value and leaving individuals to make their decisions in the light of this.
  


• Develop more fluid organisation models: for example like the ‘Shamrock Organisation’ model promoted by Charles Handy. This gives scope for people to make public service contributions in a way that retains more of the independence and autonomy that matters to them.
  


• Create more direct chains and reporting lines: which gives people scope to see and be involved in more of the strategic and organisational decision making going on and provides a stronger sense of personal impact.
  


• Find clearer ways to demonstrate how people can make a difference whether in ‘front’ or ‘back’ office roles.
  


• Promote the positive in the brand: public service can actually be an incredible rewarding and enjoyable career. You get to work with smart and committed people, have opportunities to make huge differences to people’s lives and, contrary to popular perception, are often reasonably remunerated.

Aussie rules at the Gabba

I went to my first live Australian rules football match last night with the Brisbane Lions taking on the Adelaide Crows. (Well done whichever brave Adelaidean decided to break the mold of naming the team after the usual Bears, Lions, Tigers, Bulls etc and opt instead for the mythological creature of doom).

I’d seen a few matches on television but found it nigh on impossible to understand what on earth is going on. It’s definitely a sport that needs watching live, as it’s actually tactically very interesting. People say it’s a cross between Gaelic football and Rugby league – the main aim kicking the ball between two centre posts for 6 points or just between these and another set of posts for 1 point. You can call mark (i.e. stop the play and have a free kick) it you catch it from a kick, but also pass by hand (but then obviously not call mark). So the main action is in and around the range from the goals where it's reasonably reachable.

But it certainly reminded me of a few other sports too. It’s played on cricket pitch (last night at the Gabba which hosts the cricket tests from October), and has the athleticism and pettiness of football, the length of US sports (it ran for about 3 hours over four quarters), and the scores (and scoring patterns) of basketball.

In the end Brisbane Lions won 83 to 70 after pulling off a remarkable and decisive turnaround in the final quarter. The Gabba itself is also a very impressive stadium (see Panarama shot below).

Worst policy idea ever? (1)

The first contender in what I suspect may become a rather long list of irritatingly stupid and ill-conceived policy ideas is a Treasury initiative called ‘First Home Saver Accounts’. The idea behind it is to enable first time buyers to save a deposit for a home. Government contributes 17% of the first $5,000 saved per year (i.e. up to $850) and provides tax preferential status to the accounts at 15% (as opposed to the up to 45% they might otherwise face).

Individuals can withdraw their account balance tax free to buy or build a first home in which to live. So what on earth could be wrong with helping dispossessed and defenceless first-time buyers in this way? Well …

• A lack of problem definition: at an average age of 34 Australian first-time buyers are not particularly old by international or historical comparisons, especially relative to the long term trends for later entry into working and family life;

• No evidence to justify role for government: a complete lack of argument is provided for why government should subsidise first-time buyers. (I’d be willing, though skeptical, to hear an argument based on life satisfaction or community cohesion but it’s not there);

• It’s completely untargeted: there’ll be huge deadweight losses from people who would have bought properties without the generous government support;

• Likely to be regressive: I suspect it’ll be savvy young professionals who’ll take most advantage of the scheme (and the $5k a year limit) rather than the low paid key workers for whom there may just about be a rationale for government action to help (although even then it would probably represent a second-best approach to policies like having more locally-determined pay rates);

• It ignores the real problem: which is that in one of the world’s most urbanised countries supply constraints relating to housing density and developer-hording are the most significant to overcome (indeed even a first year economics student could identify some rather perverse consequences of ramping up demand without ability of supply to respond);

• Easy to exploit: eligibility is broad and provisions to prevent abuse weak. For example, you only need to be ‘resident’ in the property for six months, and I suspect even within that window it’d be quite easy to get away with renting it on the side;

• Expensive: the direct exchequer cost of the subsidy will be up to $850 per person. Of course there’ll be a further hidden cost associated with the tax revenues forgone from granting the accounts a preferential tax status. And, with no cap on take-up the programme could easily start running into tens or even hundreds of millions dollars;

• It’s just political pandering: offering sweeties to vocal groups at the expense of the rest of us. Which is not merely politics at its lowest common denominator but also nothing short of a signal to more such nonsensical initiatives to come sniffing at the politicians’ trough.

Environmental behaviour change

I found a great and simple example of environmental behaviour change at work in a Queensland programme called 'Target 140', which stems from chronic water shortage issues in northern Australia. On the supply side the problems are threefold. First, there’s generally not enough rain. Second, when it does come it’s highly erratic with often several seasons passing without rain and then it being dumped down in a couple of days. Third, there’s traditionally been little or no coordination between local water agencies to the extent that there’s a critical absence of hard and soft infrastructure to share water supply (which in a tropical and highly localised weather system is absolutely critical).

Finally, on the demand side there have been weak incentives to bear down on consumption with fixed water rates and lack of price variability even when capacity becomes critical. Together these factors resulted in dam water levels in South-East Queensland falling to 5% of capacity by 2006. In comes Target 140, which is run by a new inter-governmental water commission agency. So what makes it successful as a behaviour change campaign? In my view:

• The establishment of a clear target (of getting consumption down to 140 litres of water per person per day) provides focus for individual attainment and catalyses on the human competitive spirit
  
  
• The provision of simple information and guidance about how to make adaptations in daily work and personal routines enables people to switch to new or adaptive forms of behaviour



• Real time data on dam water levels drives both a sense of urgency and communality in driving down consumption



• Rebates for purchasing water-saving devices address inertia in investing in environmental technology that have medium to long term payoffs



• Fines for excess use (with clearly defined levels) codify what the undesired behaviour is and provide an active disincentive against it



• People can trade off following the ‘pro-social’ behaviour (e.g. with household signs identifying you as a user of rainwater capture)
  

Since the Target 140 campaign was established average water consumption has fallen over 40%. Very impressive considering the cost to government was negligible (indeed the cost-benefit ratios must be several thousand times the equivalent for infrastructure investment to achieve the same outcome).

It makes me reflect on my own foray into the behaviour change literature in writing the discussion paper 'Achieving Culture Change: a Policy Framework'. I think one of things I failed to adequately convey is that behaviour change doesn’t necessarily require incredibly sophisticated or involved programmes. Simple measures based around a robust understanding of human motivations work. What it does require though is being politically bold when times demand. Target 140 is a good such example.

Strategy in government

One of the things that seems have recently dawned on the Government is that an ambitious reforming agenda kind of requires a public service that is fit for purpose. Rudd’s recent attack on the public service backfired somewhat, although there’s more considered thought going on about how to beef up the Government’s analytical and strategy capacity. As an example see Rudd’s speech on public services.

So today I gave a talk on what makes for a good strategy function in government, drawing on (in my view) the lessons of the UK’s Strategy Unit. My magically neat recipe of 10 ingredients was:

1. Have a clear commissioning structure: responsive to needs and priorities but also two-way exchange (‘intelligent customers’)


2. Be flexible in recruiting: control of recruitment, flexible on T & Cs, mix of backgrounds, international experience, analytically superb


3. Keep a flat structure with few hierarchical chains, mostly relatively senior roles, commission out work, regularly bring in new staff


4. Manage a mixed portfolio of work and try to balance over time (surges/ troughs)


5. Invest in intellectual capital and have clear knowledge management processes


6. Prioritise quality control (e.g. red-teaming, critical friends, steering groups)


7. Have a consistent and long term approach to stakeholder management


8. Clear about the need to both master the analytical trends but also see the big-picture (i.e. tradeoffs, narrative, framing of choices)


9. Be inclusive and outward-looking to avoid group-think (e.g. think-tanks, academia)


10. Be forward-looking: anticipate the future trends and policy challenges in short/medium/long term (e.g. horizon scanning)
    
    

Against these the Strategy Unit probably got better over the years in relation to its commissioning structures, analytical capacity and knowledge management processes. It probably slipped a bit on actually generating the ideas in the first place, and is arguably, though perhaps necessarily, more introspective and short-term focused than ever.

Overall though I think the UK’s Strategy Unit is still the premier organisation of its type anywhere in the world; if Rudd does want to beef up capacity here he would do no harm drawing heavily on its model.

Australian Politicians (2): Pauline Hanson

While on the theme of former Australian politicians here's another example of the rich and varied tradition of representatives down under, although this time very much not one to be admired. It's an incredibly noxious and annoying character called Pauline Hanson.

She's the former leader of a party called 'One Nation', which as the name implied stood on a rather anti-immigration platform (as well as an anti-free trade and subsidies for farmers ticket). Representing the seat of Oxley in Queensland she quickly earned the amusing nickname of the 'Oxley Moron'. Here's a selection of classic quotes why:

• "I have done my research and challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain 3 and 5% housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals" (hmm Pauline, maybe it isn't only about housing loans?)
• "I believe we are in danger of being swamped by Asians.... I want multiculturalism abolished" (I wonder how one actually goes about abolishing multiculturalism?)
• "Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90% of Australians." (actually you don't speak for 90% of Australians or you'd have been elected rather than the actual result: 4%)
• Finally, and definitely the best quote that sums it up. Interviewer: "Pauline, are you xenophobic?". Pauline: "Please explain?"

Australian Politicians (1): Paul Keating

I've been reading a book called 'The Longest Decade' by a journalist called George Megalogenis. It weaves together the history of two of Australia's recent Prime Ministers, Paul Keating and John Howard and is a great read.

I never knew much about Keating before (he was Labor's last PM before Rudd) but I've discovered he's quite a legend. I'm already a big fan.

Beer o'clock

The sun has gone down and it's now beer o'clock. I've three Australian beers in my fridge to choose from.

First up is XXXX Gold from Queensland. It's actually a lot better than the Fosters or Carling type beers it usually gets lumped together with. It's rather light at 3.5%, but that makes it an ideal thirst quencher at the start of the evening in a hot climate. On the down side though there's little taste to it, and it's a tad too fizzy to drink more than a few of. Overall verdict = 6/10.

Second is Tooheys Draught from New South Wales. It's a fuller strength beer at 4.6% and is lightly hopped with a balanced malt flavour. It's got a really nice fruity and bitter aftertaste and is a great all rounder. Overall verdict = 8/10.

Third is Coopers Original Pale Ale from South Australia. It's certainly a pale ale but has decent strength at 4.5%. It's got a heavy yeast residue so the bottle needs rolling first to get a decent pour. Coopers has an ideal blend of fruit flavour and bitter aftertaste. Overall verdict = 9/10.

On reflection I think I'll go for a Coopers...

The brain game

I’ve been searching – mostly in vain – for some really high quality reporting and analysis since arriving. Most of the TV news is fairly bland and American in its style; there are only a couple of decent newspapers, and hardly any think tanks or research institutes to speak of.

Maybe it’s just that I’m looking in the wrong places. In the UK for example I know I can get a generally robust overview of issues from the BBC, the Economist, or the Times or Guardian. Radio Four and Channel 4 supply decent news coverage, and I can supplement that with more specialist reporting anywhere from the inside pages of the FT to various regular programmes like the Politics Show. Even the think tanks are quite good once you know the particular angle they approach from.

So I decided to test my null hypothesis (that there are relatively fewer such sources in Australia) against the alternative hypothesis (that there are, and that I haven’t found them). The table below gives provides some both direct indicators and indirect proxies to test this theory. (By the way I know these measures are somewhat imperfect, but it’s just a bit of fun).

Judging by the results, the null hypothesis holds. In fact, it’s actually quite stark with the UK ahead on most of these measures vis-à-vis the other countries. Big standouts are the European’s lavish publicly-funded broadcasters, the depth of think tanks in the UK and US, and the Anglo speaking tendency for online blogs and journals. The UK’s strong across the piece, the French surprisingly weak. (A few measures are probably unfair on the French – for example they have a famous aversion to the internet – though if I had to be unfair to anyone, I’m glad it was the French). The clear and overwhelming strength for Australia is the number of blogs at almost 1 in 6 people. Evidently this is where I should go to source some more incisive analysis of what’s going on.

I’m sure there are probably some other indicators I might have missed – any ideas?

State of the Nation

I went along to a rather grandly titled ‘State of the Nation’ conference in Canberra last week (see related blog on Canberra and planning below). A number of Ministers attended and spoke on the Government’s agenda including the Deputy PM, Julia Gillard. The Leader of the Opposition, a certain Dr Brendan Nelson also gave an amusing but rather vacuous after dinner talk.

There were a number of interesting sessions, which I’ll try and capture in due course. But I had a number of general impressions from the event:

• First, the tone of the Labor party is identical to that of governments of progressive persuasion across the world these days. Huge emphasis on human capital, economic participation, mixing investment and reform in public services, and plenty of lip service to sustainable development at home and abroad. In that sense there’s little unique going on here, more just transplanting policies tried overseas to a different context;
  
• Second, a number of policy areas have a much greater national prominence here than in the UK. The obvious one is resources: the Chair of the Australian Electricity Board showed up at one point and was treated like a celebrity. (It felt a bit like I was in a time warp back to the 1970s.) The other one is the prominence of macroeconomics. I guess that follows from the size and scale of the export industry, and perhaps also that it’s a federal issue and the media relatively focus more on federal issues, but definitely a marked difference to the UK.
  
• Third, the Opposition Liberal party seem to be in exactly the same place as were the Tories in the late 1990s. They blame their loss of power on being on the wrong end of the electoral cycle rather than the policies themselves being outdated. So their Leader gave a talk heavy on creating a pro-business climate, yet was completely silent (and implicitly hostile in places) on the environment and social issues even though polling repeatedly shows these are respectively ranked the number one and three issues facing Australia. Like the Tories, I suspect they’ll have to learn the hard way.
  

Queen's birthday

Monday was an Australian public holiday for the Queen’s birthday. Yes, you did read that right: a holiday for the Queen’s birthday… we don’t even get that in the UK. It prompted me to see where Rudd had got to with the Labor party’s previous commitment for a referendum on the constitution. It runs out nowhere much.

I’m sure this is probably the right answer from a practical, if not principled, perspective. Of course it is patently absurd for a modern and monocultural Australia to have a Head of State as the British Monarch even if it’s a de jure rather than de facto role. (Indeed in my opinion goes for the UK too). As one amusing line goes, Australia needs “a resident for President”.

But equally constitutional reform is not something to get into lightly. First, it requires have a clear idea of the alternative division of executive, legislative and judiciary functions. It’s not good enough just to have a referendum on whether you think current arrangements are silly or not. One proposed model is to transfer functions to a President (which I guess would be a relatively low profile role like in Germany), but disputes then arise whether this figure should be elected or appointed. Another is to retain the role of the Governor-General while abolishing the functions of the Queen. A more ambitious model is the US-style Presidential model, although this would have quite drastic implications for Australia’s entire constitutional structure.


So, second, and I think the most telling factor why Republicanism is going nowhere in the short-term is that the process of constitutional reform has huge opportunity costs for a government’s entire policy programme. Is the principle of the matter so important to the Labor Government that they are prepared to allow it to hijack the already ambitious reform agenda? I suspect not. After all it took the America over a decade and some of the best brains in history to get their constitutional framework in place, and arguably they had a much easier starting place. If I’m right, it’ll be knocked quietly into the long grass for at least the first-term. After that, who knows…

Fraser Island

I headed north over the weekend up to Fraser Island, a gigantic sandbar that stretches over seventy miles long. Home to native dingoes, it has World Heritage status and is reachable only by 4WD, and is all round incredible. I’ll let the photos do the talking…

Canberra and the paradox of planning

I made my first trip to Australia’s capital this week. I’d been told on many occasions that Canberra is a bit dull; a description I’ve always thought must be unfair. After all how bad can a nation’s capital really be? It turns out that the description is unfair. Canberra is actually insufferably dull.

The odd thing though is that it’s also quite a pleasant city. It’s got the best museums and galleries in Australia, has plenty of serene public gardens and walkways, and has a great location split either side of the Griffin River and surrounded by lush hills. An archetypal planned city, Canberra was built in the 1910s and 1920s in a spot roughly equidistant between Melbourne and Sydney in an effort to placate the competing power bases.

It’s probably fair to say that most planned towns and cities fail to inspire. It made me wonder though for what type of society do planners actually plan for? My suspicion is that planners probably overly focus on the more private aspects of our wellbeing and happiness, at the expense of more social or community factors. So Canberra residents benefit from having large plots of land with vast bungalows and outside decking, have wide boulevards with limited traffic congestion to get home quickly in the evening, and have quiet parks and gardens to pass their weekends in.

What then are they missing?

• First, the lack of urban density in any part of the city means there are relatively few places for people to naturally interact or come together. So walking at 6 o’clock in the evening only five hundred metres from Capital Hill (or for that matter any other parts of the city centre) you’ll rarely come across a passing pedestrian.


• Second, and perhaps a consequence of the first, is that there are few shared experiences for residents of planned cities. With residents spread so disparately the payoff of public infrastructure – whether public transport, leisure facilities or spaces for community events – is much lower. And hence many of the interactions that define social life are palpably absent.


• Third, there’s no natural centre or gravitational pull. Moving around the city you never get the sense of going from anywhere to anywhere else – instead this empty feeling of just moving about from one anonymous area to another.


• Fourth, and linked to the previous point, there’s no clear sense of where particular functions might agglomerate. Most cities which have evolved rather than having been planned have distinct areas, whether they represent particular types of business, legacies of distinct ethnic groups, or agglomeration of cultural activities like galleries or markets.
  

It all makes for quite an odd experience – it’s an extremely dull, yet perfectly pleasant city. Of course, for people who are intensely private individuals, who want to live a bland and stress free existence, I’m sure planned cities like Canberra are great places to call home. But I’ll not be moving there anytime soon.

Fuel Watch

Compared to Europe, Australia has relatively low taxes on petrol. Hence, prices at the pump are much more responsive to changes in global demand (or for that matter supply). So the last week has been an interesting case in what results when a reactive government meets with vocal concern from a nation of drivers. The result, it turns out, is to ‘price watch’.

Based on the experience of Western Australia, Rudd has decided to nationally rollout out a scheme called Fuel Watch. While not the only international example of such a scheme, its main feature is an obligation placed on fuel retailers to notify their ‘tomorrow prices’ by 2pm each day, which are then posted onto a consumer forum. The idea – conceptually a good one – is that when empowered with information consumers will be more likely to shop around for petrol and put downward pressure on providers.

But of course there are also some problems. First, the whole process of daily posting prices is a fairly bureaucratic affair and it’s unclear what the size of these ‘transaction costs’ might be and the extent to which they offset any gains. Second, the Australian pump market is highly dominated by a small number of major retailers so it’s unlikely marginal changes in consumer power will exert significant pressure on prices. Third, any observed price change is almost certain to be inconsequential relative to the (larger) price effect from the global economy. And fourth, to an outsider at least, it feels like a slightly inappropriate role for government to be mandating retailers to tell them the prices they’ll sell at – how is one supposed to draw the line at what consumer prices the government should or shouldn’t be regulating? (indeed it was announced yesterday that the government will also be ‘watching’ the prices of child care providers following reforms to how they are funded). Surely a rigorous compeition policy apporach is preferable to government market-monitoring?

Anyhow this has kicked off a slightly odd national debate not about the principle so much, but more the econometric evidence of whether it actually works. Unfortunately for the government in turns out not to be so effective. Although pump prices have fallen in Western Australia since the introduction of the scheme in January 2001, this also coincided with the move of a major Australian supermarket retailer, Coles, into the region. It turns out it was this move, rather than the price watch scheme, that explains the majority of the (small) relative fall in prices compared to the rest of the country.

Even more unfortunately for the government, leaked memos suggest their own officials advised them of the neutral, or even negative, effect the scheme would have. Disappointingly, the agency which undertook the econometric research for them has refused to release details of the model they actually used, or indeed even the confidence intervals for the results they produce. The political fallout has been a loss of five percentage points in approval ratings for Rudd. But with two out of three Australian’s still in favour of the Labor leader, I’m sure it’s a position Gordon Brown wouldn’t mind being in now.

Australia vs Iraq

So the game was a close affair in the end, with Australia’s woefully inept defence matched only by Iraq’s lack of attacking prowess. A Harry Kewell goal in the 47 minute proved conclusive though, which means Australia progress to the next round of the world cup qualifying.

Watching any Australian team play is certainly a colourful and enjoyable experience, and there were a hardcore of boisterous Iraqi supporters among the fifty thousand in attendance to make it a good occasion. A couple of other observations. First, the etiquette of watching football seems to vary wherever I’ve caught games overseas – lots of whooping and screaming over here, not to mention random bouts of applause and unsporting cheering for opposition yellow cards. Second, the football itself is played quite differently despite obviously having the same rules and many of the players plying their trade in the UK. Much more about the athleticism than skill or composure, and a real absence of robust challenges.

Finally, I got to hear the Australian national anthem, called ‘Advance Australia Fair’. You can hear that below. Unfortunately I didn’t hear a whisper of Waltzing Matilda…