By Chris Spindler SYDNEY — The Carr Labor government's first seven months in NSW have been marked by broken promises, funding cuts to social services and a clear policy bias towards big business, all setting the tone for its first budget, on October 10. Before the March election, Labor promised a better health system, cheaper travel, a stronger welfare system and many more teachers. But soon after the elections it became clear that the Carr government was heading in a different direction. The most flagrant broken promise was the refusal to lift the tolls on the M4 and M5 motorways. This has saved the government at least $80 million but has contributed to a drastic fall in Carr's popularity; for the first time since its election, polls show the Labor Party would lose if a new election were held. During the campaign, Carr promised to resign if he didn't halve hospital waiting lists within 12 months. After seven months, it is clear that waiting lists will not be reduced because of hospital budget cuts. St Vincent's Hospital is closing 18 outpatient clinics and sacking 300 staff. This includes a dermatology clinic which will stay operational only if doctors work for free! It also includes a dialysis unit which will be replaced by privatised services run from a campus clinic. The Sydney Central Area Health Service has had a 2.3% cut in its budget. This will increase its waiting list from 1350 to 2000. A recent Auditor General's report claimed that there is the equivalent of 140 schools of surplus classroom space in the state education system, indicating that education funding may soon be cut. Carr is also planning:
- A 5% increase in train fares, with more to come.
- Cuts to insurance pay-outs to those injured in car accidents. In a gift to insurance companies, two-thirds of present recipients would be ineligible to claim for pain and suffering, and payments to the other third would be greatly reduced.
- A 15% increase in water costs to farmers.
- The slashing of transport cards to some 100,000 school children.
- The free gift of 25 hectares of prime showground land to Rupert Murdoch for a games and entertainment complex.
- The shelving of a planned expansion of the Parramatta-Epping, Epping-Chatswood and Kingsford Smith-Badgerys Creek railway links.
- The privatisation of road maintenance work on Sydney's north shore. The state will pay Transfield, a private company, $153 million over 10 years to do the job.
- A payroll tax cut from 7% to 5% (the Queensland rate).
Copying Kennett
One of Carr's first acts as premier was to snatch back senior bureaucrat Ken Baxter from Victoria. Baxter, a pro-business reformer, headed former premier Nick Greiner's Office of Public Management before moving to head Kennett's Department of the Premier in 1992. In Victoria, Baxter presided over massive cuts to services, more than 200 school closures and extensive privatisation and contracting out. He slashed more than 40,000 public sector jobs and introduced individual contracts. Baxter is now the head of the NSW Premier's Department. While Carr has condemned "reckless privatisation" in other states, he has warned that the NSW public sector is not "immune from reform". He says that the only way to avoid privatisation is by improving productivity to the point where NSW departments are out-competing other states. The only government departments that seem secure from privatisation are those that are unprofitable, because capitalists won't want to buy them. The first step toward privatisation was taken in April with the appointment of Baxter and Fred Hilmer to head Pacific Power, the state's electricity supplier. Hilmer is the architect of the federal government's blueprint for opening public utilities to competition. Hilmer's brief for Pacific Power was to make it more competitive than other states' electricity utilities before electricity supply goes on a common grid with Victoria and South Australia next year, and Queensland in 1999. Hilmer intends to split Pacific Power into three companies vying for electricity supply rights across the state.
Unions quiet
NSW Labour Council chief Peter Sams made it clear that the election of the Carr government was his number one priority, and the unions donated a record $2 million to the ALP's campaign. In return, the unions wanted an overhaul of the industrial relations laws, including the re-establishment of the award system as a base in enterprise bargains and preferences for union members in employment in some sectors. But at the heart of Carr's new industrial relations policy is a more aggressive and pro-active Industrial Relations Commission with the power to enter into industries and initiate "workplace reforms". It will police workplace agreements and identify industries where productivity needs to be increased. Yearly reviews in workplaces will eliminate "rigidities and archaic" work practices, and the Labor government can intervene to quash wage deals that are deemed not in the "public interest". These provisions are similar to federal industrial relations laws except that Carr does not intend to introduce unfair dismissal laws, which he considers "a handbrake on employment growth". The head of the NSW Chamber of Manufactures has praised Carr's industrial relations policy as "pragmatic and workable". There is no indication that the unions are organising an active campaign for the maintenance of public services, public sector jobs or over-award payments and conditions. The Labour Council has supported the corporatisation of government services. The ALP left faction promised a "massive barney" at the September 29-October 1 NSW ALP conference over the Pacific Power break-up, the privatisation of road maintenance and the refusal to lift tolls. But while delegates from the ALP left "booed, heckled and stamped their feet" as the dominant right-wing faction pushed through its motions, they didn't launch any campaigns, actions or demonstrations. While the union leaders and ALP left are following Carr lead, the public mood is not so government-friendly. Ugly revelations at hearings of the royal commission into police corruption are feeding a justified public cynicism about the police, and there is continued anger at the failure to deal with the aircraft noise in inner Sydney suburbs. The Carr government is also nervous about reviving public debate over woodchipping. It is claiming as "protected areas" already logged forests and areas that are not forests. It has also breached the federal government's 15% minimum for native forests to be saved in northern NSW, reserving only 12.4%.