EDITORIAL : THE AUSTRALIAN, AUSTRALIA

In praise of Media Watch

WE were encouraged on Monday night to see Media Watch tackle a burning media issue, the decline of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, by quoting from last Thursday's editorial in The Australian.

Unaccustomed as we are to compliments from Jonathan Holmes, we saw his endorsement of our coverage of the climate change debate as a welcome sign that good, unbiased journalism is still appreciated by someone at the ABC.

Readers of these editorials will not need to be reminded that we have argued for a market-based price on carbon for many years. But, as Holmes correctly pointed out, that might not be immediately obvious to those who only read our news and commentary pages.

That is how it should be. To allow our editorial stance to infect news coverage would be to cross the line from journalism to advocacy.

It would lead us along the path to irrelevancy that the editors of Fairfax's principal newspapers have already taken and it would insult the intelligence of readers who expect facts to be free of prejudice and editorials to be clearly marked.

Keep up the good work Jonathan. You have highlighted and endorsed our commitment to separating editorials from news. For once, we think you're on to something.

Global hunger strategies provide food for thought

FOOD security is a global issue replete with challenges and opportunities for Australia.

As a food exporter with an innovative agricultural history and a strong commitment to free trade, our nation needs to be at the forefront of international negotiations. So it is disappointing that when the G20 agriculture ministers meet in Paris to discuss food security this week, we will be represented by Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture Mike Kelly rather than our agriculture or trade ministers. At least Mr Kelly will have his chance to shine if he draws the focus to the free trade agenda, highlighting how the distortions of European and US farm subsidies can only damage long-term agricultural productivity.

Escalating food prices have been one of the factors in the mix of grievances triggering popular revolts this year in places such as Egypt and Tunisia, dramatically highlighting the volatility of food politics. The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates the number of undernourished people in the world at 925 million and this astonishingly high number fluctuates depending on economic conditions and weather patterns.

While we all recognise the importance of this challenge, it is true that doom and gloom too often dominate attitudes to food security. When the Club of Rome first drew international attention to these issues in the late 1960s, it triggered a decade of pessimism, where we were constantly told the world would run short of food and resources. Yet global population has continued to grow, hundreds of millions have been lifted out of poverty and we have been able to produce sufficient food and energy. Most often the reason people go hungry is not because we can't grow enough food but because of bad governance, inadequate agricultural practices, poor distribution chains and restrictive trade -- all areas where Australia works for reform.

By exporting more than half of our agricultural produce, we are certainly a food bowl for the world. We stand to do a power of good for ourselves and the rest of the world by exporting more of our commercial agricultural knowhow, and also by sharing our expertise on agricultural production and good governance through our generous overseas aid program.

At the same time, the growing middle classes in China and India present golden export opportunities because our meats and other premium foods are so highly prized they are sometimes valued more as status symbols than as sustenance. As world population heads towards nine billion by 2050, some estimates suggest food production will need to double. That is one of the reasons foreigners are investing in our agricultural holdings, which is creating some understandable local anxieties. Governments must find a way to alleviate these concerns and co-ordinate this investment without diverting from our generally open attitude to foreign capital. We must also be realistic about advances such as genetic modification and encourage homegrown investment in technologically advanced food production. Above all, Australia must continue its robust diplomacy on free trade so that efficient producers such as our own are able to compete fairly.

A hungry world can ill-afford to subsidise inefficient crops or unnecessary biofuel projects.

Belated win for common sense

AFTER 16 months, three rounds of arbitration and a hefty outlay of public and retail industry money, Fair Work Australia has at last woken up to what enterprising teenagers have known all along.

That is, working for a couple of hours after school is a positive, not latter-day Dickensian exploitation, and the details can be left to students and their employers to work out.

Monday's ruling by tribunal vice-president Graeme Watson that full-time students can be employed after school for as little as 90 minutes, rather than the three-hour minimum imposed in response to Labor's so-called Fair Work Act, is strongly welcomed. In the current, tough retail environment the change will help shopkeepers hire young workers when they are most needed to respond to customer demand. For tens of thousands of students, the decision will restore the opportunity to earn useful pocket money and gain valuable experience in time management, reliability and customer service.

Under the conditions set out by the tribunal, the 90-minute engagement rule will apply only if the employee is a full-time student, if the hours worked are between 3pm and 6.30pm on school days, if the employee or their parent agrees and if employment for a longer period is impossible because of the employer's requirements or the unavailability of the student. In a nutshell, such conditions reflect the mutual agreements that flourish under systems which allow employers and staff to negotiate.

The decision highlights how and why more flexible workplace systems promote greater productivity than centralised, cast-iron awards. As a follow-up to the ruling, employers should feel encouraged to push for such arrangements to be extended to adult staff, especially in retailing and hospitality, where weekend and evening work is vital to cater to customers beyond the narrow band of 9am to 5pm. Submissions by some of Australia's largest employers to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into the retail industry show that stiff penalty rates are making it uneconomic for some traders to open in the evenings, Sundays and on public holidays. The quadruple negative effect is that productivity declines, traders make less money, customers are inconvenienced and casual staff, who were supposed to be better off under Labor, miss out on shifts.

Trade union membership has continued to decline under the Rudd and Gillard governments, falling by 47,300 from August 2009 to just 18 per cent of workers in August 2010 and 14 per cent in the private sector. Such a trend suggests that most workers would be comfortable with the chance to negotiate directly with their employers. They do not appear to be in any hurry to protect themselves from exploitation through collective union bargaining under the archaic IR system created by Julia Gillard as an over-reaction to the Howard government's Work Choices.

The Prime Minister's claim that she does not encounter many businesspeople raising the Fair Work system as a frontline issue has been debunked by business leaders. After clearing the way for students to come to mutually convenient arrangements with employers, the Fair Work Australia tribunal should extend the same privilege to adults to determine for themselves what working hours, pay and conditions are acceptable. Workers, businesses and the national economy would be the winners.