One of the most striking aspects of the bastardisation of Lieutenant Commander Robyn Fahey is the attempted use of a medical mis-diagnosis to incarcerate her for sanity.
It’s striking not just because the doctor who made the mis-diagnosis is still practicing, not just because it is an extreme and bizarre way to deal with dissent, but because it also played a part in the notorious Voyager disaster.
As Peter Cabban relates in his book Breaking Ranks Duncan Stevenson, Captain of the Voyager threatened to have him committed. Cabban was second-in-command and convinced of the unfitness of the Stevenson to be in-charge. As a result Cabban resigned five weeks before the collision.
Both stories sound unlikely, except that as the ABC showed last night, Fahy’s misdiagnosis was written down and still exists.
Cabban tells his story like this:

It was, but it was an extreme situation. We were going to sea in a typhoon and seven days later in Subic Bay he had found that during the five days he was incarcerated I had conducted punishment parades and signed them and tried to get them out of the ship as evidence that I had command, and he in the meantime had got all the officers to support him except David Martin and was going to have me certified and transported home unconscious in a straight jacket and my mind destroyed by ECT (Electro-Convulsive Therapy).

Corruption has long been a feature of the Australian Navy. It’s a pity that Fahy is distancing herself from the calls of the Opposition for a Royal Commission. To raise the issue as she did last night on the 7.30 Report, and then to step back and take a negotiated settlement, would surely be a pointless conclusion to what to date appears to have been a determined quest to assert not just her own rights, but those of other women who want to be naval officers.

Bill, if belonging to a union is such a good idea why is it that you are only acting on safety problems at the Beaconsfield mine after they’ve proved fatal? Rather than just calling for an inquiry into the mine company’s management of the mine shouldn’t you be having a long hard look at your own operation? Maybe it’s time to allow alternative representatives to unions to handle industrial issues and admit that life’s been so cosy for the union movement for so long that they’ve stopped to offer a valuable service.
But then, if John Howard and Alexander Downer can walk away from the AWB scandal unscathed, why should your situation be any different? It’s not as though it was your job to run the mine, just represent the interests of the workers, and if no-one directly told you that there were any problems, even though plenty of people apparently knew, then it couldn’t be your responsibility in any way…could it?

Tax cuts and spending increases – the Treasurer would seem to have covered it all. That’s certainly the impression from today’s papers, but that’s partly a function of the people who write newspapers – they’re employees, and they’re more likely to be older than average and/or have families. It’s these three groups at whom the budget is targeted.
Being an employer gives me a slightly different perspective and two issues jump out. The first is the tax on fringe benefits which has been lowered from 48.5% to 46.5%. When the top personal rate is now 42% (and according to the Treasurer will only be paid by 2% of tax payers), and companies pay tax at 30%, this is an anomaly.
Fringe Benefits Tax was introduced by Keating to ensure that high earners didn’t salary package and avoid paying their proper rate of tax. This at a time when the top tax rate cut in somewhere around $50,000 p.a. and was paid by a significant proportion of the workforce. These days I suspect FBT is primarily paid on provision of company cars and entertainment, they certainly are in my company. Both of these benefits are frequently paid to workers who earn much less than the $150,001 required to pay the top tax rate these days.
The result of leaving the FBT rate virtually unchanged while other rates have been radically rejigged and lowered is to penalise provision of these benefits through the company, rather than to equalise their treatment with those paid directly through wages. It’s about time that FBT was paid at a rate which reflected the top rate of tax paid by the recipient rather than a top rate of tax that’s paid by no-one.
The second issue is that my savings are tied up in my business, not superannuation. Every dollar that I put into my business comes from dollars that I have paid tax on, and I pay tax on every dollar that comes out, including from investments made with the sale of my business after I retire (in the unlikely event that ever happens). Where is the reward for taking the risks that I do when those who contribute to super do so out of before tax income, receive tax advantages on the income their super fund receives, and now take their money out the other end without paying tax on it?
For a government that claims to be in favour of sturdy self-reliance it seems that many of their policies are designed to encourage a grey urban conformity.