Month: September 1993

A car accident in the Northern Territory. One driver is from Victoria and is badly injured.

Northern Territory limits actions for damages for pain and suffering and loss of potential income are limited. In Victoria, on the other hand, these things are allowed.

Very artfully, the lawyer sues in Victoria. Question: which law should apply? _ Victoria’s or the Northern Territory’s. Answer _ the Northern Territory’s, according to the High Court. Why is that so? Well, we sort of know, but we are not exactly sure. Some of the judges say it is because the common law provides that the law of the place of the wrong is applied. Other judges said it was because the Constitution provides that each state must give full faith a credit to other states’ law, the Northern Territory being treated as a state for this purpose.

The upshot is that the Victorian court has to apply Northern Territory law.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_column27a”

If the ACT had any steel, it would join the rust-belt states fairly quickly.

As it is most of its economy is based on sheltering and feeding federal public servants, so its public finances are not like that.

None the less, yesterday’s Budget took those finances from excellent to merely good. And the projection, without policy changes, is for them to head to the debt trap.

After making much of the harsh circumstances imposed by the Federal Government, Rosemary Follett ignored them. The $78 million cut by the Commonwealth is met by Ms Follett dipping into reserves and borrowing to meet a deficit of $77 million.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_comment”

The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, attacked yesterday an article in The Canberra Times’s suggesting that $60 million could be cut from the Budget without hurting.

She invited the journalists who wrote it, Jack Waterford and Ian Davis, “”if they had the guts to accept”, to do a guided tour of her department so she could show them that there were no functions and special units that were duplicated or produced little in the way of visible results.

She pointed to the tourism unit which had produced higher visitor numbers and greater income for the ACT. She said the Occupational Health and Safety Unit provided a vital function.

Every effort would be made to give a safe workplace to people in the Territory, she said provoking an Opposition interjection: “”You can’t provide a workplace at all . . . ”.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_ctcrit”

ACT teachers are paid more and have fewer teaching hours than nearly all other states, according to the Auditor-General.

In a report tabled in the Legislative Assembly yesterday the Auditor found also that non-teaching school staff had salaries 15.8 per cent above the Australian average and teacher-student ratios were on the Australian average but below what one would expect in a highly urbanised, consolidated system like the ACT.

Total costs per student exceeded the Australian average by 7.1 per cent.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_educ17”

Newspaper journalists, especially those who do the Letters pages, can tell a letter-writing campaign fairly quickly.

The difference between the spontaneously spurred and vicariously stirred becomes apparent in what is written and how it is written.

If committees of the ACT Legislative Assembly develop a similar nose, the euthanasia committee should cast 88 of its 130 submissions into the rubbish bin.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_euth13”

Botched suicides and assisted suicides are relatively frequent among HIV-AIDS suffers, according to a submission to the ACT Legislative Assembly euthanasia inquiry.

The submission by the AIDS Action Council was one of 130 made public by the select committee on euthanasia yesterday.

The council said, “”In many of these cases the botched attempt has reduced the quality of life abysmally but the options for suicide have also become more limited.”

In some cases HIV-AIDS sufferers had not informed, or felt they could not inform, others of their suicide attempt, so that those finding them have called ambulances when they are unconscious.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_euthan”

The concentration of lead in Canberra’s air is well below the maximum permitted for good health, according to figures issued yesterday.

The National Health and Medical Research Council recommends a maximum lead level over three months’ average of 1.5 micrograms per cubic metre (1.5 units).

Readings taken in the past year at five Canberra sites show Woden to have the worst maximum three month average at 0.97 units. Kambah had 0.80; Belconnen 0.71; Civic 0.56 and Gowrie 0.36.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_foidom”

Three-storey blocks of units are coming to existing residential areas in inner Canberra.

The ACT Planning Authority has issued guidelines for blocks of three-storey units that will be permitted in North Canberra after the gazettal of the Territory Plan next month.

It is not widely known that the plan will permit three-storey residential development in wide areas of Braddon, Dickson, Lyneham, O’Connor and Turner. About 1000 households are affected. Many will face the choice of selling their homes or living next to units instead of in their present single-residence environment.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_fronter”

The ACT Government and Opposition differed yesterday over the details of the ACT’s new electoral system.

However, they appear to agree on the general principles of turning the 1992 referendum result into law.

The Opposition spokesperson on electoral matters, Gary Humphries, issued yesterday the results of a working party into the electoral system.

It recommended no party boxes above the line. The system should be about voters, not party machines, deciding, it said. There should be no how-to-vote cards at polling booths.

The 1992 referendum approved 65-35 the Hare-Clark with Robson rotation electoral system. The three electorates for that have been drawn up, two with five members and one with seven members, but legislation for voting has not been passed.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_hare”

The hospice on Acton Peninsula has been blocked for now by the National Capital Planning Authority.

The NCPA announced yesterday that it would not grant works approval for the construction for the ACT Government’s proposed hospice. It said it would review the position after “”the completion of planning studies and public consultation processes that are currently in process”.

A spokesman for the ACT Government said it was notified by fax at 6pm last night. No minister was available for comment.

The acting chief executive of the NCPA, Gary Prattley, said “”The ACT Public Works submitted an application for works approval on September 15. The authority made its decision at its meeting today.”

The decision had been “”particularly difficult” for the authority.

“”The national capital belongs to all Australians and it is our responsibility to ensure that Canberra is planned and developed in accordance with its national significance,” Mr Prattley said.

Under national planning law, Acton Peninsula is national land and the NCPA has to approve all building on it.

Mr Prattley said the peninsula was a key part of the central national area. Seven studies were under way which would affect the site and it would be better to await their completion before giving works approval. To give approval now would be irresponsible.

The exploration of a single use for the peninsula showed that “”the location of the proposed hospice could severely prejudice the future development of the peninsula”.

Design work had identified difficulties with the present site and the interest and debate in the community since the allocation of the site had been overwhelming.

The Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, said the decision was good news.

“”Logic has ultimately prevailed,” she said.

She called on the Minister for health, Wayne Berry, to abandon the Acton site now and get started on a hospice at Calvary Hospital. It could be up and running more quickly and cheaply than waiting for existing processes to be completed after which there was still no guarantee of NCPA approval.

Abandoning Acton now would be better for those who needed a hospice. There was a need for a hospice as soon as possible.

Mr Prattley said, “”We have to try to balance the need to respond to the community’s wishes against the need to avoid obstructing the ACT Government’s programs.”

The hospice has been a matter of contention for some time. After the Alliance Government moved to close Royal Canberra Hospital, ACT Labor opposed the move, promising to reverse it if possible. When it became irreversible it promised to put health facilities of some kind on the site.

The Liberal Party opposed the hospice on the site, saying it would be cheaper and better for patients at a site near an existing hospital. Medical opinion has divided. Some have said that a hospice should be close to a hospital so that patients had easier access to other treatment and for staff efficiencies and shared medical facilities like pharmaceuticals. Others have said that dying patients require an environment away from busy hospitals.