Month: March 1994

The major arguments raised against having a Bill of Rights in the Australian Constitution is that it would be handing over a legislative function to the unelected High Court. Unelected judges would be carving out new areas of law that properly belong in the elected legislature, the argument runs.

This is an essentially English view of the world; one in which Parliament is supreme. The American view is to have checks and balances between the three heads of power: the executive, the legislative and the judicial, so that the judges can interpret the limits imposed upon the Congress by the Constitution. And they are wide. They prohibit the Congress from abridging freedoms like speech, religion and assembly. The Australian constitutional lies between the two. Our Constitution provides some limited checks on Parliament’s power. One of them is that Parliament may not take away people’s property without paying just compensation.

This week the High Court brought down four judgments on this very point. They were difficult and complex cases involving many millions of dollars and perhaps the livelihood of many people.
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The departure of the chief executive of ACTION will be a major loss for the ACT. It will be a loss of opportunity. The flatness of his departure is instructive. He said, “There is nothing to say you have to finish the contract.”” And there was no statement from the Government that it would continue the contract. The result is that Mr Wasworth will take up a better offer from Perth.

The general manager of Woden Valley Hospital, Sue Belsham, also resigned last week, adding to the recent resignation of the head of ACT Health, Gillian Biscoe.

All have been circumspect about why they have taken up other offers. They have clouded the reasons with cliches about new challenges, moving on, done all they could do in the ACT etc. None has been willing to tell of real reasons from the heart — they cannot work with this ideologically driven government.

The malaise goes beyond the buses and the health system. ACT Electricity and Water and the TAB have similar difficulties. The heads of those bodies will not admit it publicly, in the best bureaucratic tradition, but they, too, are peeved for the same reason as Wadworth, Belsham and Biscoe. The essential problem is an ideologically driven government will not permit heads of government service providers to do their job.
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An $80,000 apheresis machine used in the treatment of cancer sits idle at Woden Valley Hospital. It cannot be used until another $40,000 liquid-nitrogen freezer machine is bought and more money provided for staff to use both machines. The hospital’s clinical director, Dr John O’Donnell said the hospital had asked for the extra money, but it would not be considered until the next Budget. In the meantime patients have to travel interstate. It is a sorry tale and it fits a pattern of health bungles in the ACT which end with the same bottom line: patients having to go interstate. A dispute with the visiting medical officers which should never have been allowed to boil over; idiotic biases against private clinics; an odd law on abortion; and delays in replacing radiology equipment are other examples with the same bottom line: patients going interstate.

One of the major reasons for the closing of Royal Canberra Hospital was medical inefficiency. The idea was to have one major hospital in Canberra at Woden that could be fully equipped to serve the whole community and beyond into NSW for the whole range of human ailments with perhaps only one or two exceptions at the high cutting edge of medical technology (heart and lung transplants, for example). Canberra has been through the pain of the closure of Royal Canberra and is almost through the inconvenience of the major rebuilding at Woden. It is time to live up to that ideal.

Finance is not an excuse. The Grants Commission has agreed that the ACT should get an equalisation grant because we treat many NSW patients in the ACT. If the ACT cannot provide that top-quality treatment, we do not deserve the payment. Moreover, the latest failure is precisely in the area where people come to Canberra from the surrounding district _ hi-tech treatment requiring costly equipment.
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The legal profession in Australia should travel under a “”standard gauge”, so that a lawyer admitted in one state could practice in the others without further formality, the Law Council of Australia has decided.

Its president John Mansfield, QC, said yesterday that each state and territory professional body would approach their respective Attorneys-General to make the legislative changes necessary.

At present, state and territory law requires separate admission formalities, which can cost thousands of dollars for someone seeking admission in all eight jurisdictions.

The Law Council said, “”All lawyers in the nation should be “Australian’ lawyers rather than lawyers belonging to a particular state of territory and they should see themselves as members of a profession operating in a national legal services market under uniform or harmonious rules.
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A design competition for Canberra’s fifth town, Jerrabomberra, was announced yesterday.

The Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, said the ACT Government and the National Capital Planning Authority would jointly sponsor the project which would bring forward ideas for the new town.

The chief executive of the National Capital Planning Authority, Gary Prattley, said prizes totalling $50,000 would be offered to successful entrants.

“”The competition is investigative in nature and precedes any decision to develop the Jerrabomberra area,” he said.
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The Opposition spokesman on industrial relations, John Howard, said yesterday that he was puzzled and at a complete loss at Opposition Leader John Hewson’s attack on him over immigration.

“”I’m just at a complete loss to understand why the immigration thing should be dragged up in such a gratuitous way,” he said.

He was responding to comments made by Dr Hewson in an interview in The Canberra Times published yesterday.

In the interview, Dr Hewson attacked Mr Howard’s 1988 questioning of the level and mix of immigration; rejected his proposals to tax the family as one unit as “”too late”; and attacked the Howard-supporter-dominated Lyons Forum’s position on the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.
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In 1964 Justice William Brennan of the United States Supreme Court summed up the grievous flaw in the English and Australian laws on the people’s right to free speech.

He said: “”Erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate . . . it must be protected it the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space that they need in order to survive. A rule compelling the critic of official conduct to guarantee the truth of all his factual assertions _ and to do so on pain of libel judgments virtually unlimited in amount _ leads to a comparable self-censorship. . . Under such a rule, would-be critics of official conduct may be deterred from voicing their criticism, even though it is believed to be true, and even though it is in fact rue, because of doubt whether it can be proved or fear of the (legal) expense of having to do so.”

English and Australian libel, of course, has the rule that compels the critic to prove the truth of everything he or she asserts.

Justice Brennan was ruling on the US constitutional provision that guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of the press. There is no such provision (nor such freedom) in Australia.
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Can police move-one powers save the Food and Wine Frolic? In a way, yes. Let me explain.

Since the first Food and Wine Frolic a decade ago the nature of the event has changed. Evolved is not the right word. Evolution is supposed to have brought life on earth from the primordial slime to a higher state of consciousness, whereas the Food and Wine Frolic transmogrified many patrons from a high state of consciousness into unconsciousness and indeed back to wallow in the primordial slime of rubbish and drink leftovers on the lawn. No; a word meaning the opposite of evolution is needed. Revolution? Revolting.

The first few frolics did something for Canberra. They brought the usually retiring dinner-party set out into the open. The quality restaurants joined in. You could sample from the stalls of nearly two dozen restaurants. Wine merchants sold small tastings. Jazz played. It used to be the last weekend of daylight saving and mark the onset of the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
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None of the models in Sirens has acted a significant part in film before. Elle MacPherson acted as herself in a very short part in a Woody Allen film, but for the others it was an acting debut.

Fischer, who acts as Prue in the film, is daughter of Canberra radio journalist Prue Goward. She went into fashion modelling at an early age, winning a covergirl competition with Dolly. By aged 16 she was in New York doing shoots with Bloomingdales, Glamor magazine and Mademoiselle.

In the film she and Sheela (Elle) gang up in the most lascivious way to undermine the stuffy Anglo-centric Estella — with some success.

Director and writer John Duigan said, “”I was first drawn to Kate by her face. She’s got one of those faces that painters love. She reminds be of the most celebrated model used by the pre-Raphaelite painters in England.”
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Employers are worried. Employees are bemused and lawyers are salivating.

On April 1, the Industrial Relations Reform Act will come into force.

The most significant part of the reform are the provisions about unfair dismissal. Unions have welcomed the changes, without understanding that they carry the potential to undermine union power.

The reforms could eliminate some of the worst aspects of the Australian workplace. To explain why, some legal history is necessary.

Late last century Victoria was protectionist and NSW free trade. When they came together at federation with the other colonies, much of the debate about the nature of the new federation was economic.
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