Month: April 1994

THE ACT Government is seeking views on third-party (personal injury) motor vehicle insurance and has put out a discussion paper.

It says the premium will have to rise by $80 unless something is done.

Of course, the political pressure is to keep the premium low because nearly every voter has to pay it. There is little imperative to keep benefits and damages high because only a few are injured.

The paper says there have been an increase in minor claims (under $25,000) to 75 per cent of claims which take 40 per cent of total payouts.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_column25apr”

STUART Littlemore is right. (Gosh, that hurt.) In last Monday’s Media Watch on ABC TV he said present arrangements for bringing errant journalists to book were defective.

Journalists, including this one, frequently get stuck into the professions for being closed shops, arrogant and unanswerable.

Journalists themselves, however, have to some degree escaped public accountability. There have been five mitigating factors. First, there has been an unenforceable and half-hearted tradition of “”right of reply” through the letters column. Second, there has always been the right to sue for defamation (if you have the patience of Job and the pocket of Kerry Packer). Third, there has been the right to go to the Press Council. Fourth, the journalists’ union runs an ethics committee, which once in a blue moon hears a complaint from the public. Fifth, members of the public can sometimes (at an editor’s whim) get to write articles under their own name.

All of the above, except the complaint to the ethics committee, require lodging a complaint with the media proprietor. This does not make the journalist individually accountable. Nor does it redress the situation where the journalist is under proprietorial pressure (explicit or cultural) to write in a certain way.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_column18apr”

HISTORY has become unfashionable. In universities it has had to compete with sociology and communications for the hearts (and sometimes the minds) of students. Superficially, the information age makes history less important. We have so much information preserved and stored that there is no room for the historian to tell the story.

A example arose last week, however, that shows the “”information-communications” explosion makes history even more important.

The book, “”The Last Shilling. A History of Repatriation in Australia” was launched. Sounds dry, but it is written with verve, sympathy and an eye for human interest. The bit on Agent Orange interested me.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Vietnam veterans were agitating for a better deal and better recognition. They felt that the widespread opposition to the war was resulting in them getting less sympathy than other veterans, and because of the nature of the war (it was not a “”real” one), they were getting less respect than other veterans.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_column11apr”

THE Industry and Trade Practices Commissions have conducted half a dozen major inquiries over the past few years. Nearly all of them have been into the people we love to hate: oil companies, real-estate agents and lawyers for example.

(Journalists, among those Stuart Littlemore and others love to hate, incidentally, have rightly escaped their attention, for we have a fairly open profession. Ring-ins like John Howard and Bill Mandle are permitted.)

The commissions is out to get monopolies. They hate laws which give the professions exclusive practice rights, high entry requirements and expensive in-club practices.

Indeed, it is now at a stage that I cannot see why the commissions should bother with expensive inquiries inthe future. You can be reasonably confident of what their findings will be on any topic well beforehand: repeal all special laws pertaining to that industry or profession, allow others in to do at least some of the work, lower professional entry standards, insist on uniform professional standards across the states, allow practitioners to move between states without hassle and to rely on general trade-practices provisions to ensure competition, truthful advertising and consumer protection.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_column04apr”

The Building Owners and Managers Association condemned the ACT Government yesterday for failing to have a policy on renewal of commercial leases.

BOMA’s ACT president, Tony Hedley, said the automatic-renewal policy of 99-year residential leases was a good one, but there was no policy on what would happen when a commercial lease ran out. This was worrying for owners and financiers.

Financiers did not understand the ACT’s leasehold system very well and it made the ACT less competitive for development over the states.

He told a BOMA lunch that he had invited the Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, to put the Government’s position at the lunch.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_boma”

He ACT Liberals have done Labor a big favour.

They lanced the boil and got rid of one of Labor’s liabilities, or at least a potential liability.

It was ironic that Wayne Berry should have gone down on his administration of the Sport portfolio and not Health where he should have been more vulnerable.

It happened perhaps because all eyes were on health, whereas few had any interest in racing or the TAB. It was true, too, in the media. The electronics had a hard time explaining the background. In print, journalists had a hard time getting features and news editors interested. The major explanatory articles usually went well back.

Within the Government, too, there was little interest in racing and the TAB. Berry was allowed to get on with it. Moreover, his chief minder was away when the faeces hit the mechanical air-conditioner and the Opposition started to stalk him. Basically, he had no-one to rely on to tell him what to do, and he faltered.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_berrycom.doc”

The Federal Highway would gross about $20 million a year, which would just about service the debt on the $220 million to construct it.

The road would never be paid off and there would be no provision for collection costs.

It could only partially fund the road. To fully fund it with a normal private-sector repayment schedule, you might be looking at a toll greater than $10. At that level, market forces start attracting cars down the byways.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_avoid”

POINT TO FORUM PIECE BY ME PLEASE

“”Job for the mates” would cease in the ACT, Independent Michael Moore said yesterday.

Mr Moore was commenting on the Assembly approving in principle his Bill to make all appointments to statutory bodies through an Assembly committee and to be disallowable by the Assembly. At present nearly all appointments to statutory bodies are made by Ministers.

The Bill was opposed by the Labor Party, but agreed to by the Liberals.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_appoint”

The ACT’s new planning appeals body has no power to enforce its decisions.

If they were ignored people would have to go to court to get enforcement.

This was confirmed by the ACT Attorney-General in response to a Kaleen woman who won part of an appeal against her neighbour over an extension that she said invaded her privacy because a balcony overlooked her garden and people could see right into the house.

The woman, Claire Lintern, said the decision had not been complied with. She said yesterday that she is powerless to do anything because the threat of court costs closed that avenue.
Continue reading “1994_04_april_appeal”

Disciplinary procedures in the new ACT Public Service have been codified and streamlined under the Bill to set up a separate ACT Public Service introduced to the Assembly yesterday.

The Bill was introduced despite lack of agreement with the Commonwealth on mobility between the Federal and ACT Public Services.

The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, said negotiations were continuing. Ms Follett said she had agreed with the Prime Minister in 1992 that there would be mobility on merit.

(Mobility on merit means the ACT public servants could apply for Commonwealth jobs as “”insiders” and vice versa. It does not mean they can demand they be found a job at their current level in the other service.)
Continue reading “1994_04_april_actps”