Month: August 1994

The farmer was sick of people knocking off his petrol. The petrol was in a tank on his land. He had tried expensive locks and elaborate wiring to no avail. He asked the police for help. They said they needed some better identification of the thief or his car. In frustration, the farmer, George Shaw, decided to stake out the petrol tank, armed with a .22 rifle and a shotgun.

On the night of December 10, a man named Cox in a stolen car entered the farm, turned off this headlights and went for the petrol. Cox had his 16-year-old girlfriend with him. She had no idea the car was stolen or that Cox was on the farm to steal petrol.q/l

They got to the tank and got out of the car.

The farmer shot at the car. The girl hid behind the front seat. Cox tried to escape. The farmer shot at the car, first with the rifle, then the shotgun. He blew out a window, but Cox escaped.
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When you have high-density populations you have to have elaborate social systems to stop people behaving in anti-social ways.

When I was there several years ago we came across a dozen or more people building a house. The whole business of constructing dwellings is a very social event. Everyone is involved in the allocation of land, the size of the dwelling and in the construction itself.

I was reminded of this the other day by the outrage caused in the outer Canberra suburb of Banks. It was caused by the combination of increasing population density and no community involvement in the construction of dwellings.
Continue reading “1994_08_august_column09aug”

The retirement incomes of many Australians depended on efficient cities, the president of the Building Owners and Managers Association, Brian Pollock, told a conference a Parliament House yesterday.

He said many large institutions invested in non-residential property _ about $30 billion held on behalf of seven million Australians.

It was important that control systems were streamlined and looked at the long-term.

The warring tribes in the city-planning debate must be replaced by co-operation, he said.
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In the week that Kate Carnell introduced her Community Referendum Bill, those in favour of citizens’ initiated referendums must be indebted to National Party Leader Tim Fischer. Fischer is opposed to CIR, but in arguing against it he exposed some sound reasons why it would be good for Australia.

In classic John Cleese style he mentioned the war. Fischer, a Vietnam Vet, said that if Australia had had citizens’ initiated referendums at the time of Vietnam, who knows what might have happened? Precisely. There probably would have been a citizens’ initiated referendum in about 1970 to extricate Australia from that folly.

Fischer argued that government was done better by representatives alone. The people elected them as a package for three years, and they got on with the job.
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The software writers are learning slowly. It is not what a program does that matters, but how easily it does it. Microsoft is putting together Windows 4. It main concentration is not on what it does, but how easily it does it.

Microsoft has produced what is called its first beta version and the computing press were given a peep in Sydney last week.

The program may not be called Windows 4. In the development stage it is being called Chicago internally, but it is difficult to see Microsoft abandoning the “”Windows” trademark altogether. Too many people see Windows is a computer program not flat glass in a frame. If the program does not run on Windows, they say, forget it.
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The 1993-94 ACT Budget had come in $37 million under estimate, the Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, said yesterday.

Expenditure was $50 million below estimate and revenue was down $13 million because of lower Commonwealth payments.

The Consolidated Fund deficit was $40 compared to the Budget estimate of $77 million.

Ms Follett said planning delays in the capital works such as the Magistrates Court had contributed to the result.
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The Encyclopedia Britannica has been quietly going on CD-ROM. At the weekend the Royal Blind Society was lent a copy to use with its software that converts text into sound.

Mark I is expected to be available in October with an official announcement on the launch date next month. It will be text-only. There has been some copyright difficulties with the pictures which is being overcome for Mark II.

Apparently it is to have some sophisticated query software which does not need complicated Boolean operators but will accept dumb questions like “”Do fish hibernate?” Presumably you can do standard word searches as well. The Windows-based software will remember searches and will allow cut and paste into other applications.

The single CD will contain the 41 million words in the Britannica.

Apparently the cost will be about the same as the books, but searching for information will be easier and more thorough.

For example, searching for “”Beethoven” would reveal the Beethoven entry, plus the fact that the word “”Beethoven” appears three times in the entry under “”Symphony”, twice under “”concerto” and so on.
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Wayne Berry’s action in proposing a Private Members’ Bill on abortion is another in a line of Bills in the ACT taking up issues that politicians elsewhere fear to tread. Euthanasia; addictive drugs; smoking in public places, citizens’ initiated referendums, fluoride are other examples.

It makes for an interesting polity.

Often these laws are short and drafted in fairly plain language.

Berry’s law is the shortest and plainest of those mentioned. It has only two operative clauses. One repeals three sections of the Crimes Act on abortion and one repeals all common-law offences on abortion.

In a legal sense it is abortion on demand. In a practical sense, however, you cannot get a hip replacement or a dozen other medical procedures on demand in the ACT. You still need a doctor willing to do it and a medical facility to do it in.
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All statute and common-law criminal offences relating to abortion will be abolished in the ACT under Wayne Berry’s private members’ Bill, a draft of which was made public yesterday.

The Bill has just two operative clauses. The first repeals those sections of the Crimes Act which make it an offence punishable by 10 years’ jail for a woman to procure an abortion; for a doctor to perform one; or for anyone to provide drugs with the intent of causing an abortion.

The second repeals all common-law crimes related to abortion.

M Berry, a Labor MLA, said: “”It would be just up to a woman and her doctor.”
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The following is a chronology of the Vitab affair:

1964: ACTTAB set up as a separate entity to take off-course bets on horse races. It runs a totalisator scheme: bets on a race are totalled and dividends calculated so 85 per cent of takings are returned as winnings. The remaining 15 per cent to go to administration, government and the racing industry.

July 2, 1985: Northern Territory TAB starts. ACTTAB runs computer services and pooling operations, collecting 0.5 per cent of turnover.
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