Month: November 1995

The constitutional time-bomb continues to tick. Section 53 of the Constitution provides: “”The Senate may not amend proposed laws imposing taxation, or proposed laws appropriating revenue or moneys for the ordinary annual services of the Government. . . . Except as provided by this section, the Senate shall have equal power with the House of Representatives.”

The Founding Fathers may have intended that the words “”shall not amend” also meant “”shall not reject”. That interpretation carries some logic. After all, if a law prevents you from damaging something, there is a fair presumption that it also prevents you from destroying it. However, that logic is not accepted as the legal view and it is now accepted that the Constitution does permit the Senate to block the Government’s money supply, starving it of the wherewithal to govern and putting pressure on a head of state … whether President or Governor-General … to intervene.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader11nov”

The ALP’s threat to block Supply in the ACT has been quite wrongly associated with the Federal Coalition’s blocking of Supply 20 years ago that led to the dismissal of the Whitlam Government.

The ACT ALP has been accused of political hypocrisy for on one hand maintaining its rage against the actions of the Coalition and the Governor-General and yet on the week of the 20th anniversary of that event threatening to block Supply itself. It is a misconceived accusation. The events are entirely different. The essential difference is that the ACT has only one House of Parliament, so the ACT ALP’s threat takes on a different character. It is constitutionally quite proper, under present arrangements, for an Opposition in the representative chamber to block any legislation, including a Budget.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader09nov”

The ACT Attorney-General has proposed changes to censorship that are likely to meet the concerns of some people in the ACT about the availability of videos that depict excessive violence in family video stores. He has proposed a new V rating for excessively violent videos that now rate R. The V classification would be available only a stores in the light industrial areas, in the same way that present X-rated videos are restricted.

He has also proposed changes to the present X-rated video be restricted to non-violent erotica, that is, explicit sexual content involving consenting adults. No explicit sexual conduct involving children or depicting non-consenting conduct would be permitted. It would be called an E rating.

Unless he proposes that V videos be sold in separate shops from E videos there is a danger that excessive violence will be equated with non-violent consenting erotica. This would be a mistake.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader06nov”

The ACT Government has embarked upon a bold and risky experiment in schools management. It has put forward proposals to devolve to individual schools far greater power over the running of schools. Done well, the experiment could lead to better education for the same amount of money. Done badly, it could result in waste, inefficiencies and worse education.

The Department of Education has wisely staged its proposals. It is further encouraged by the fact that over the past 20 years, curriculum development has been devolved to schools with great success. However, it is one thing to devolve an inherently educational matter to schools where staff are skilled in education. It is quite another to devolve things like cleaning contracts, building maintenance and school hiring. These require non-education skills. They require a range of management skills which may not be in all schools. That is why they must be introduced slowly.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader04nov”

It is in the nature of the bureaucratic beast to want at least perpetual existence and usually perpetual growth. It is very rare for an organ of government, a business or a social organisation to say, our job is done we are now going out of existence. It is equally rare for such a body to say our job is mostly done, we need fewer people and less money now. That holds whether it is Wool International or ASIO.

What will Wool International do once its sole stated task of selling the stockpile is done? It will find some excuse for staying in existence and growing in size.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader03nov”

Twice in the past week, the Queen has come closer to the people … once unintended and once intended. She went live on Canadian radio after an announcer tricked her into believing he was the Canadian Prime Minister ringing privately. Her human side was on display. Her French was heard to be more than up to scratch, and she was seen to be humanly cautious even insecure rather than imperious when it came to deciding how to act in the face of the Quebec referendum.

On the other ocsasion she showed commendable economy in travelling on a comercial aircraft to New Zealand, rather than on a Royal Air Force or charter aircraft. However, she was whisked through the VIP lounge and took the whole first-class cabin which was shut off from the other classes with a security door.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader02nov”

The margin may not seem much, but in democracies majorities, however narrow, get stamped with legitimacy. In these terms, the vote means that doing nothing might be a legitimate political response to the referendum result in Quebec. But it would not be a legitimate moral response.

It would be better now if both the Quebec provincial Government and the Canadian federal Government acted as if the vote have been half a percent the other way.

On its face, the referendum result shows that a tad under half of Quebec population wants separation and a tad over half do not. The technical majority do not want fundamental change. But underlying the result is an overwhelming expression of dissatisfaction with present constitutional arrangements. Yes; overwhelming. It is overwhelming because any geo-political entity requires not a mere majority but large majority in favour of its political arrangements for stability and to permit a framework of legitimacy within which vigorous, healthy debate can be conducted on a range of important political issues without dangerous divisiveness that can degenerate into violence … something that has happened in Quebec in recent times.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader01nov”

It is as well Bill Hayden has only a few months to go. It is unwise for a viceroy to cross a Prime Minister, as an experience in Ireland between the wars illustrates.

Hayden has questioned the republican model endorsed by Prime Minister Paul Keating. Hayden questioned the wisdom of having the President once elected by a two-thirds majority of Parliament only removable by a two-thirds majority of Parliament.

He thought a President supported by a mere one-third of the Parliament could act in a way detrimental to good Government and the Government could do nothing about it.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_hayden”

The Leader of the British Labour Party, Tony Blair, and the Leader of the Australian conservatives, John Howard, have a few things in common.

Both have spent the past year not so much promoting their own policies for government but distancing themselves from the more extreme policies their respective parties held earlier in Opposition.

Blair has spoken of New Labour for a New Britain, with capital Ns, but he does not really mean anything too radical.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_column28nov”

I was like Mr Bean at the beginning of one of his skits. Everything was going right. I was booked in to the splendid Park Lane Hotel in Piccadilly and had done a bracing walk around the Monopoly board. I smuggly took out my UK-Australian power-plug converter and plugged my computer into the wall.

I then reached for the telephone to unclip the line, and plug it into my modem so I could transmit my rhinestones of wisdom to Australia.

Alas, the line disappeared directly into the phone. And at the wall end was an alien British plug, the like of which I had never seen before. Bean-like, my bottom lipped pouted and my eyes frowned in bemusement.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_column21nov”