Month: May 1997

Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer wants a capital C conservative to be the next Chief Justice of the High Court. In politics where people are strait-jacketed into political parties it may be possible to categorise people and predict their voting behaviour and opinion on most matters. But the trouble for Mr Fischer is that it certainly does not always work that way with the judiciary.

In 1953, President Dwight Eisenhower wanted a capital C conservative to be Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court. Einsenhower won the presidency after 20 years of Democrat rule and a belief by Republicans that the court had been stacked. Einsenhower’s capital C conservative was Earl Warren, conservative Republican Attorney-General and later Governor of California.

Warren became one of the greatest civil libertarian judges in US history. He damned racial segregation in schools saying “”separate education facilities are inherently unequal”. He damned gerrymanders saying, “”legislators represent people, not acres or trees”. He upheld the right of silence for suspects and witnesses in criminal trials and before congressional committees and had the wisdom to recognise that Senator Eugene McCarthy’s anti-communism inquiry posed a far greater threat to American liberty than the witches it was hunting.
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Yesterday Federal Capital Press, publisher of The Canberra Times, The Chronicle and Valley View, began a new publishing venture _ publication on the Internet at the address www.canberratimes.com. It is a twofold venture. It publishes to the people of Canberra in a form different from the print medium which they have hitherto been used to. At the same time it publishes The Canberra Times, The Chronicle and Valley View nationwide and worldwide.

Not, of course, that New Yorkers or Londoners are waiting breathless for the latest snippets from The Canberra Times, but many Canberrans and other Australians living or travelling overseas will be. And nationally, The Canberra Times publishes many things of national interest which hitherto had been limited in their circulation because of print. Now much of it will be available for small cost.

But it is in Canberra and region that the new form of publication carries most significance. This venture is not just a print version on the Net. It is different in several significant ways. Interactivity is perhaps the most important of them. canberratimes.com provides a vehicle for Canberrans to be more selective; to hit information more accurately and efficiently; to contribute to community debate about major issues in a more instantaneous way and to for them provide information about what they are doing to a wider audience.
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The journalists’ union published a proposed new code of ethics this week. It is longer than the previous one, but is a great improvement on it.

But whatever code the union publishes, it will suffer from the fact that not all journalists are members. This is because the union, the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, has two roles: an industrial one and a professional one. It is in the latter role that it attends to ethics issues. This drawback should be overcome. More of that anon.

The new code has four elements which should get greater public approval and one which retreats from a strong stand in an earlier draft. (The full text of the code was published in The Canberra Times on Wednesday.)
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Representatives of the public should sit on panels to hear ethics complaints against journalists, according to an independent report prepared for the journalists’ union published yesterday.

The Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the union which embraces journalism issued the report which was commissioned in 1993.

The first code was adopted by the union in 1944 and revised in 1984.
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Well the obvious truth has finally come out of a Minister’s mouth.

“”The Medicare levy has really got nothing to do with health. It’s a way of collecting revenue”, Health Minister Michael Wooldridge finally admits.

He is using this as a justification not to apply the revenue raised from the high-income surcharge on Medicare to health, as everyone would expect. Instead it will go to general deficit reduction.
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The passing of the Andrews Bill to overturn the Northern Territory’s euthanasia law brought out most of the worst in elements in Australian politics and only a little of the best.

This is about the conduct of MPs, irrespective of the merits of the case for or against euthanasia (about which too much has been said already).

Most of the worst elements are linked. They start with the refusal of MPs to represent. Virtually every opinion poll on euthanasia has shown between 70 per cent and 80 per cent in favour of euthanasia. Sure, every opinion poll ever conducted is open to attack for loaded questions, sampling size etc etc. But the euthanasia pattern has been too consistent to be credibly attacked.
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The retirement of Sir Daryl Dawson from the High Court gives the Howard Government its first chance to make a High Court appointment.

Some have seen this as a chance for the Government to change the balance of the court and to turn the tide against activism as seen in Mabo, Wik and the freedom of speech cases. Nonsense.

The first Howard Government appointment to the court will make the court slightly more judicially active. How so?
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Present media law is a complicated jungle created by various governments wanting to play favourites but at the same time having to meet the requirements that all are equal before the law.

It is further complicated by constitutional limitations to the Commonwealth’s power, though these limitations have been used as an excuse for inaction against concentration of media ownership. A determined government could quite easily create a constitutionally valid framework of media law that provided the four things that Australians want: high standards; local ownership; diversity of content; competition between a lot of media providers; and clear statements of principle.

When the Constitution was framed, there were no radios or television. But the Commonwealth Parliament can still legislate to control the media because the Constitution gives it power to make laws over “”postal, telegraphic, telephonic, and other like services”; “”foreign corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth”; and trade and commerce with foreign countries.
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You cannot legislate for doing the right thing.

Queensland Premier Rob Borbidge says he has legal advice that if Queensland Senator Mal Colston leaves the Senate (over accusations about travel allowances), he can replace him with an independent, despite the clear and obvious words of the Constitution (as amended in 1977).

Colston was elected under the Labor Party banner. It was stated as much on the ballot paper. He has since become an independent.
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Canberra is to host several Olympic rowing events under an arrangement between the ACT Government and the Sydney Olympics Organising Committee. (?)

Under the arrangement the ACT has to extend the present 1800-metre rowing course in Lake Burley Griffin (between the Governor-General’s residence and Lady Denman Drive) to a full-size 2000-metre course and build two spectator stands.

To accommodate the extra 200 metres, some modification to the lake shoreline will be needed. Several hectares along Yarramundi shoreline will be sliced off and pushed into the lake. (See map.)
Continue reading “1997_05_may_april fool’s”