Journalism and other writing
The damage done by the secret briefing paper on South Pacific nations and leaders comes not from its content, but from the carelessness that enabled the document to be made public.
Australian officials should make frank assessments about nations with which Australia has dealings, in particular nations which receive large amounts of Australian aid. Continue reading “1997_07_july_leader22jul sth pacific”
We came to the lake like tens of thousands of Canberrans with mixed emotions.
We came for the spectacle, the carnival, the wow-ee of a building collapsing before us. We were in a unit on the 16th floor of Capital Tower.
In our group several had been born at the hospital. We had experienced hope and fear there. We thought about our lives and those of people close to us. Motor-cycle accidents; births; disease and death. We thought about chance.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_hospital”
How many adult Australians depend on welfare as their primary source of income?
I tried this question on a few people this week and got the usually unreliable estimates you get from a straw poll.
Around 10 or 15 per cent was a common answer. Is it as high as 20 per cent, some people ventured?
Continue reading “1997_07_july_welfare”
It’s tax time again.
This year tax time is a bit special. We have a government set on a path of tax reform to simplify the system and make it more efficient. Yet this very day sees the introduction of two new taxes that smack of complexity, inefficiency, avoidability and of being ideologically driven. (The new superannuation and health levies.)
We have a tax commissioner bemoaning how many taxpayers have to go to tax agents while at the same time administering a hugely complex Act through self-assessment with painful consequences if they get it wrong. Small wonder people want help.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_tax fiasco”
David Mortimer was asked last year to do a review of government business programs.
These have been less charitably referred to as industry welfare — that is government help for those who cannot stand on their own two feet.
When Mortimer presented his report this week it generated a fair amount of debate and media sparring about differences between Cabinet members about the issues.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_mortimer on investment”
At first I thought it was a paradox.
Travel in Mexico is either dogged by the manana mentality with endless delay or it is done a break-neck speed risking life and limb.
Travelling north-west from Mexico City to Baja California with my brother I started to make notes for an article about appalling Mexican drivers, rabid with Latin machismo, and how even Canberra drivers were safety-conscious paragons by comparison.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_mexico driving”
Figures issued this week show that Australia’s immigration pattern is changing, but probably still has some way to go before it is best suited to Australian conditions. In the 1996-97 financial year, there were 73,900 migrants, of which 37 per cent were skilled migrants. The previous year, there were 8600 more migrants, at 82,500, only 29 per cent of whom were in the skilled category. These trends are in the right direction.
The Minister for Immigration, Phillip Ruddock, got it right when he said, “”We have achieved the more skilled intake essential to ensuring immigration has a positive impact on the economy, on government finances and on employment. A smaller and more tightly focused migration program is clearly in the national interest. It is critical to restoring community confidence in immigration.”
The latter point is very important. The Hanson fire might have been starved of some of its fuel if immigration had not been so high and so weighted towards family reunion in the Labor years.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_leader31jul immigration”
Democracy in Papua New Guinea is under strain. In a democracy, the military must obey civilian authorities. For the second time in a few months elements of the military have engaged in rebellious activity against civilian authority. The first time was against Prime Minister Sir Julius Chan because of his engagement of mercenaries employed by the company Sandline to help solve the Bougainville crisis. The second time flowed from the first. Elements of the military were concerned that PNG’s new Prime Minister, Bill Skate, might not live up to his previous stand against the Sandline venture. Mr Skate, after all, came to power in a coalition with the architects of the Sandline deal.
Sure, the chief architect, Sir Julius Chan, is gone, none the less anti-Sandline elements in the military were worried that there might be a whitewash of the Sandline affair under some deal Mr Skate entered into to attain power.
For now Mr Skate seems to have bought himself some time by ordering a new inquiry in the Sandline affair and postponing any prosecutions arising out of the first round of military rebelliousness. Of course, Sir Julius should never have engaged the mercenaries in the first place — an act of such dubious constitutionality and legality that it almost justified the first military objection. But the longer-term worry is that rebellious conduct will become habit-forming and Mr Skate will be seen to be at the mercy of the military — an unenviable position for any democratic leader.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_leader30jul png”
The Israeli Government has temporarily put on hold a plan by a private developer to build 70 Jewish homes in Arab East Jerusalem pending an appeal against the go-ahead which had been given by Jerusalem municipal authority. It also agreed to resume talks with the PLO on meeting commitments made under their interim peace deals.
Despite what seems like a concession, the PLO has every reason to treat it as yet another delaying tactic and it has every reason to question how genuine the Netanyahu Government is in coming to a workable peace agreement. The fundamental difficulty is that Mr Netanyahu came to office on a conflicting mandate of on one hand pursuing the peace process begun by the Oslo Agreements of 1991 and on the other hand of increasing Jewish settlements on the West Bank and keeping Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel. The conflict came to a head in March when Mr Netanyahu approved the construction of a new Jewish suburb of with 6500 appartments in east (formerly Arab) Jerusalem.
Since then the Middle East peace process has stopped. Indeed, until yesterday it was for practical purposes dead, though no-one was willing to say so. The PLO praised yesterday’s steps by Israel as steps to restore confidence, but stressed that the sides were far from surmounting the deadlock on proceeding with final peace talks.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_leader30jul middle east”
Carlton star Greg Williams was suspended for nine weeks by the AFL tribunal in the first round of the season. He and Carlton went to the Victorian Supreme Court which granted an injunction and overturned the suspension. The AFL appealed to the Victorian Court of Appeal which reimposed the ban last week — more than half way through the AFL year. The case has cost more than $200,000. And now Carlton and Williams are thinking of a High Court appeal.
The saga has caused many to call for lawyers to get out of sport. That view is understandable one, but unfortunate. It is sad that the costs and delays in the administration of law and justice in Australia cause the very injustices that the legal system is supposed to be remedying.
In a liberal democracy such as Australia where the rule of law is fundamental, the courts do have a general supervisory role in society where people’s rights are affected and that should and must run to things like sporting tribunals, bodies corporate, clubs and so on. Obviously the courts should intervene only in rare cases of manifest injustice and not muddy their hands in the nuances and detail of the rules of the game and tribunal procedure and they should make it clear this is the general position so appeals will generally be pointless.
Continue reading “1997_07_july_leader29jul lawyers and sport”