Month: December 1997

This week saw another example of developer-driven planning. NDH Management has put forward a $100 million plan for the area called the Rocks, the series of ramshackle huts on the corner of Barry Drive and Marcus Clarke Street, between the city and the ANU. The Chief Minister, Kate Carnell, gave assurances there would be much consultation before the next step, but seemed to imply that NDH would be the developer. This is not the way to go about the development of the city.

It is true that the area desperately needs attention, and the sort of developments envisaged by NDH would be appropriate for the site. However, there is nothing so unique or brilliant about the NDH proposal that it could claim some sort of intellectual property over the idea.

The Government should have done it differently. It should have seen the need to develop the site and then called for general expressions of interest. Then the development should have gone to open, competitive tender or auction, or a series of tenders. Competition and level playing fields are much maligned by people who oppose the extremes of economic rationalism, but they are the most appropriate and efficient way of dealing with public assets like land and development rights.

The rest of the business community in Canberra should be rightly peeved at the Government’s most-favoured-developer approach. This is not an isolated incident. The same approach was taken with the Hardy’s vineyard proposal at the racecourse and the Shaw proposal for the Bunda Street carpark.
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The Legislative Assembly’s planning and environment committee has sent the government back to the drawing board with its proposals over higher density development along Northbourne Avenue.

The Government wants to have higher densities and more redevelopment closer to the city and less redevelopment further from the city. The Liberal member of the committee, Louise Littlewood, dissented from the committee’s view. She said it was appropriate to have more high density close to the city where employment opportunities were greater.

The chair of the committee, Independent MLA Michael Moore, said a balance of densities was preferable to give residents greater choice and to minimise social problems.
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Neither but Kate Carnell nor Ros Kelly would like the comparison, but they have something in common.

Kelly, a minister in the Hawke and Keating Governments, was also the Member for Canberra which then took in Tuggeranong, Woden and most of South Canberra. She did not like the National Capital Planning Authority, and neither does Kate Carnell.

The reason is that the meddlesome federal planning body got in the way. They have seen its red tape, unnecessary idealism and duplication as preventing grand schemes or quick-fix announcements that would endear them to their publics and give favours to supporters: developers, unions, sporting bodies and the like.
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A double dissolution on Wik and race would have one small element of honesty about it.

All previous double dissolutions have been created by the blockage of Bills that played virtually no part in the subsequent election campaign. Rather they were all excuses to have an early election to gain some short-term political advantage for the prime minister of the day.

With the polls the way they are, there is little short-term joy for the Prime Minister. No; it seems he wants to get his Native (disen)Title Act through and will run to a double dissolution and joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament if the Senate knocks the Bill back after the election (presuming Howard wins it).
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Now the convention election is over, the big question remains: how are we to select this president?

The outcome of the election leaves this question wide open. Most eyes have slotted winning candidates as either republican or monarchist. But in fact there are now really three camps in the convention.

The republican vote was divided between the Australian Republican Movement and other republicans with various other ideas.
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When I was a child my parents demanded we eat everything on our plate.

“”Think of the starving masses in China,” my father said.

At that time, the early 1960s, there were starving masses in China. Mainly caused by Mao Zedong’s idiocy. He had caused famine with an economic program called the Great Leap Forward. Peasants were distracted from growing crops to making steel, and fairly low-grade steel at that.
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The movie The Castle carries an exaggerated illustration of weakness of the British-Australian adversary system of justice.

It is in the Federal Court and the little Aussie battler is about to lose the Kerrigan family home for an airport extension. He has got a mug suburban solicitor (Tiriel Mora of Frontline fame) to put his case in the face of a sharp corporate lawyer representing the privatised airport.

The suburban solicitor has no idea how to present his case. At one stage he approaches the bench and asks the judge for help. She patiently explains that it would be improper for her to do so. The corporate lawyer smiles benignly and the Kerrigan case is thrown out.
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