Month: July 1998

The protesters who appear at every occasion One Nation leader Pauline Hanson speaks in public are entitled to put their view. They are entitled to demonstrate peacefully. But they do their cause no good if the allow these demonstrations to degenerate to violence. The blood-stained face of a One Nation supporting man in his 60s is not a good advertisement for people who are condemning One Nation for a lack of tolerance. Indeed, the opposite is true. The incident gives rise to sympathy for One Nation.

It is difficult to imagine that the violent few among these protesters do indeed stand for tolerance of diversity or are genuine opponents of One Nation’s political aims. Perhaps they are only there for the stir.

If there were no protests Ms Hanson would be speaking to a few dozen people and media coverage would soon wane because there would be little new and little to report after a time. After all, there are only so many ways of stating the party’s view on immigration and Aboriginal affairs.
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The power of Canberra has been felt by the ACT Government. When the slogan Feel the Power of Canberra was put on ACT number plates, the Government offered a choice of having the slogan or not, as it did when the previous slogan was introduced, Canberra the Nation’s Capital. Both slogans, however, were the default position. You had to deliberately opt for no slogan. That is until car dealers, individuals presented with the Feel the Power plates, and the community at large expressed their resentment. Then Motor Registry asked every customer.

The difference between the two slogans has been instructive. The Nation’s Capital slogan was popular. As the series was coming to its end at YZZ-999 after starting at YMA-000 there were thousands of spare positions left between YJA and YLA which had been reserved for people who did not want the Nation’s Capital slogan. Not many had rejected a perfectly expressive slogan.

In the case of Feel the Power, however, 70 per cent rejected the slogan, preferring nothing instead. They thought it arrogant. They feared what other Australians would think if they took their cars interstate. Only 30 per cent were prepared to take the slogan. That is a hopelessly low percentage for a slogan which is supposed to represent the ACT and its people. Such a slogan should be unifying and accepted by a vast majority if it is to fulfil its role. It should be a statement of pride, not shame.
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Nigerians will be celebrating the plan to return to democracy announced this week by the country’s military ruler General Abdulsalam Abubakar. The military in Nigeria have promised a return to democracy on several occasions in past decades, most were short-lived or never brought to fruition. Nigeria has been ruled by the military for 28 of the 38 years since independence in 1960.

The most recent attempt at civilian rule was in 1993. A transitional civilian council was created and elections held in June 1993, but annulled after Moshood Abiola looked as if he had won, much to the military’s displeasure. By the end of the year General Sani Abacha had taken over as head of state and began a repressive regime. When Abiola proclaimed himself head of state in June 1994 he was imprisoned. In November 1995 Abacha had nine civil rights activists, including leading novelist Ken Sar-Wiwa executed and Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth.

General Abacha then set in train yet another purported transition to democracy. But six weeks ago he died and was replaced by General Abubakar, who has now also replaced General Abacha’s plans for government.
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The horrifying destruction resulting from the tsunami that hit the north coast Papua New Guinea was met with an immediate and effective response from Australia. The Australian Government, through its aid agency Ausaid and the military, organised immediate help. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, announced that Australia would do whatever if necessary to help, both in the short-term and longer term.

We are neighbours.

Mercifully, our Foreign Minister did not think for a moment that all the social and economic problems in Australia must be fixed before we can send foreign aid. Mr Downer did not think that all Australian farmers must be provided with cheap loans before we could afford to stretch a hand to help.
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The decision by the Employment Advocate to approve a deal under which employees can cash in annual leave is regrettable. The advocate’s office announced this week that it had approved an Australian Workplace Agreement that enabled managers at an equipment manufacturing plant who have accrued more than three weeks’ leave to cash it in and continue working. The advocate’s office should be very wary of approving these sorts of arrangements.

A lot of the advocate’s work to date has been of great value. Under the Workplace Relations Act it has helped get rid of a lot of unnecessarily detailed provisions of awards and has acted against monopolistic unions coercing workers to be union members. It has allowed workers to negotiate agreements with employers in what they see as their best interests rather than through the sometimes paternalistic eyes of unions.

However, there are some core areas into which the advocate should be reluctant to tread. Annual leave is one of them. It is more than an industrial issue. It is a social one. Employees who go for months or years on end without proper leave can jeoparadise their health and the well-being of their families. One of three main functions of the advocate, in its own words, is in “”assisting workers to balance work and family responsibilities.”” That balance is upset if employees cash in leave.
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The Liberal and Labor Parties in Tasmania are to be condemned for their undemocratic collusion in planning to change the electoral system in that state. The electoral changes are likely to be passed at a special sitting next week. It will be followed almost immediately by an election on August 29. The change of the electoral system and the calling of an election 18 months early are highly suspicious.

The two major parties have colluded in a plan to reduce the number of Members of Parliament in Tasmania. That has superficial appeal, but the real aim is not to make MPs more efficient, or to cut down on the cost of representation. No; the real aim is to get rid of the Greens. The aim is to reduce the chances of minor parties and independents winning seats in the Tasmanian Lower House. At present, there are 35 MPs in the Lower House. There are five seven-member electorates. It means a minor party candidate can win with a quota of 12.5 per cent of the vote. Under the Liberal-Labor plan, the Lower House will have 25 MPs, five from each of the five electorates. That will require a quota of 16.6 per cent for a minor party candidate to get a seat.

The five electorates have identical boundaries to the five Federal seats in Tasmania. Tasmania is likely to have exactly five Federal MPs for some time to come. That is its entitlement as an Original State and it is unlikely its comparative population will entitle it to more for a long time.
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The Federal Attorney-General, Daryl Williams, has been on a commendable campaign over the past few years to do something about the costs and delays that have bedeviled the administration of justice for decades. The trends seem to be for longer trials and more expensive legal fees.

A week ago in a speech to the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration, Mr Williams highlighted his concern about the criminal justice system. Unlike many critics of the legal system, Mr Williams has isolated some detailed causes for costs and delay, unlike many others who merely point to undeniably expensive and protracted legal processes and say something must be done.

He says, “”The criminal justice system is the area worst affected, because, in general, it does not yet have the formal procedures for narrowing issues in dispute available in the civil jurisdiction.”
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Once again, the ACT Government’s planning laws and practice have come unstuck. This time it is Section 41 in Manuka.

The original plan was for a $36-million mall-type development to replace the carpark opposite Woolworths. Woolworths would move in to the new mall and the existing Woolworths would be redeveloped into small retail and part of the Woolworths site would be used for the redevelopment of Palmerston Lane, which could be made more user friendly because it would no longer have to accommodate large food-delivery trucks.
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Why doesn’t Pauline Hanson attack the feminist industry with the same vigour as she attacks the Aboriginal industry and the multicultural industry?

We have the Office of Status of Women and armies of bureaucrats weeding out sex discrimination and still women get less pay than men. So it is a reasonable question.

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Malcolm Booker who died on July 15, was an out-spoken voice of conscience and good sense in Australian foreign policy, a loving husband and father, and a gentle and kind man.

He was a diplomat and foreign-affairs officer for 35 years and for two decades until his death wrote a weekly foreign-affairs column for The Canberra Times which provoked the powerful, and gave a different perspective on foreign affairs to a wide range of readers.

Mr Booker was 82.

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