Month: November 1998

One Nation senator-elect Heather Hill should not find herself in her present predicament. She was born in England. She took out Australian citizenship, yet still there is doubt about whether she satisfies the eligibility provisions to take her seat in the Senate.

Some people may well be rubbing their hands at One Nation’s discomfiture, but this is a matter of principle that should transcend the party affiliation of the people elected.

It should not be beyond the wit of legislators (if necessary with a tidying referendum at the time of the next referendum if constitutional change is needed) to devise simple eligibility criteria for membership of the Australian Parliament. The criteria should be Australian citizenship, adulthood and not serving a term of imprisonment.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader23nov senate quals”

Aplan by the Government to exempt youth wages from anti-discrimination law appears doomed even before the legislation is introduced in Parliament. Independent Senator Brian Harradine and the Democrats feel that the Government’s action is a breach of a deal struck in 1996 to have this subjected to an inquiry by the Industrial Relations Commission which is not expected to be finalised until next June. The exemption for youth wages from the anti-discrimination law runs out a year later, in June 2000.

The Government’s ultimate position on youth wages may have a great deal of merit, but the way it is going about it seems unnecessarily provocative. The present regime of youth wages is set to continue for the next 20 months anyway. That regime allows various awards which set pay rates according to a person’s age, which would be an illegal discrimination on the ground of age unless there were an exemption. The Government wants the exemption to continue indefinitely beyond the present June, 2000, cut-off.

The Government makes a very pertinent argument in saying that if employers are forced to pay adult wages for all workers, they will simply not employ as many young workers. However, there would have been no harm in awaiting the commission’s inquiry. Even if the inquiry did not side with the Government it still could have gone ahead with legislation afterwards and been in no worse position.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader21nov youth wages”

The National Capital Authority has promised to make the Parliamentary Triangle more accessible and relevant to all Australians.

Its new chief executive Annabelle Pegrum says one of the main tasks of the authority in the next century “”is to rebuild Canberra in the hearts of the Australian people”.

One of the six functions of the authority is to “”foster an awareness of Canberra as the National Capital”, according to the ACT (Planning and Land Management) Act, and Act of the Federal Parliament. The other five involve the planning of the city and commission works on behalf of the Commonwealth and engage in consulting work.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader20nov national capital”

The Eternal Flame is now safe from the eternal vigilance of regulators. Amendments to the Bush Fire Act now make it clear that the flame at the Australian War Memorial can burn on without fear of extinguishment for being in breach of the Act on days of total fire ban.

And so too are carols by candlelight. The farce last year of having candles by torchlight need never be repeated.

Was legislation really necessary? Why could not have common sense prevailed? Would anyone seriously imagine that candles in the heavily watered Commonwealth Park posed a bushfire risk? And is it likely that the Eternal Flame would lick its way up Mount Ainslie?
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader19nov fire bans”

The Attorney-General, Gary Humphries, has proposed some amendments to a Bill on abortion proposed earlier by Independent MLA Paul Osborne. They remove Mr Osborne’s attempt to codify restrictions on when an abortion can be performed; strengthen and tidy up his requirement for the provision of information before and abortion can be performed; provide for a 72-hour cooling-off period; insist that abortions can only be performed by a medical practitioner in an approved medical facility; and require medical facilities to provide statistics on abortion each year.

Mr Osborne’s Bill had many defects. Indeed, it had been attacked by both sides in the abortion debate.

Right to Life Australia opposed Mr Osborne’s Bill because although it seeks to largely outlaw abortion it allows it in cases where a woman is in grave physical or psychiatric risk. Presumably, Right to Life Australia, feels that this might be the thin end of the wedge in giving formal legal approval to some abortion, however limited.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader18nov abortion”

The ACT Supreme Court should have considered a wider range of punishment options when it sentenced former National Party Member Michael Cobb over travel rorts. It sentenced him to a two-year suspended jail term and a fine of $14,000. Neither is a suitable sentence. The two-year suspended sentence means nothing. It might be suitable in a case of an aggressive young man who was likely to reoffend to act as a deterrent. But it is extremely unlikely that Cobb will re-offend. The fine, too, is of little moment. As came out in evidence, Cobb is fairly well off. Indeed, the fact he is well off makes his crime worse. It is not as if he stole to feed his starving children.

Cobb’s case is a disquieting one. It was not a one-off matter, but a pattern of offences. It was not a case of someone dealt a tough hand by life. To the contrary.

Cobb’s crime is the greater because it involves a breach of trust. People such as MPs and other professionals are often put on an honour system. Very few checks and audits are made because they are trusted. The breach of trust is therefore more serious than the small amount of money might otherwise suggest. It is an attack on the honour system itself. It now means we have to devise a system in which it is assumed that some MPs cannot be trusted. Cobb and the one or two others similarly convicted must carry the burden for that.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader17nov cobb”

The Senate is now deadlocked over the GST. Indeed, it is likely to be deadlocked on many issues until July 1 next year.

The deadlock was completed when the Government decided after the election that it would accept the vote of the former Labor senator turned independent, Mal Colston.

As things stand in the Senate of 76 seats, the Government has 37. With Senator Colston, it has 38, exactly half the seats. Under Senate rules, a tied vote results in any motion or legislation being rejected. Labor has 29 seats, the Democrats seven, the Greens two and Independent Senator Brian Harradine make up the remaining 38 seats. If they vote together they, too, form half the seats and can block any motion or legislation.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader14nov gst senate balance”

Some of the issues raised at the inquiry into the future of governance it he ACT this week were more ridiculous than sublime. It would be a shame if they over-shadowed important questions of they way we govern ourselves in the territory.

Among the important questions were whether the Legislative Assembly should be increased from 17 members to 21 and whether the term should be extended from three years to four years.

Among the less sublime were whether there had been a backlash against various pieces of legislation that had been seen as anti-male and whether this had resulted in fewer successful women members in the 1998 election, as asserted by the Speaker Greg Cornwell. The theory is hardly worth discussing, especially as six out of the 13 women candidates in Molonglo got more first preference votes than Mr Cornwell, and Mr Cornwell only retained his seat on the over-quota of a woman who happened to get by far the highest percentage vote of any candidate ACT-wide.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader14nov act governance”

The ACT Government and the National Capital Authority have put up a long-term proposal to create a gateway to Canberra on Northbourne Avenue with up to six tower blocks at the intersection with Antill and Mouat Streets and Wakefield and Macarthur Avenues.

Residents and the professor of landscape architecture and the University of Canberra, Ken Taylor, immediately condemned the idea. The Act Government then stressed that is was a very long-term plan.

The idea has several critical drawbacks. The main one is that it runs contrary to perhaps the most important feature of Canberra — that the built landscape does not obliterate the natural landscape. It means that views to the unbuilt hilltops must be preserved. It means that the height of buildings should be limited.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader09nov tower blocks”

The appeal by Prime Minister John Howard for business to be more charitable should be no substitute for the underlying responsibility of government to provide a safety net for those in Australian society who through no fault of their own cannot support themselves.

Mr Howard has spoken about the responsibility of the unemployed to contribute where they can and has had some success in engendering an ethos that fit people must either be at work, in school or training if they want to call on government aid. The work-for-the-dole schemes have had some success, though they are no substitute for real work, and there is no point to them if the work is not meaningful. Indeed, if it is make work, the schemes can be counter-productive.

Mr Howard now says that just as the unemployed have a reciprocal duty in return for the help they get, business, too, has a duty to be more charitable because “”a company that derives profit from the community has an obligation to contribute to its development”. That is true, but only up to a point. Companies should be good corporate citizens. Figures quoted by Mr Howard suggest they are perhaps not doing enough. Corporate donations make up on 5 per cent of charities’ income. More can be done, but corporations are no substitute for the welfare safety net that marks a civilised society.
Continue reading “1998_11_november_leader09nov business charity”