Month: September 1999

I should tell you about Brett.

Brett describes himself as an intermediate skier. He is not. He is an advanced envelope-pusher who has taken to parabolic skis. He had a fearlessness that troubled me. One evening he pointed at his mate Phil and said, “”Phil’s skiing’s improved since we’ve been in New Zealand. He was skiing like a Young Liberal when we arrived. Now. It’s straight down the fall line.”

I met Brett on a Black Diamond Safari in New Zealand at Mount Cheesman one of the smaller club fields and we later skied out of Queenstown at Coronet Peak and its twin resort the Remarkables. His fearlessness was invaluable.

Without fearlessness, the skis will not work, especially the new carve skis.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_skicolumnumn”

Woollies was for the big Saturday morning shop.

The suburban shop was a little more expensive, but it was open late, and it was good for getting everyday things, like bread and milk and anything you forgot on Saturday morning.

Then two big changes happened.

First, the big chain stores were allowed to open whenever they wanted. Secondly food technology changed. Bigger refrigeration in the store and in the home meant you did not need bread or milk everyday. You could freeze bread and milk lasted longer.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_shops”

Last week the republic waters were further muddied with the flag issue and the “”split” between Coalition MPs who had signed a “”Vote No” statement and those who attended a “”Vote Yes” meeting.

The muddying gives rise to a couple of thoughts.

Many writers of letters to the editor have suggested that we are putting the republic question in the wrong order. They say we should first vote on whether we want a republic and then we should vote on what sort of republic we want. Some went further to assert that Prime Minister John Howard deliberately jumped straight to a referendum precisely to muddy the waters. He knew there would be an argument over what sort of republic and that would, he hoped, result in a No vote.

I don’t buy those views.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_repub flag”

The High Court came to a sensible conclusion yesterday on the question of validity of decisions of the ACT Supreme Court. David Eastman, the man convicted of the murder of AFP Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester, had argued that the judge who tried his case, Acting Justice Kenneth Carruthers, had not been validly appointed under the Constitution.

The Constitution provides that the Federal Parliament can create federal courts and can invest federal jurisdiction in other courts. Judges of the High Court and judges of federal courts created by Parliament must be appointed by the Governor-General Council (the federal government) and must be appointed for a term expiring on their attaining 70 years old.

Eastman argued that the ACT Supreme Court was a federal court created by the federal parliament; that Acting Justice Carruthers was appointed by the ACT Executive, not the Governor-General in Council, and he was appointed for a fixed term, not one expiring at the age of 70. Therefore, he argued, the appointment was invalid and the conviction a nullity.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_leader03sep eastman”

The proposal to impose mandatory penalties on repeat drink-drivers and restrict their access to special licences was renewed this week by Independent MLA Paul Osborne. An earlier version of the proposal was defeated in the Assembly in 1997.

Any proposal to replace judicial discretion with mandatory sentences must be treated with utmost caution. Though many in Canberra can be justifiably dismayed on occasions at judicial inconsistency and leniency with sentences, a system where a judge or magistrate can look at all the facts and circumstances of a case and tailor a sentence accordingly will deliver has a better chance of delivering justice than formula sentencing or mandatory sentencing.

Mandatory sentences do not take into account personal factors like contrition, financial factors, job etc.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_leader01sep drink drive”

There would have been enormous fury if David Eastman had been set free because of a technical defect in the appointment of the judge who tried him.

One judge, Justice Michael Kirby, would have set him free. The other six dismissed his application.

The court is yet to rule on the other leg of Eastman’s appeal: whether he was mentally fit to plead.

There were some fundamental issues in the appeal on the technical question of the judicial appointment. They involved what we call the separation of powers.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_eastman forum”