Month: March 2004

The Commonwealth has the legal and constitutional power to overturn the ACT’s gay adoption law.

Whether it has power to ban gay marriages and gay adoptions throughout Australia is another matter.

The Constitution gives the Commonwealth power to make laws with respect to the Territories. Indeed, it made such a law granting the ACT self-government. So it can certainly make a law limiting the scope of that self-government. The Commonwealth Parliament could pass a law simply stating that the present gay-adoption law is void and the Legislative Assembly has no power to make laws with respect to gay adoption.

In 1997 when the Commonwealth overturned the Northern Territory’s euthanasia law, it also removed the ACT Legislative Assembly’s power to make laws on euthanasia. The constitutionality of that law was obvious. No-one bothered to challenge it.

The legal position is clear, but it is not good democratic practice to be forever looking over the shoulder of a self-governing territory and approving or disapproving its laws.
Continue reading “2004_03_march_oped gay marriages”

We had six kids in our family. In those days, ice cream did not come in large plastic buckets at little cost. It “wa’ loxury”. It came brick shape in a waxed cardboard container.

We could never carve the ice cream into six exactly equal portions without a major quarrel. Invariably the exercise would end with my father slicing it haphazardly with a spatula.

“I’m bigger, I need more ice-cream,” one sibling yelled.

Another replied, “I’m smaller I need more ice cream so I can grow.”

And another: “I did a job for Mum so I should be rewarded.”

I was reminded of these squabbles in the past couple of weeks as NSW, one of six states – not siblings – squealed as the Commonwealth Grants Commission wielded the spatula over the slab of Commonwealth funding to be dished out among the states.

“It’s not fair,” NSW squealed, “Why should Queensland get more ice cream than us. Even the fat cats in Canberra get more ice cream than us.”
Continue reading “2004_03_march_forum for saturday states finances”

It’s undemocratic. It is unnecessary. It allows foreign treaties to rule our lives. It will open the floodgates to litigation. It will allow criminals to roam the streets. It will allow the unelected judiciary to rule our lives. It will legalise abortion on demand and euthanasia. It will allow people to desecrate the flag. It will allow people to defame reputable people. It will cost too much.

These are some of the arguments of people who oppose Bills of Rights including the new ACT Bill of Rights which became law this week — the first Bill of Rights in Australia.

The new ACT Bill is based, by and large, on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Prime Minister John Howard has written to Chief Minister Jon Stanhope expressing his disapproval. He and others in the Liberal Party are worried that it will undermine the democratically elected legislature and that it is unnecessary because all our rights are protected anyway.

This week, especially, that argument smacks of hypocrisy. For example, the details of the US free trade deal which were at last made public, reveal some forcing to the legislature’s hand. One clause commits Australia to legislating to change the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme so US drug companies can get more loot. Another clause allows Australia to run a 55 per cent local content rule on free-to-air television, but if that percentage is ever lowered it cannot be increased later. It is called ratcheting down. It binds future legislative action. If, for example, the Coalition cuts the percentage, Labor cannot restore it later without unravelling the whole free trade agreement.
Continue reading “2004_03_march_forum for saturday rights bill”

I saw a rabbit the other day.

I was reminded of it, bizarrely, while reinstalling all the software on my computer after the motherboard was replaced.

Journalists like to highlight the unusual. And seeing a rabbit these days is unusual.

The ubiquitous rabbit has been almost wiped out by the calicivirus. Other animals (and plants) were not affected by the virus, but they have been able to thrive in the absence of rabbits.

Diseases caused by viruses can rip through a species. Viruses thrive in large populations of a single species.

Does the same thing happen with computer viruses? I think so.

Ever more virulent computer viruses are appearing. And they spread quickly throughout the world over the internet, just as their biological versions spread via jet aircraft.
Continue reading “2004_03_march_forum for saturday microsoft”

Hallo, hallo, hallo, what have we got here then? Just a cop drawing an obvious conclusion – the same conclusion being drawn by everyone else in Australia who has not got their head in the political quicksand.

Spain is one of the few countries in Western Europe with troops in Iraq. Spain like Australia backed President Bush and Prime Minister Blair’s position on Iraq. Australia took part in the earlier invasion of Iraq – only one of three nations to do so. Islamic extremists warned that those who helped the US would be targets, naming Britain, Israel, Australia and Spain among others. Then bombs killed 200 in Spain and the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack.

Now what follows is not very difficult. It is not even a first-year university Logic test. It is a Year 11 comprehension test.

Small wonder the top Australian cop (along with several million other Australians) drew the obvious conclusion: Australia is more likely to be a target of a terrorist attack directly because of its role in Iraq. It was just so obvious a conclusion that Federal Police Commissioner Mick Kelty did not think twice about stating it in public television without imagining there could be any fallout.

Sure, Australia would be middle-level target anyway, like all western democracies, but it is more likely to be a target (rather than, say, New Zealand, Canada or Austria) because it took part in Iraq. For example, Australia (and its overseas interests) might be now, say, 1 chance in 100 of being the target of the next terror attack instead of, say, 1 chance in 200 — purely because we took part in Iraq. Inescapable.
Continue reading “2004_03_march_forum for saturday iraq”