Journalism and other writing
Making it more difficult to get a judge-alone trial will not help either conviction rates or leniency of sentences.
Yet last weekend Attorney-General Simon Corbell said he thought there should be a greater role for juries in the ACT justice system. Judge-alone trials for serious matters should only be available if both prosecution and defence agree, as in NSW. In the ACT, any defendant can request a judge-alone trial. Continue reading “Juries ill-equipped”
A reader has chastised me for misusing the word “annihilation” a couple of columns ago.
The reader pointed out that to annihilate means to reduce to nothing and I was being a typical journalist in exaggerating for effect. Continue reading “Annihilation of meaning”
The appointment of Quentin Bryce as Governor-General was a wasted opportunity.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd could have used the appointment to make some headway towards a republic. He could have pointed out some of the many flaws and inconsistencies in the present system. He could have incorporated some new elements into the process of appointing the Governor-General that were more compatible with a republic. Continue reading “New GG and the Republic”
Journalism students at the University of Canberra are expected to follow the news, so we have current-affairs tests.
They are nothing too strenuous and we even have a fail safe against impossible questions in some classes, so that if no-one in a class gets a question right, the whole class gets a point for that question. Continue reading “Liberals in strife in ACT”
Rod Campbell never sought the limelight. He did not want a public element to his life, but it came because of he chose the profession of journalism.
It is public work. The more so with Rod’s chosen niche of journalism – “covering the courts” — being the eyes and ears of the public – who obviously cannot attend to see for themselves. Continue reading “Eulogy for Rod Campbell”
In the nearly two decades or so that I had carriage of most of the defamation cases at The Canberra Times in several executive roles, I always dreaded the solicitor’s letter.
The odds were stacked against media defendants – we were reviled by the politicians who made the law and detested by the judiciary who interpreted it. Continue reading “Decline of court reporting”
In the previous ACT shadow ministry Trevor Kaine, as well as being leader, was spokesman for the aging and disabled and Tony de Domenico was spokesman for urban services and rural matters.
Each was also spokesman for himself.
Kaine would have been 67 at the next election and 70 at the end of the next term. He was therefore disabled.
On the other hand, de Domenico thought that the urban and rural portfolios, logically, embraced all. If it wasn’t rural it must be urban and if it wasn’t urban it must be rural. And so, therefore, he was spokesman for everything.
Continue reading “1993_04_april_actroar”
The Australian Taxation Commissioner’s dire warnings about keeping records to justify every tax deduction has at least one use.
When a territory minister starts carrying on about “greedy landlords” you can drag out figures from past years and invite him to take a long hard look in the mirror. Continue reading “Who’s the greedy one: landlord or govt”
Of the scores of inquiries, ideafests and commissions instituted by the new Rudd Government, one was sadly missing – an inquiry into tax.
Any new occupants of the Treasury benches should go into the legislative and policy cupboards and throw out all the things that have past their used-by dates or are growing mould. Much will be worth keeping, but a lot needs a pretty good sniff, and if off, thrown into the garbage can of history. Continue reading “Tax — Rudd’s blind spot”
The part of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s address to the Business Leaders Forum this week on “the Challenge of Housing Affordability” did not mention the word “immigration”. Not once.
It was the unmentionable elephant in the room. Continue reading “Immigration the unmentionable housing elephant”