Crispin Hull

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope wants a quick inquiry into the bushfires. In doing so he has engaged in a difficult balancing act.

There is value in getting results quickly so that any recommendations can be put into effect before the next bushfire season. A full inquiry under the Inquiries Act, however, takes the form of a quasi-judicial process with rights of cross-examination and the like. The result inevitably is cost and delay. Further, such an inquiry could easily clash with the coronial inquest that must go ahead with any death or fire of this nature.

The ACT has seen that clash or potential clash on two occasions: with the inquiries into disability services and the three deaths of disabled people in community accommodation and with inquiries into the hospital implosion. On both of those occasions the costs and delays were immense.

So it is easy to have sympathy for Stanhope’s position.

Stanhope appointed former Commonwealth and ACT Ombudsman Ron McLeod to inquire into all aspects of the fires and gave him a very wide brief. The breadth of the brief is fine and Opposition Leader Brendan Smyth is barking up the wrong tree on this element of the inquiry process. But in order to cut through the legal mumbo-jumbo, Stanhope did not constitute the inquiry as a board of inquiry under Section 5 of the Inquiries Act. Rather it is a mere administrative inquiry. And rather than appoint a lawyer as counsel assisting the inquiry – as under the Inquiries Act – Stanhope appointed a committee made up of the chief executives of the Chief Minister’s Department, the Department of Justice and Community Safety, and the Treasury to provide McLeod with any help he may require. A lawyer appointed as counsel assisting, on the other hand, would have meant public hearings, cross-examination and the full panoply of legal process.
Continue reading “2003_02_february_where there’s smoke there’s fire”

All the opinion polls about a war with Iraq show that a majority of Australians are willing to go to war if it is sanctioned by the United Nations, but if it is not the majority drops off dramatically to much less than half.

At first blush it might seem illogical. A war is a war is a war. Civilians will die. Huge damage will be caused. There will be a danger of unintended consequences – like a quick spread of war to embrace many nations (as happened in World War I). So what does it matter if it has UN sanction or not? The practical effect will be the same.

But practicalities aside, the polling reveals some sound reasoning and sentiments. It shows that Australians have a marked respect for the rule of law. In the international arena, the rule of law had little meaning until 1945 and even now seems fairly vague. But the polling shows people see that there is a parallel between the behaviour of nation states and the behaviour of individuals within those states.

Within liberal-democratic nations the rule of law is fundamental. Laws are promulgated by a parliament of representatives of the people and are applied to all (including members of the government) by an independent judiciary. Even judges are called to account by the rule of law. A trivial example is that when caught they pay parking fines.
Continue reading “2003_02_february_iraq and rule of law”

Our security in Australia appears to have come under assault from many quarters in the past six months. First, Bali. Then the drought and the bushfires. Then Iraq and the fridge magnet. Then the nest-eggs of the baby-boomers appeared to crack as superannuation funds faltered. And more recently, financial advisers, on whom so many rely to build security in retirement, are revealed as a group to be largely incompetent or dishonest.

We are physically threatened from without — threatened by nature even into our homes, and our financial security is imperilled.

How do we get a return to security?

It might first be worth assessing the security threats more realistically. Then it might be worth looking at some of the things which make life in Australia secure. And you might well conclude that we have been lulled into a false sense of insecurity.

Bali. It was an horrific event. Eighty-eight Australians were killed. It was history’s worst terrorist attack on Australians. But it was three weeks’ road toll. Leaving aside the degree of criminality and looking at it from the point of view of the security of an average Australian, death by terrorism overseas is a very remote possibility. Death by terrorism in Australia is even more remote. There has never been a hijacking in Australia. There has not been a significant act of terrorism since the Hilton bomb killed three people 25 years ago.
Continue reading “2003_02_february_forum 15 feb”

Builders and real estate agents have offered to buy the vacant blocks of quite a few bushfire victims.

Whether it is market forces at work or profiteering at others’ misfortune is perhaps immaterial. The question for the victims is whether to sell or rebuild, and if to rebuild whether to rebuild as it was before or to make significant changes.

Sadly, one of the most significant factors to be considered should be an unnecessary one. That factor is the question of whether the phalanx of bureaucrats, special committees, community groups and advisers is going to be so cumbersome that the rebuilding process will become a nightmare of cost and delay.

It seems to be shaping up that way. As Professor C. Northcote Parkinson so eloquently explained it in his book Parkinson’s Law, taxpayers have “assumed that a rising total in the number of civil servants must reflect a growing volume of work to be done. The fact is that the number of the officials and the quantity of the work are not related to each other at all. The rise in the total of those employed would be much the same whether the volume of the work were to increase, diminish, or even disappear. An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals and officials make work for each other.”

Yes; it would be nice to think the very best built form can rise from the ashes. So we should be making it easier for that to happen and in any event it should not be at the cost of allowing people to get on with their lives.
Continue reading “2003_02_february_fire bureaucracy”

The simple answer is yes. Digital cameras are now up to the task. Moreover, they are cheaper, and provide a better method of selecting, enhancing, and displaying photographs.

This, however, comes with a couple of major provisos. First, it is no good starting with any digital camera. Secondly, if you do not have the computer gear to back-up a digital camera then you will be in for a frustrating time.

I guess that within 10 years film-and-paper photography will virtually disappear.

Cost will drive it. If you multiply a film of 36 shots at a cost of $17 a film, the costs mount up quickly. Shoot off 100 films and you have paid for a very good digital camera. Shoot off another 30 films and you have paid for it the largest capacity memory card available – – a card capable of taking 500 photos at the highest definition.

Take another 100 films and you can buy a top end liquid crystal display screen for your computer which you can use for slide shows. Or you can show them through the TV for nothing.

So even for a mildly snap-happy traveller or family chronicler, the future is clear.
Continue reading “2003_02_february_digital cameras”

The Executive may, by instrument, appoint 1 or more persons as a board of

inquiry to inquire into a matter specified in the instrument of appointment.

Defamation and fire inquiry

47/03

ABC TRIAL BY INNUENDO, GUILTY BY GOSSIP

Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope, today challenged the anonymous sources criticising the ACT Emergency Services Bureau to identify themselves and contribute to the formal inquiries established to review all aspects relating to the management of the bushfires.

The Chief Ministers comments followed the broadcast of criticism of the ACT Emergency Services Bureau response by anonymous sources on the ABC AM program.

“I believe we need to question the accuracy and reliability of this anonymous criticism, made in such an underhand way when we have put in place comprehensive independent review processes.

“Two comprehensive inquiries have been established to examine all aspects of the preparation for and response to the January bushfires.

“I have appointed the former Commonwealth Ombudsman, Mr Ron McLeod, to lead a serious and far reaching examination of all aspects of the lead up to and management of the bushfires.

“In addition to this, the Coroner Maria Doogan is conducting an inquest into ‘the manner and cause of death’ of those tragically killed in the fires and, under Section 18 of the Coroners Act 1997, will inquire into ‘the cause and origin’ of the fires.

“These are exhaustive inquiries that will leave no stone unturned in examining the actions of all agencies and Emergency Services management. There will be a close and uncompromising inquiry into every decision or action taken by everyone involved with the fire.

“I am however appalled that in the face of these two inquiries we are yet again confronted by cowardly anonymous sources attacking our services through the media.
Continue reading “2003_02_february_defamation and fire inquiry”

This week several record companies took several Australian universities to the Federal Court seeking orders to search university computers for what they say are illegally copied music files.

Several universities have complied and one has resisted. It is yet another episode in the seemingly endless chase between copyright law and technology.

As the law catches some form of illegal copying, technology invariably moves on and the owners of copyright find they have yet another chase.

The technology seems to get ever smarter while the law remains costly, cumbersome and time-consuming.

In the 1960s, when I was in my teens, my father had what was then a cutting edge reel-to-reel tape recorder. Now such things are obsolete. On Friday nights we put the microphone next to the radio set and recorded the top 10 hits of the week. The result was at best mediocre because while the recording was being done, the whole family and had to remain silent lest any noise was picked up by the microphone.
Continue reading “2003_02_february_copyright and technology”

Bits of burnt gum leaves lie on the ground all over South Canberra. Indeed, you can find them in virtually every part of Canberra.

So maybe the whole of Canberra is a bushfire prone area, and from here on we should build houses accordingly.

At present there is an Australian Standard for construction in bushfire prone areas. It is compulsory in areas declared by state governments and local authorities as bushfire prone. But no areas on the urban fringe of Canberra were so declared at the time of the January 18 bushfires.

It is time to be wise after the event – not only with bushfires but with reconstruction generally.

There will be pressures not to. They will largely be driven by short-term cost considerations. But those burnt leaves help illustrate the balance of cost. The expense of sealing eaves, meshing vents or even making fences of steel or masonry is trivial compared to the loss of the whole house.

Archicentre, the building advisory service of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects, lays out some simple principles:

* Build on flat ground on a concrete slab. If you build on a slope fit the house into the slope rather than have it supported on poles.

* Build where there is a fuel break around the home.
Continue reading “2003_01_january_reconstruction”

On the burnt, twisted metal of a garage door amid the wreckage of a house in Jindabyne Street, Duffy, are the roughly painted words in bright red:

Land for Sale. 13 Fireball St Duffy.

That land was first sold in the late 1960s or early 1970s as Canberra stretched further south and west into the treeless Woden Valley and Weston Creek.

In those days land cost next to nothing. The prize blocks along Eucumbene Drive with views over the city went for as little as $1000 in 1971. The entire infrastructure was in place. Electricity, water and sewerage were laid on and the streets laid out. What irony – given the firestorm last Saturday — that the streets in Duffy are all named after dams, lakes and water reserves. The charred remains around the streets of western Duffy are a different world from the cool clear waters of Eucumbene Dam, Jindabyne Dam, Lake Cargelligo, Jemalong Weir and Lake Eildon after which they were named when the suburb was laid out according to best planning practice at the time.

Some of that practice undoubtedly contributed to the high toll of houses in the fire. But that is no cause for radical change or the abandonment of planning the city.

Just as there was a freak confluence of conditions that made the fire so ferocious in the first place, there was a combination of planning and building factors that made the toll on houses worse when the fire got here. The heat, winds, drought and Canberra’s good response to water restrictions in allowing gardens to dry out were predominant factors, but if you build a Bush Capital bush fires come with the territory.
Continue reading “2003_01_january_duffy fires”

Canberra has the best infrastructure of any city in Australia. It is the best planned city in Australia. Yet the bushfire at the weekend claimed more houses than any other bushfire in Australia’s history. The official count yesterday was 388 houses, but it is likely to pass 400.

The key to it is the word itself – BUSHfire. (SUBS: italic bush please)

In Australia, bushfires often claim the odd rural dwelling or half a dozen houses or so when a bushfire comes to the edge of a town or city.

But Canberra is a different city. It is known as the Bush Capital. So if your city is bush, then it, too, will subject to bushfire – in a way that other towns and cities will not. In other places, the fire hits the edge of town and stops.
Continue reading “2003_01_january_canberra’s fires”