Crispin Hull

President George Bush called on Americans to face up to “”new realities” in proposing a huge increase in defence spending. The new realities are presumably the world after September 11. Those realities mean that the US must spend more on defence if it is to pursue its stated aim of hunting down those responsible for the New York and Washington attacks and bring to book those regimes that harbour them.

But the other compelling reality – that the increased defence spending must be paid for by somebody – has been ignored by President Bush. Far from facing up to that reality, he postponed it.
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THE new chair of the ACT Legislative Assembly’s Planning and Environment Committee, Vicki Dunne, says she would like her committee to put more emphasis on the environmental big picture and less on neighbourhood disputes over who builds what where.

She does not want the committee to be a de-facto appeals tribunal on planning matters, arguing that there are enough hoops to jump through in the current process without this committee becoming another one. She does not want the committee to be the arbiters of good taste. Questions of setbacks, heights and colours should be left to the development application process.

It seems Mrs Dunne is taking an unnecessarily stand-off approach. In doing so she underrates the role of the committee of which she is chair. The committee – in its former guise as the committee for Urban Services — has already had a period of reluctance to engage actively in the planning process and debate in the city.
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The Aboriginal community has been done a grave disservice by the taking of the coat of arms from the outside wall of Old Parliament House and the absurd High Court writs seeking injunctions against the Commonwealth for using emblems of the kangaroo and emu on the grounds that they are sacred or significant to the Aboriginal people. Further writs were being considered against various sporting and business bodies that use the symbols.

The writ in the name of the Aboriginal Embassy sought for all High Court judges to disqualify themselves and for an international tribunal to hear the matter.

The patent absurdity of the writ and the action of taking the coat of arms away have infuriated many Australians. Fortunately other Aboriginal groups have dissociated themselves from the action. Ngunawal elder Ruth Bell said the tent embassy members were not representative of her people. She was rightly concerned that the actions of the tent embassy members would reflect badly on the Ngunawal people. Other responsible Aboriginal leaders should do the same thing. But if they do, the question arises in the precisely what the Aboriginal tent embassy does represent. If it and the actions of people claiming to be representative of the embassy are disowned by Aboriginal groups across Australia, its validity comes under question. If the actions are not disowned, it means that the embassy, as a representative of the Aboriginal community engages in some very silly actions.
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President Bush’s State of the Union address showed that perceptions and feelings are as important in politics and governance as reality. In Mr Bush’s own words, “”As we gather tonight, our nation is at war, our economy is in recession, and the civilised world faces unprecedented dangers. Yet the state of our union has never been stronger.”

It was an instructive juxtaposition. The very national state of affairs people fear most — recession and war – are apparently the reason that so many Americans feel good about their government. Mr Bush has an approval rating of more than 80 per cent. People feel unity of purpose in the face of a common external enemy. The creation or exaggeration of an external enemy have been tactics of leaders in the past to bolster their political support. Mr Bush is obviously gaining a great deal politically from the attacks on September 11 without having to do much.

Mr Bush pushed the insecurity as much as he could. He said the war – far from being over with the defeat of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan – was only beginning. He attempted to instil a state of indefinite fear by saying, “”Thousands of dangerous killers, schooled in the methods of murder, often supported by outlaw regimes, are now spread throughout the world like ticking time bombs – set to go off without warning.”
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Jason Lettice was feeling a little ill.

Jason had been boozing (heavily) with his mates on a footpath on a bridge in Musellwellbrook. Suddenly, Jason felt he could hold his booze down no more. He announced to his friends that he was going to spew. He ran fast across the road to the footpath opposite and leaned over the rail. But instead of spewing he fell over the side and toppled 10 metres into a life of paraplegia in a wheelchair.

He sued the Musellwellbrook Shire and the State of NSW for all the usual things – negligence, not having a high enough rail, not protecting idiots against themselves and so on.
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Former Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith and former Health Minister Michael Wooldridge have done a great service to the community in using a loophole in the system to qualify for taxpayer-funded travel for life.

Their hypocrisy and exploitation of the quirk has so outraged the community that pressure might now grow to overhaul the whole system of MPs’ perks at great saving to the taxpayer and the restoration of a sense of proportion to MPs remuneration.

The existing rule is that to qualify for the Gold Pass of lifetime travel anywhere in Australia on business class with chauffeured Commonwealth cars to and from the airport you must serve 20 years as a member or six years as a minister or in the life of six Parliaments. Former Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith and former Health Minister Michael Wooldridge did not qualify on those flat grounds. But another provision on calculating years of service states that every year served as Minister is counted as three years’ ordinary service.
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Insurance pay-outs for public-liability claims in Australia fell by 21 per cent last financial year, according to the most recent Australian Prudential Regulation Authority figures.

The figures come as the insurance industry is pleading higher claims and litigation costs to justify huge increases in public-liability insurance premiums.

The authority issues detailed statistics each year, but does not do year-by-year comparisons itself.

The estimated cost of future public-liability claims fell by 17 per cent, and the number of outstanding claims at the end of the financial year fell by 20 per cent.
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Insurance pay-outs for public-liability claims in Australia fell by 21 per cent last financial year, according to the most recent Australian Prudential Regulation Authority figures.

The figures come as the insurance industry is pleading higher claims and litigation costs to justify huge increases in public-liability insurance premiums.

The authority issues detailed statistics each year, but does not do year-by-year comparisons itself.

The estimated cost of future public-liability claims fell by 17 per cent, and the number of outstanding claims at the end of the financial year fell by 20 per cent.
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The funeral in 1948 of Sir Isaac Isaacs, Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia and Governor-General, was attended by High Court judges Hayden Starke and George Rich. Rich had been appointed in 1913 at the age of 40 and here he was still on the High Court Bench at 85.

As Starke and Rich walked passed the open grave, Starke leaned over to Rich and said to him, “”George, are you sure it’s worth your while going home.”

As it happened, Rich continued on the bench till he was 87 and died a couple of years shy of his 100th birthday.
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Democracy is not so much in the voting, but in the counting of the votes.

That holds true not only for third world hell-holes where dictators steal the ballot papers, but also for western democracies where elections are overseen by impartial electoral officials.

The method of counting translates into how power is exercised and how democracy operates.
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