Crispin Hull

The attempt by authorities to move the media back several hundred more metres from the perimeter fence of the Woomera detention centre was more to do with protecting the Government from adverse publicity than protecting detainees’ safety. Apparently the Australian Protective Service made the decision to move the media back from positions they had occupied for several weeks without apparent safety concerns. The APS apparently made the decision after a security review and it had nothing to do with the Department of Immigration. If so it is a convenient thing for the Government, but it will inevitably backfire, as has the decision to house asylum seekers in the distant outback town of Woomera (and other outback places) in the first place. Refugee support groups, lawyers, air agencies and the media have managed to travel to Woomera and to give help and report events despite the Government’s best attempts to keep the detainees and the conditions they are living in out of the public eye.

In any event, it is ridiculous for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock to pretend that the APS’s decision is one out of the Government’s purview. Ultimately the Government is responsible for access to the centres and to the Commonwealth land that surrounds them.
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The statement made last week by the new Federal Minister for Education, Brendan Nelson, that some young people should not worry about finishing Year 12 if they felt they were not cut out for academic life, was the wrong message.

Dr Nelson said, “Let’s not create an environment that says to a Year 9 or Year 10 student that if you don’t complete Year 12, the if you don’t go on to university, then in some way that you and your life is less valuable. . . . There are some young people in this country who are dealing with the most horrendous family and social circumstances for whom compeletion of Year 12 is a utopian dream.”

Dr Nelson said that apprenticeships and vocational education were just as valid as university degrees.
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The ACT is failing to make use of a critical weapon in the fight against crime. In October 2000, the ACT Parliament passed the Crimes (Forensic Procedures) Act which allows for the compulsory testing of prisoners who have been convicted of an offence carrying a penalty of two or more years in jail. In effect, this means every prisoner because virtually no-one goes to jail in the ACT for an offence with a maximum penalty of less than that.

The ACT Deputy Chief Police Officer Andy Hughes says police have been evaluating options to find the best way to collect the samples. He cited the fact that ACT prisoners go to NSW jails as a difficulty. In fact, it should be an asset. NSW tests all prisoners in its system. ACT prisoners have protested against the procedure without much success. Perhaps the ACT arms of the Australian Federal Police could politely ask the NSW corrections service for the samples, or for the results of the samples.
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Few other nations on earth would have so much debate and ambivalence about its national symbols than Australia. The debate will no doubt get a fresh head of steam today – Australia Day. Much of the debate is heated and emotional rather than rational and calm – that is because it is about emotional things. Many Australians question whether we should change the national day, the head of state and the flag. In other countries such questioning would be looked upon as odd or even treasonous. In Australia, it is a perfectly respectable, even majority, viewpoint to be in favour of changing all or some of these major national symbols.

The reason for this is that these symbols are unsatisfactory to very many Australians. Many regard the presence of the Queen in our constitutional arrangements as unsatisfactory because an Australian should be able to aspire to office at the constitutional apex, and it should be a democratically selected position, not one based on right of birth.
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The Minister for Small Business, Joe Hockey, has suggested that the state and federal governemnts look at a national compensation scheme, such as that in New Zealand, as a means of reducing crippling insurance premiums for public liability.

The insurance industry says it is running these policies at a loss. Mr Hockey has revealed how business, sporting and charitable organisations have been hit with premium increases this year of up to 400 per cent. In some cases it was threatening profitability or threatening activities undertaken by sporting and charitable organisations.

Mr Hockey laid the blame squarely at what he called greedy lawyers and asked whay was it that someone injured by falling off a chair at home bore the loss, but the same person falling off a chair in a shop would sue. Mr Hockey said he would like to see a scheme that capped damages.
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For half a century it was unexceptional that these places should be residences for Canberrans. But given the proximity of Parliament House, the value of the right to occupy this land has increased enormously. There are clearly more worthwhile things to place upon the land than residences.

The residences are built upon leasehold land with a 99-year term and a stipulated purpose of residential. In the original scheme of Canberra, it was envisioned that at any stage, the Federal Government could resume any lease by just paying the leaseholder compensation for the improvements. But since the early 1970s, ground rents for lease-holders have been abandoned and tenure has been closer to freehold, but subject to the purpose clause. A change of use would therefore need a new lease arrangement. Any building work would also need approval by relevant authorities.

The land is administered by the National Capital Authority as part of land identified at self-government as having national elements. Over the past year, there were negotiations between the levels of government to return the section which contains these blocks to ACT administration – largely on the ground that it is residential.
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The events over the past few days at both the Curtin and Woomera detention centres reveal several quite sickening aspects of the policy which should – but, alas, do not – cause such widespread protest that the Government would be forced to change direction. The first is the fact that so many children are in detention. Children are vulnerable, as events of the past few have shown. At the Curtin centre in Western Australia police are investigating allegations that three Sri Lankan men sexually assaulted a five year old boy and attempted to sexually assault another five-year-old boy. One of the boys has been in detention since last March with his mother, two brothers and a sister.

That a five-year-old boy, who has committed no crime, can be put into detention in Australia for nearly a year should be offensive to the vast majority of Australians. Alas, apparently it is not. The Government feels it can continue with this abhorrent policy because it is popular. It may be popular but it is not right.

The vulnerability of children in these centres is now more apparent.
Continue reading “2002_01_january_leader22jan detention”

A survey revealed this week that 64 per cent of people would like a return to the annual inspection of vehicles over a certain age. Even allowing for the smallness of the sample, it indicates a fair degree of support for the return to annual inspections. Before the last ACT election, the Labor Party indicated that it would look at the question. This week it said it would study the survey before commenting.

There is a danger here that the Government will take up the popular cause. It would be wrong to do so. It is easy for someone responding to a survey to contend quite honestly that a return to vehicle inspections would be a good thing because it would improve road safety. A great majority might hold that view. The trouble is that a quick survey of attitudes does not present the true complexity of a problem, and probably never can because people at the end of a phone line will not be bothered with a survey that presented a large amount of data for a considered opinion.

This is where political leadership plays a role. It is now up to government to explain why the reintroduction of car inspections would not be a good idea.
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Parents and guardians of disabled people in the ACT must be frustrated to breaking point over disability services in this affluent territory. The deaths of three people in government-run share homes for the disabled in 2000 were obvious grounds for saying something was wrong with disability services in the ACT.

Each death was referred to the coroner.

But such was the disquiet, that towards the end of 2000 pressure mounted in the Legislative Assembly for a separate, specialist inquiry. At the time the Government argued that an inquiry was not warranted, would be too costly and would step across the coronial inquests already in train. The Assembly (with the Opposition and the cross-bench joining forces) passed two motions ordering an inquiry and threatened legislation. The Government was bound to act, but it decided not to appoint visiting law professor Roger West who had 25 years’ experience in disability services. It was a churlish. Instead it appointed former Supreme Court Justice John Gallop, arguing that his background would avoid the legal pitfalls of cross with the coroner.
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The decision to put Viagra on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme list has been welcomed by some and condemned by others. Pfizer, the makers of Viagra – the wonder drug to treat erectile dysfunction – had already applied twice to have the drug list and failed. Third time lucky. This time, though, the company sought its listing for only a certain range of conditions, including diabetes and those with spinal-cord injuries.

A listing can make a huge difference in the number of people who take up the drug, and therefore the profits of the company with the patent on the drug. The scheme has had huge benefits for patients needing drugs at a reasonable cost. Under the scheme a person pays $22.40 for a prescription – $3.60 for pensioners, and the rest is paid for by the government. The other great benefit of the scheme is that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee can negotiate with the drug company over the price that the drug will be supplied to the scheme. It has meant that the scheme in effect buys for all Australian consumers using economies of scale and purchasing power to lower price. Classical economic theoreticians would be horrified. Too bad. Classical economics is for widgets, not drugs that save lives or affect the quality of life.
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