Crispin Hull

It appears the ACT is maturing politically.

Incidentally, who cares about ACT politics? Surely, all those who care whether their rates will double next year, a block of flats going up next year, joining car rego queues each year, whether enough industry will come to town to give our kids jobs.

Perhaps more people are realising that you cannot whinge and be apathetic at the same time and that you should not leave your interest in state-level politics to a knee-jerk vote once every three years.
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The Australian Democrats are attracting 18 per cent of the vote in the ACT federal Senate race, according to polling done in conjunction with the ACT election.

The Democrats are picking up a swag of support from people who indicated that they would be voting Labor or to a lesser extent Liberal in the House of Representatives.

Democrats candidate Wayne Seivers put it down to the Tampa refugee issue and the war in Afghanistan. He said that many otherwise-Labor people had said they had moved to the Democrats because of Labor’s position on these questions.
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Chief Minister Gary Humphries is willing to deal with the Democrats, offering a Ministry or a coalition, so the Liberals can stay in Government.

He told ABC radio that the previous Liberal administration had elevated Independent Michael Moore to the ministry and he was willing to deal again – “”from a full-scale coalition through to an informal membership of cabinet, which involved a capacity to separate from cabinet such as with Michael Moore, through to less formal relationships with other independents and crossbenchers”.

ACT Democrat candidate Jane Errey said all options were open, but party president Wayne Seivers said it was a ploy to damage the Democrats federal Senate campaign by painting the Democrats out to be closely aligned with the Liberal Party which was not the case.
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It is perhaps not the best time to talk about travelling to the US, but it has been a pitiful season in the Australia skifields this year, so it is a good time to look at travelling to the US to get some good 2001 skiing in.

Australia’s season did not start until well into August and even now the snow is either ice or mush.

In the US, the Rocky Mountain resorts of Vail, Beaver Creek, Keystone and Breckenridge got their first dusting of snow this weekend. The US season is more than twice as long as the typical Australian season – from November to April and smart skiers can get good prices early and late in the season.
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Once upon a time, the Commonwealth was a model litigant. It did not play mean and sneaky tricks. It acted properly. It acted in the public interest. It conducted litigation in the courts, whether suing or being sued, fairly.

Once upon a time, the Commonwealth Parliament legislated according to some fundamental principles of fairness to all and the public good.

We expect politicians to be selective with the truth, to exaggerate, to use artful point-scoring in debate, to squirm when caught and so on.
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Yesterday’s judgment is likely to have only limited application. It was the combination of many unique facts that led Justice North to conclude those rescued were unlawfully detained: no communication with the outside; presence of SAS troops; control of movement from the civil to the naval ship; closure of Christmas Island port and so on.

These facts would not always apply to an Australian naval vessel that rescued people on the high sea or even in Australian waters. If people voluntarily go aboard the rescuing vessel and the master of that vessel determines that the safest course is to go to Port Moresby, Indonesia or Nauru, then there will be no unlawful detention. Rescued people have to go where the ship goes. It was the added unusual elements in this case that made the detention unlawful.

Justice North agreed that a person has to hit land before they can apply for a protection visa or refugee status. Just getting to Australian waters is not enough. (But Australian criminal law and admiralty law applies on the ocean to deal with people smugglers and people who assault, kill or steal.)
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Two people are groaning at the decision of former Raiders star Mal Meninga not to run for politics: Chief Minister Gary Humphries and lobbyist Richard Farmer.

And two people must be smiling: Opposition Leader Jon Stanhope and Meninga’s wife, Debbie.

Meninga’s decision probably ends Humphries’s chance of holding on to the Chief Ministership. The Liberals realistically can only expect to hold two seats in each of the three electorates on October 20. To govern, they would need the support of three minor or independent candidates – one in each electorate. The only way they could do that would be for the re-election of Paul Osborne in Brindabella and Dave Rugendyke in Ginninderra and for the election of another police-football independent in Molonglo. And the only person who could have done that was Meninga. Last election, now ABC morning-show host Chris Uhlmann (a non-ex-footballer and non-ex-policeman) stood for the Osborne-Rugendyke police-football alliance and got just 2.2 percent of the vote. You have to have been a noted footballer or cop (or both) to play on that team. So Hilary Black – who will be running with the police-football team in Molonglo on October 20 — will not get a guernsey.
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The postponement of next week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Brisbane is a small victory for terrorism and a major convenience for Prime Minister John Howard. The Queen will now not come to Australia until next year – if CHOGM is postponed until then. With the Queen in Australia convention demanded that an election campaign not be under way. Now the decks are cleared for Mr Howard to call the election any day now. Given the minimum notice of 33 days, it means the earliest practicable date world be November 10.

It is obvious that the meeting was postponed because the Prime Ministers Britain, Canada and India said they could not attend because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11. Their decisions might have been as much about domestic reaction to having the leader on a trip to a distant part of the world in the face of security threats as dealing with the threats themselves. Either way, they decided not to come and that meant the end of CHOGM at least for now. If they decided not to come because of security fears in Australia, then CHOGM is perhaps permanently doomed, as are other great face-to-face talkfests of world leaders. Any meeting like that requires a lot of notice for participants which also means notice to any terrorist wanting to attack. We have already seen that the sort of notice given for these meetings has enabled protesters to garner numbers to put on demonstrations. The response has been to move the meetings to more remote places. But the more remote the places are, the more difficult it is for be sure of security for participants.

We may be seeing the end of big international meetings. This would be a shame because it is precisely these sort of meetings and international dialogue that can help solve the world problems that give rise to the terrorism in the first place and (if stable doors must be closed) help combat terrorism in a co-operative way. Video-conferencing is an artificial substitute. Human contact is what counts.
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It is almost depressing that the ACT Labor Party should hark back to the picket fence in road transport policy. Opposition transport spokesman John Hargreaves wants to go back to the system of regular vehicle roadworthy checks.

Checking cars every two years is a flawed policy on several grounds.

First, mechanical defects have proven to be a very minor factor in causation of road death and injury. Nearly all road death and injury is caused by bad driving: alcohol, speed and fatigue. A small amount is caused by bad roads, though most of that can be put down to drivers failing to change driving speed to conditions. And then there are some very rare accidents caused by poor breaks and other mechanical difficulties. Even then, a lot of these are made worse by high speed.
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The setting of the date for the election must be uppermost in the mind of Prime Minister John Howard. The over-riding consideration will be to maximise the chances of the Coalition retaining Government. Survival is a base instinct and it tends to be put at the forefront. The Government would happily cancel the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and send troops immediately to the Middle East if it thought that this meant the difference between winning and losing the election. Never mind the inconvenience to those attending and organising CHOGM. The convenience of the Government capacity to capitalise on the short-term visceral fear generated by a combination of the terrorist attack in the US and the Tampa refugee affair comes before everything else.

It is not a satisfactory situation. Parliament is also left to a guessing game. It is rushing through legislation on the presumption that this is the last sitting week, but it would be possible, though unlikely, for the Government to hold off until later in the year and for there to be another sitting. Businesses and people throughout the country are left in a state of uncertainty while the Government at its secret convenience determines when to have the election. It also maximises its advantage over the Opposition by knowing the date before the Opposition does so it can organise its policy announcements while the Opposition is left with an uncertain timetable.

Events this electoral cycle have highlighted some of the unfortunate consequences of leaving in the hands of the Prime Minister the virtually unfettered power to nominate the election date. Truce, the Governor-General must formally approve the date, but in effect the Governor-General would rubber-stamp the decision unless it was so radically early as to be democratically unjustified.
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