Crispin Hull

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.

Incidentally, even if Meninga had supported a capital L Government, his personal suggests he might well have been a small liberal on social issues such as drugs and policing.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_meninga”

The selective tall-poppy syndrome is alive and well in Australia. At the very time we are delighting at athletes pursuing gold medals and appreciating it even more when Australian athletes achieve them, there is a mealy-mouthed view of the world that the Prime Minister should not be at the Olympics cheering the nation’s athletes on and playing host to the athletes of other nations and their families and supporters. That view is nonsense.

Sure, it may irk some people to see Mr Howard’s face appear on the television shortly after every medal and Australian features in is decided. But that is the fault of the television coverage. As head of government in Australia it is perfectly proper for Mr Howard to attend the Olympics most if not all days it is on. It is the most significant international event Australia is likely to hold for some years. It is an enormous opportunity for Australia to show itself to the world. It is an important part of the Prime Minister’s job to take part in that presentation. Many business, political, sporting, artistic and other leaders from around the world have come to the Games. They will take the opportunity to not only see the Games but to make contact with others. It would be quite remiss of the Prime Minister to absent himself from this interchange.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader30sep howard at games”

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has called for a run-off election after his defeat at last weekend’s election by Opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica. The election commission reported that Mr Milosevic got 40.23 per cent and Professor Kostunica 48.22 per cent. In most presidential elections in Europe it is normal to have a run-off election between the two leading candidates if no candidate gets 50 per cent of the vote. However, in most normal European elections there are neutral electoral commissions which count the vote with comprehensive scrutinteering processes by all parties which take part in the election. There was no such thing in Yugoslavia. It seems apparent to most observers that Professor Kostunica won the election quite easily, despite Mr Milosevic’s tactics of intimidation, denial of freedom of communication and his fatuous show trials of western leaders for “”war crimes” committed during the NATO bombing campaign that followed Mr Milosevic’s brutal suppression of the people of the province of Kosovo. The show trials were a misguided attempt to play on ignorant people’s nationalism. It failed. The people have seen through the tactic and want their nation rid of Mr Milosevic.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader28sep yugo”

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.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader28sep chogm”

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.

The statistics are so comprehensively conclusive that mechanical fault has such a minor bearing on road injury and death that respectable government and industry research bodies have stopped studying it. The real issues in reducing road trauma remain driver behaviour and to a lesser extent road conditions.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader28sep car inspect”

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.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader27sep poll date”

Inequality is increasing in Australia, according to the latest study by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra.

But before there is a lot of hand-wringing and calls for Government to tax the rich more, the results need to be looked at more closely and the question must be asked: is equality a valuable outcome?

The study said there was strong evidence that inequality of income increased between the late 1980s and mid-1990s and some evidence to suggest it was continuing to increase. The increase was driven by a decline in the income share of the bottom 10 per cent, a small decline of income share in the middle and an increase in income share of the top 10 per cent.

The top 10 per cent have about 23 per cent of the income.

On the other hand, the survey found that on the expenditure side, inequality of expenditure on current goods and services had not changed significantly over the part 10 to 15 years. But when superannuation and investment “”expenditure” is included, inequality increased between 1984 and 1988-89 but decreased from then till the end of the decade.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader26sep natsem”

The decision by its former Raiders football star Mal Meninga not to stand for the seat of Molonglo at the October 20 Legislative Assembly election was obviously unscripted. It was apparent that when Meninga was being interviewed by ABC Morning Show host Chris Uhlmann yesterday that at first he ready to continue with the prepared script – the political spin. Then suddenly he reverted to his true self and said, “”I’m buggered. I’m sorry. I have to resign.” He walked out of the studio and returned a few minutes later, saying he that had decided on the spur of the moment he could not stomach a political career. He had tried to convince himself that politics was the way, but it was not.

He then said, “”Hopefully, I haven’t made a fool of myself. But I think I’ve done the right thing. I feel comfortable now . . . this feels right, definitely.”
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader25sep meninga”

The recent spate of armed robberies in Canberra is alarming. Canberra is getting as many as three armed robberies a day. The targets are less likely to be banks and more likely to be super-markets, petrol stations and other easier targets, though targets with less cashon site. It indiscates that the robbers are not after huge amoutns of cash. Rather they are desperate p

The Auditor-General John Parkinson’s report on the redevelopment of Bruce Stadium was published yesterday. Its findings reveal horrible short-comings in a major construction project. Though the auditor concluded no minister or departmental head benefited financially through fraud or corruption, his report details a litany of incompetence, unfulfilled expectation, ignorance of the law and therefore breaches of it, and general failure to attend to getting good value for taxpayer’s money.

It seems that Chief Minister Kate Carnell set her heart on having an absolutely first-rate Stadium for the ACT to host Olympic soccer. From that point it seemed that all involved became blinded to prudent project management.

The best that can be said that there is something to show for all the taxpayers’ money that was poured into it — the ACT has top-rate stadium. Alas, it will be too big and expensive for ACT needs and will probably never pay for itself. Governments often build large public works and infrastructure that never pay for themselves. No; the difficulty here is that this is a Government which has prided itself on fiscal discipline and financial prudence. And a greater difficulty for this Government is that it was not open with the electorate and the Assembly. Had it begun with the proposition that it would spend $64 million on building the best possible stadium for the ACT, it was in a defensible position. Instead, it put the input of public money at a mere $14 million and made hopelessly fanciful projections of private sector money pouring in to met the rest.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_leader25sep bruce stadium”