Crispin Hull

It now seems likely that the Auditor-General’s report into the Bruce Stadium will be tabled at a special sitting of the ACT Legislative Assembly next week – possibly as early as Monday. There would be two weeks to digest the report before the next formal sitting at which notice of a no-confidence motion could be given to be debated seven days later.

The timing of the special tabling sitting is an extraordinary co-incidence. The last Olympic soccer game would have been played the previous evening – presumably to a packed audience. It will have followed more than a week of packed Olympic games and the earlier sell-out rugby union and rugby league finals and laurie Daly farewell. It means a lot of Canberrans will have seen the stadium first-hand. They are now more likely to view the venture more favourably than 16 months ago when the no-confidence motion in Chief Minister Kate Carnell was debated and lost in the Assembly, largely because the two crucial Independent MLAs, Dave Rugendyke and Paul Osborne, thought it important to see the Auditor-General’s report before making a decision. That was an entirely reasonable approach. However, no-one knew it would take so long. The wait should not change the underlying principles of accountability of the executive government to the parliament. But it has inevitably changed the political climate.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_ldt21sep bruce”

It is going to be hard to divorce the personality of John Laws from any debate about the law he was convicted under this week. Laws was convicted of soliciting information from a juror. He faces a maximum sentence of seven years jail.

In any event, the law he was convicted under is a draconian infringement of free speech with an unnecessarily high maximum penalty and next to the ACT the toughest in Australia. Most other jurisdictions make it an offence to harass a juror or identify a juror, but where the juror allows identification and voluntarily speaks out then the media can publish what the juror has to say, provided the case is over.

Surely, a willing juror who wants to go on the John Laws show should be allowed to discuss what happened in the juryroom, provided other unwilling jurors are not identified and the case is over.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_laws juries”

There is an historic and religious context to the horrific events in the United States.

Let us assume that it does not turn out to be an Oklahoma-style, anti-government attack by US nationals and that the attack was launched from the Islamic world.

For a trifling 50 years we have had the ideological battle between communism and capitalism. Bt it has been a secular battle. After the fall of the Wall, the main conflicts in the world have been a religious ones: between fundamentalist Islam and Christian-capitalist.

It is not a contest between ideals on earth – collectivist vs individualistic. That is relatively easy to deal with. No; it is a contest between belief in what might happen in the afterlife. That is very much harder to deal with.

The destruction caused in the US yesterday could only have been caused if those committing it were prepared to die for their cause. They were prepared to suicide. In Islamic tradition, suicide in these circumstances results in an immediate transfer to paradise. In Christian (particularly Catholicism), suicide is utterly forbidden and results in immediate transfer to the hellfires.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_islam v christian”

This time three years ago excitement was generated by a high-profile challenge to ACT Liberal Senator Margaret Reid. Former National Farmers Federation chief Rick Farley was nominated by the Australian Democrats to run for the ACT Senate seat.

He did not make it, despite much commentary that the detestation of the Liberals and absentee Prime Minister John Howard in Canberra would cause Senator Reid grief.

Now high-profile wine-maker and former Yass Mayor Ken Helm is making as similar challenge, but as an independent.

It is a bit sad really, neither Farley nor Helm understand how comprehensively the major parties stitched by the two Senate seats in the two mainland territories. It was to be one each from each territory, forever, full stop.

When the territories got senators 25 years ago, the major parties worked a system that ensures it. Instead of having senators with fixed six-year terms, as in the states, the territory senators have terms equivalent of one term of the House of Representatives. So both senators come up for election each time – not every second time as with state senators. It means a major party needs only 33.3 per cent of the vote AFTER preferences to get a seat. So they get one seat each. Usually, the major parties get more than 33.3 per cent of first preferences.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_helm stands”

Just before every ACT election there are calls for a council-style government or some fundamental change to the system. Usually, it is someone making political capital out of what they think is a residual no-self-government feeling.

This time, Chief Minister Gary Humphries said he wanted a council system with a separate election for a mayor. And Independent MLA Paul Osborne called for an end to the formal recognition of the Opposition.

In 1978, 63.8 per cent of population voted for no self-government. That amounted to 69,893 votes, or 32 per cent of the present electorate, presuming they are all alive and still living here. It is a stale mandate.

It has been superceded by the 1992 and 1995 referendums which gave 65 per cent approval to installing and then entrenching the Hare-Clark proportional voting system. True, the 1992 and 1995 votes did not include a no-self-government or council option, but the informal vote was a remarkably low 5 and 4 per cent respectively, indicating no protest vote.

Our politicians would do better to accept that we have a Parliament that embraces both local and state functions. If the place is to have only a council and mayor do we hand up education, health and police to the Feds or NSW? Imagine the priority Prime Minister John Howard or Premier Bob Carr would give to Canberra health, education and police. Ziltch.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_hareclark forum”

On Tuesday The Canberra Times published an article on the Australian Federal Police investigation into the alleged leakig of documents to a member of the staff of Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Lauire Brereton. It stated that the AFP had obtained a warrant to search for documents about East Timor, Washington, Honolulu or douments that related to a number of named people. The Canberra Times now makes clear that no adverse inference should be drawn against any of the people named in the warrant. Such warrants are typically very widely drawn. In particular, mention was made of one of those named, former Department of Defence official Matthew Skoien and the fact that he has moved to Queensland. Mr Skoien moved to Queensland as an ordinary career move to the Premier’s Department.

The ACT Labor Party suggests that its response to the Auditor-General’s report need not result in a change of Government. That is correct in theory. But in practice, a successful vote of no-confidence in Chief Minister Kate Carnell means a change in government because the other Liberals have said they will not take on the chief minister’s job.

There is one other horrible prospect, as we shall see.

The report will be tabled next week at a brief sitting, probably Monday. The Assembly will have two weeks to digest it before the next full sitting at which someone can give notice (of seven days) of a no-confidence motion in the Chief Minister.

ACT Labor Leader, Jon Stanhope, said on Thursday, “”We have never suggested that a motion of no confidence would inevitably lead to a change of government. It would not. Instead it would, with the current membership of the Assembly, lead to the election of Gary Humphries or Brendan Smyth as Chief Minister. The Liberals would remain in Government.”
Continue reading “2000_09_september_change government”

A couple of related ironies arise out of the Bruce Stadium fiasco.

The first is that the very people now baying for Kate Carnell’s blood are the very people who generally support large government involvement in the provision of infrastructure. They want the Government to spend taxpayers’ money creating and subsidising things for working people to enjoy and use. The “”what about the workers?” group should be applauding the provision of $45 million of taxpayers’ money on a stadium for the ordinary punters to watch the workingman’s football.

Secondly, we have the irony of a Government that has lauded the private sector, user pays, corporate sponsorship, paying your way, balancing the books and the general quantification of all activity in terms of the almighty dollar. And yet it has produced a huge stadium almost totally propped up by public money. The economic rationalists of the ACT Liberal Government have produced a piece of public infrastructure on a grand Keynesian scale.

You can rationalise those inconsistencies by divorcing the question of what was done from the question of how was it done.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_bruce for forum”

I was chided this week by several people over negativity. And also chided over why the paper runs so much bubble and chintz.

Those reacting to negativity said, “”You lot only run stories when things go wrong.”

Well, there’s a deal of truth in that, but it is not the driving force of what gets selected to run in the paper.

I have been chided over coverage of the Bruce Stadium grass, the Mitchell incinerator, the Carillon, the Canberra Hospital and the V8 car race.

Organisations say they do wonderful things every day. They run a city state, they clean national facilities, they treat grateful patients, they build skating parks etc etc etc. And The Canberra Times runs not a word. But as soon as there is strife the reporters are photographers are stiffing around. It is not fair, they plead. Why don’t you run the good news stories? Why don’t you run stories about when things go right?

It is a common complaint. Not by readers, however. Mostly by people running organisations. Those people have, quite legitimately, an interest in their organisation being seen in a good light. They want it, and their position in it, to continue.
Continue reading “2000_09_september_addendum”

A frantic call at home on Saturday morning. “”What happened to Forum? Can my column be run on Monday before it goes stale?”

This was from a Canberra Times staffer, so the public must have been more worried.

Sure enough, I saw one of our better known lobbyists at the shops a bit later.

“”I see you have dropped everything for the Olympics,” he gruffed. ”Not even a Letters page.”

They were both wrong and both right. Forum was in Saturday’s paper. There was also a Letters page. The trouble was the Olympics special. Printing the 24-page Olympics tabloid has meant we have had to move things from their usual places.

The changes were indexed. The material was there. It was only a matter of turning pages to find it. Nonetheless, quite a few readers could not find things. The more regular the reader (or writer) the more likely they were to miss bits.

So we miss-read that one. We should have done more last Saturday to alert readers about irregular positioning of things. We spend years training our readers who get to know where things are. And they get annoyed when they are not there. TV Guide between the books on Monday. Education on Wednesday. Obituary on Friday and so on. Old habits die hard (ask the monastery laundry).
Continue reading “2000_09_september_addendum placings”