Crispin Hull

Woollies was for the big Saturday morning shop.

The suburban shop was a little more expensive, but it was open late, and it was good for getting everyday things, like bread and milk and anything you forgot on Saturday morning.

Then two big changes happened.

First, the big chain stores were allowed to open whenever they wanted. Secondly food technology changed. Bigger refrigeration in the store and in the home meant you did not need bread or milk everyday. You could freeze bread and milk lasted longer.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_shops”

Last week the republic waters were further muddied with the flag issue and the “”split” between Coalition MPs who had signed a “”Vote No” statement and those who attended a “”Vote Yes” meeting.

The muddying gives rise to a couple of thoughts.

Many writers of letters to the editor have suggested that we are putting the republic question in the wrong order. They say we should first vote on whether we want a republic and then we should vote on what sort of republic we want. Some went further to assert that Prime Minister John Howard deliberately jumped straight to a referendum precisely to muddy the waters. He knew there would be an argument over what sort of republic and that would, he hoped, result in a No vote.

I don’t buy those views.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_repub flag”

The High Court came to a sensible conclusion yesterday on the question of validity of decisions of the ACT Supreme Court. David Eastman, the man convicted of the murder of AFP Assistant Commissioner Colin Winchester, had argued that the judge who tried his case, Acting Justice Kenneth Carruthers, had not been validly appointed under the Constitution.

The Constitution provides that the Federal Parliament can create federal courts and can invest federal jurisdiction in other courts. Judges of the High Court and judges of federal courts created by Parliament must be appointed by the Governor-General Council (the federal government) and must be appointed for a term expiring on their attaining 70 years old.

Eastman argued that the ACT Supreme Court was a federal court created by the federal parliament; that Acting Justice Carruthers was appointed by the ACT Executive, not the Governor-General in Council, and he was appointed for a fixed term, not one expiring at the age of 70. Therefore, he argued, the appointment was invalid and the conviction a nullity.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_leader03sep eastman”

The proposal to impose mandatory penalties on repeat drink-drivers and restrict their access to special licences was renewed this week by Independent MLA Paul Osborne. An earlier version of the proposal was defeated in the Assembly in 1997.

Any proposal to replace judicial discretion with mandatory sentences must be treated with utmost caution. Though many in Canberra can be justifiably dismayed on occasions at judicial inconsistency and leniency with sentences, a system where a judge or magistrate can look at all the facts and circumstances of a case and tailor a sentence accordingly will deliver has a better chance of delivering justice than formula sentencing or mandatory sentencing.

Mandatory sentences do not take into account personal factors like contrition, financial factors, job etc.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_leader01sep drink drive”

There would have been enormous fury if David Eastman had been set free because of a technical defect in the appointment of the judge who tried him.

One judge, Justice Michael Kirby, would have set him free. The other six dismissed his application.

The court is yet to rule on the other leg of Eastman’s appeal: whether he was mentally fit to plead.

There were some fundamental issues in the appeal on the technical question of the judicial appointment. They involved what we call the separation of powers.
Continue reading “1999_09_september_eastman forum”

The owners of the 200 taxi plates in the ACT will be well pleased with the recommendations brought down last week (aug 9) by the NSW Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal.

The ACT industry is under-going a similar review.

Taxi-plate owners throughout Australia have been ever watchful as competition policy knocks over bastion after monopolistic bastion. Strangely, the taxi industry has been strangely immune while other industries — telecommunications, parcel-delivery, electricity, water and so on – have been subjected to competition with huge benefits to consumers and economic efficiency.
Continue reading “1999_08_august_taxis op-ed”

“”After considering the report of a committee established and operating as the Parliament provides to invite and consider nominations for appointment as President, the Prime Minister may, in a joint sitting of the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, move that a named Australian citizen be chosen as the President.

“” If the Prime Minister’s motion is seconded by the leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives, and affirmed by a two-thirds majority of the total number of the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the named Australian citizen is chosen as the President.”

Thus will read Section 50 of the Constitution if the republic referendum is passed on November 6.
Continue reading “1999_08_august_oped republic”

Daily flights in and out of Christchurch and/or Queenstown can be arranged through Qantas, Air New Zealand and Ansett. Don’t fly during any NZ-Australian rugby contest.
Continue reading “1999_08_august_nztraveltips”

How could anyone get injured here?

There were only five skiers and five snowboarders on the whole mountain for heaven’s sake. How could anyone collide.

Yet here was the, presumably, innocent skier on a stretcher in a banana-sled and the presumably reckless snowboarder sitting on the snow with his arm in a sling.

Lake Ohau must be one of the most beautiful skiing resorts in the world, if one of the most rudimentally equipped. It has one main T-bar and a couple of smaller tows. But what a T bar. It goes for a kilometre with a vertical lift of 425 metres. At the top the views are adjectiveless. Rather than an horizon line of mountain, there are rows of them, like white spiked meringue on an uncooked pavlova. Sorry, I thought I said they were adjectiveless.
Continue reading “1999_08_august_nzski”

Further evidence that the legal system is pricing itself out of the market.

The Justice research Centre reported this week into the legal funding of family law matters. It reveals that cases with legal aid are more likely to go to hearing than matters in which the parties are paying their own costs. The latter are more often settled. But once in court, the privately funded cases last longer. That indicates that legally aided cases tend to be run to the money allotted.

Parkinson’s law is alive and well. Professor C. Northcote Parkinson postulated that work will expand to fill the time allotted for it. That can be applied to the legal system. The legal complexity of a case and the time taken to resolve it will increase with the amount of money the parties and legal aid make available.
Continue reading “1999_08_august_legal aid for foum”