Crispin Hull

Senator Helen Coonan has isolated the problem; but her solution misses the point.

Senator Coonan, the deputy government whip in the Senate, put forward last week a very thoughtful speech about the minor parties having too much power in the Senate. She is right. They do have too much power. As it happens, the Howard Government’s experience is the first to reveal the severe constitutional problems of the present arrangements. Proportional representation in 1948 gave minor parties the first chance to get representation in the Senate. And a good thing too. As Coonan recognised they have a legitimate role. In 1984 the size of the Senate was increased, as the Constitution requires, to accommodate an increase in the size of the House of Representatives. Since then there have been 12 senators per state, requiring a quota of 14.3 per cent of the vote (after preferences have been distributed)_ to get a seat. In practice, some candidates with fewer than 8 per cent of the primary vote have got seats.

Since 1984 minor parties and independents have always held the balance of power and under present arrangements they always will. From 1984 to 1996 the minor parties, dominated by the Democrats and Greens had a philosophical affinity with Labor, so the Labor Government was not fundamentally frustrated by them. Even so, Labor screamed about the slightest amendment to its will. Prime Minister Paul Keating described the Senate as unrepresentative swill, when he didn’t get his way. The Howard Government has had a rougher trot. Although numerically nearly all its Bills have got through unscathed, big ticket items have been knocked back, at it is the big-ticket items that count.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_senate fix”

Democrat leader Senator Meg Lees has called for a new electoral system for the House of Representatives.

She says the present system disenfranchises up to 25 per cent of voters who vote for minor parties.

Senator Lees wants 15 to 20 per cent of seats reserved as a top up to the other constituency seats. She has proposed a formula similar to that proposed by the Jenkins Royal Commission in Britain.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_reps change”

Crime rates in the ACT are falling.

Yes, that’s right, falling.

Yet police and politicians, who have a strong interest in making us feel that crime is a problem, are painting a different picture.

And it is a shame because despite the falling crime rate, fewer people are feeling safe in their homes, on the street and on public transport.

And they talk about the media creating false impressions and stereotypes.

With road deaths, though, the picture is exactly the opposite (more of that anon).
Continue reading “1999_02_february_police stats”

Usually, Budgets are all-or-nothing affairs. The trouble is that defeat of a Budget means the Government must resign. This is troubling in a polity of perpetual minority government.

Independent Paul Osborne objects to being a rubber stamp when it comes to the Budget. Because the Budget pervades so much of Government he argues that he should be able to have some input into the Budget without bringing down the Government.

Fine, but the Government has to carry the ultimate responsibility for the Budget, and wears blame in the electorate, both short-term and long-term. So minority government should not degenerate to the farce of the Opposition and minor parties being able to put up pet projects or to object to new revenue measures while the Government has to deal with the deficit which might result in later severe corrective measures.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader16feb act budget”

Oh dear, the Federal Minister for Tourism, Jackie Kelly, has upset the ACT Chief Minister, Kate Carnell, because the Australian Tourism Commission omitted any scene of Canberra in 40 30-second television advertisements to be shown overseas to attract tourists.

And ACT Opposition tourism spokesman Wayne Berry has called it a disgrace, demanding to know, “”Why didn’t Kate Carnell check with her federal colleague to ensure that the ACT featured?”

The answer to Mr Berry’s question is easy: because the chief minister has got better things to do.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader11feb tourism ad”

Planning and land use is difficult, but there is no need to degenerate to vox pop, as seems to be proposed by Urban Services Minister Brendan Smyth.

The Department has engaged a consultant to ask individual residents in 11 sections in the inner north what their long-range plans are. The theory is that a plan can emerge that will permit or prohibit development according to the answers received. Labor’s planning spokesman Simon Corbell welcomed the idea saying it would help bring certainty to residents.

The scheme’s approach is flawed. There is no subsitute for expert planning. Often people do not know what they want. Or they change their minds quite quickly as events unfold.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader11feb planning”

This week, the National Capital Authority is likely to approve the start of work on the National Museum of Australia on Acton Peninsula. The museum has a troubled history. It came into being with an Act of Parliament in 1980.

In the ensuing 18 years there have been many promises and false starts. Originally the concept was to move away from the big monumental building with static displays. The museum was to depict human interaction with the environment of Australia. To that end the 88-hectare site at Yarramundi would have been uniquely positioned. Others, however, argued that Yarramundi was too far away and that it was more important to get activity into the Parliamentary Triangle or at least the central national area.

The Hawke Government did virtually nothing about the museum. When Paul Keating was Prime Minister he raised objections to another monumental building by the lake.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader03feb museum”

The Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, was quick to take some Australian credit for the dramatic change of stand by the Indonesian Government over Timor last week. He asserted that a letter from the Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, to the Indonesian Government expressing concern about Timor and the need to look at autonomy had helped changed the Indonesians’ minds about Timor. If that is so, it fairly damns Australian policy over the past 27 years, under both Labor and Coalition Governments. It means that the Australian view matters and that if from the moment Portugal deserted Timor in 1975 Australia had firmly insisted on an act of self-determination, then perhaps the past 27 years of death and torture might not have happened. Perhaps, even, the East Timorese might have voted for Indonesian sovereignty with local autonomy.

More likely, though, the change in the Australian position was only part of the reason for Indonesian change of heart.

Once the stubborn President Suharto was off the scene, leaders in Indonesia reviewed the equation. They saw falling international support because of Indonesia’s stand on East Timor; they saw a steadfastness in those opposing Indonesia’s stand; they saw a steadfastness in the resistance to Indonesian integration; and they saw and increasing economic cost in hanging on in East Timor which was not balanced by any oil revenue.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_leader01feb timor”

We must pay for the privilege or have the privilege taken away.

This is the view of Chief Minister Kate Carnell who points to the latest round of comparisons between the ACT and other jurisdictions over the delivery of government services.

Ultimately she is right as any credit-card junkie knows. A prudent household manger, though, would prefer not to get any consumer credit charges even though you are willing to cop some mortgage repayments in the knowledge that ultimately home ownership is better than perpetual rent.
Continue reading “1999_02_february_territory”

Last week the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at ANU , Professor Paul Thom, wrote a letter to the editor pleading the case for students to take Arts courses.

He bemoaned that there was a foolish impression about that subjects taught in Arts degrees were useless. And it is foolish. As it happens, I was taught Philopophy and Logic by Thom and have used his teachings every day of my working life (though some correspondents to the same letters column have frequently asserted that there has been a distinct absence of logic in some of my writings).

Thom’s letter marks a terrible trend in Australian universities. For a start, it has got to such a sorry stage that the Dean of the Faculty of Arts has to engage in what amounts to advertising for students. It is not quite the McArts degree, but governments have economically rationalised universities to the extent that courses which do not lead directly to a job qualification become unattractive.
Continue reading “1999_01_january_unis forum”