Crispin Hull

“Bring out yer dead.” Bring out yer dead. The words come from Jabawocky or a Monty Python skit in a grim portrayal of a dog-eat-dog world.

It is about to come to the ACT, at least metaphorically, if the ACT Community Law Reform Committee has its way. The committee recently brought out its recommendations for defamation law reform. One of its recommendations was that it should be possible to take an action for defaming the dead. The personal representatives of the dead person could bring the action.

Also, the committee thought that legal action for defamation by living people should not cease just because the person dies. The dead person’s representatives should be allowed to continue the action.
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The third wave is upon us. First upper management in pin-stripe suits got mobile phones; then tradespeople and now it is young people.

They have nothing to do with pose or statements of self-importance. They are wonderfully practical.

Some highly mobile young people I was talking to at the weekend use them as sole phones. They said the mobiles saved connection and disconnection costs. More importantly, as so many young people are casual and part-time workers they need to be contactable to get and keep work. That was their prime reason for buying it.
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And every creek a banker ran, and dams filled overtop.

We’ll all be rooned, said Hanrahan, if this rain doesn’t stop. (End ital).

In fact the Queenslanders loved it. Not only because it broke the drought, but because they took a pride in overcoming the inconvenience and the hardship.
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The ACT will be one of the most interesting parts of the federal election.

In the past, it has been dismissed as boring because it has almost invariably returned Labor members.

An independent held the sole ACT seat from 1949 to 1951 and a Liberal held Canberra from 1975 to 1980.
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In the Senate, it is very unlikely that the Coalition can get a majority. More likely, Labor will pick up a little. The Senate election is also unlikely to be kind to the Democrats.

This is because of numbers, quotas and history rather than what might happen in the campaign or the merits of policies.

These should favour the Labor Party; be fairly neutral for the Coalition and not be kind to the Democrats. The reason for this is that the senators up for re-election are those that were elected in 1990.
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The ancient rainforest has survived in the gorge. Above it, fires and continental warming have long since enabled dry eucalypts to replace it.

Aboriginal rock art has survived in the gorge. Sadly, its creators have long since been driven out.

Carnarvon Gorge in central Queensland has some of the finest examples of stencil rock art in Australia. Like most rock art it is pre-historic. There is no record, but the art itself. In some places, notably Kakadu, there has been a continuous verbal record (more recently written) which tells us what the art represents.
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We know the Opposition is suffering from Fightback-induced myopia, but must it resile from visionary statements in every field of governmental activity? Must the fear of a Labor attack on any blueprint about anything paralyse it into a bland and band-aid approach to everything.

Sure, abandon those elements of Fightback which damn elecgtoral; success: the GST and Darwinian industrial-relations and health policies. But in a field where Labor’s policies have been a demonstrable shambles of putting self-interest before national interests, Australians deserved a better effort than John Howard’s statement on communications policy this week.

The statement does not address the fundamental mistakes made by Labor over the past 13 years. Mr Howard was correct to label Labor’s policy as one of ad-hoc arrangemnts to suit various major players who might help Labor politically from time to time. That policy, of course, has not even achieved the aim of sweetening media players to help (or at least not disfavour Labor), and in its wake lies a policy shambles that has not served the Australian public well.
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The decision of the Federal Court this week to reject a native title claim by the Wik people puts a little more certainty into what has been a drawn-out process since the 1994 Mabo decision by the High Court.

The Mabo decision upheld a land claim by the Meriam people of Murray Island in the Torres Strait. It said that the common law would recognise title where native people could show continuous possession of the land and a social structure that dealt with land use. However, if the Crown (or later executive governments) dealt with the land in a way inconsistent with that native use, the native title would be extinguished. But if a state government attempted to deal with land contrary to the native title after the passage of the federal Racial Discrimination Act in 1975, it would be an act of racial discrimination, perhaps reversible or compensible. If the federal government attempted to take away native title it could be subject to a claim for compensation under the Constitution which demands that property taken by the Commonwealth only be taken on just terms.

The decision left many unanswered questions. The most vexed ones were to what extent mining and pastoral leases and national parks expunged native title.
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The British Government’s call for elections in Northern Ireland is both premature and dangerous. Britain argues that an election is an alternative path to peace given the refusal by the IRA and the para-military loyalist groups to disarm. On the other hand the Irish nationalist side argues that an election and the reconstitution of any form of home rule would result in the return to the old domination of the Catholic minority by the Protestant majority.

History supports the view of the latter. Even if the role of the new body were limited to discussions on a new political settlement in Northern Ireland, the domination argument still holds. At present, the “”sides” in the constitutional and peace process are the British and Irish Governments and the groups representing the Catholic and Protestant side in Northern Ireland. Elections would not change the parties, but it would change their weight. Protestants would get a majority in an election, and would therefore take to themselves a mantle of legitimacy suggesting their voice was worth more. Everyone agrees on who should be around the table; there is no need for an election. All an election can do is engender mistrust and inflame differences.

The best thing for the people in Northern Ireland at present if for no-one to make any sudden moves. Lots of talk, lots of shuffling about and lots of waffle for quite long time will give Northern Ireland the best chance for peace. The longer the truce goes on, the more people in Northern Ireland will value peace and learn to understand each other. It will also allow for the gradual dissolution of the war industry that had built up in the 25 years to 1994.
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What exactly does Bill Clinton stand for, if anything? Well, we know that he is standing for re-election, but beyond that he does not seem to have a clear direction or solid view on anything. His State of the Union message this week revealed an indecisive, ambivalent man. The only clarity in the speech was in the style of the delivery. The voice was strong, at times dramatic. The words, taken one by one, were uttered clearly. But taken together, it was difficult to work out what Mr Clinton was saying or where he wanted America to go. The two most critical policy elements for American government are the size of the role of government in society and the extent to which America engages in the world. What did we get from Mr Clinton?

He said, “”The era of big government is over. But we cannot go back to the time when our citizens were left to fend for themselves.”

He gave a long-term commitment to balancing the Budget and then said, “”I challenge Congress to preserve the full faith and credit of the United States, to honour our obligations as we have for 220 years, to rise above partisanship and pass a straightforward extension of the debt limit.”
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