Crispin Hull

The margin may not seem much, but in democracies majorities, however narrow, get stamped with legitimacy. In these terms, the vote means that doing nothing might be a legitimate political response to the referendum result in Quebec. But it would not be a legitimate moral response.

It would be better now if both the Quebec provincial Government and the Canadian federal Government acted as if the vote have been half a percent the other way.

On its face, the referendum result shows that a tad under half of Quebec population wants separation and a tad over half do not. The technical majority do not want fundamental change. But underlying the result is an overwhelming expression of dissatisfaction with present constitutional arrangements. Yes; overwhelming. It is overwhelming because any geo-political entity requires not a mere majority but large majority in favour of its political arrangements for stability and to permit a framework of legitimacy within which vigorous, healthy debate can be conducted on a range of important political issues without dangerous divisiveness that can degenerate into violence … something that has happened in Quebec in recent times.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_leader01nov”

It is as well Bill Hayden has only a few months to go. It is unwise for a viceroy to cross a Prime Minister, as an experience in Ireland between the wars illustrates.

Hayden has questioned the republican model endorsed by Prime Minister Paul Keating. Hayden questioned the wisdom of having the President once elected by a two-thirds majority of Parliament only removable by a two-thirds majority of Parliament.

He thought a President supported by a mere one-third of the Parliament could act in a way detrimental to good Government and the Government could do nothing about it.
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The Leader of the British Labour Party, Tony Blair, and the Leader of the Australian conservatives, John Howard, have a few things in common.

Both have spent the past year not so much promoting their own policies for government but distancing themselves from the more extreme policies their respective parties held earlier in Opposition.

Blair has spoken of New Labour for a New Britain, with capital Ns, but he does not really mean anything too radical.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_column28nov”

I was like Mr Bean at the beginning of one of his skits. Everything was going right. I was booked in to the splendid Park Lane Hotel in Piccadilly and had done a bracing walk around the Monopoly board. I smuggly took out my UK-Australian power-plug converter and plugged my computer into the wall.

I then reached for the telephone to unclip the line, and plug it into my modem so I could transmit my rhinestones of wisdom to Australia.

Alas, the line disappeared directly into the phone. And at the wall end was an alien British plug, the like of which I had never seen before. Bean-like, my bottom lipped pouted and my eyes frowned in bemusement.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_column21nov”

In medieval England they used to make accused people carry an iron bar three paces. Depending on how quickly God was said to have intervened to heal it, the accused was set free or hanged. It was called trial by ordeal.

Virtually any system would be better. For example, you could round up 12 people wandering around the street to make a decision. But you probably would not if you were working from from scratch.

The jury system defies what we know from experience. What do we do if we do something difficult, like building a bridge, learning to fly an aeroplane, building a brick wall for a two-storey house, doing surgery and so on? The best results are usually achieved with a gradual build up of theory and practice with the students asking questions as they go … in short, education. Thus surgeons are trained on dead bodies first. Pilots start with simulators and then go up with an instructing co-pilot and so on.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_column14nov”

The phoney election campaign over the past month presents a clear case for fixed-term Parliaments. One of the objections to fixed terms has been that they result in long campaigns because politicians know when the election will be held and start campaigning well in advance. America is cited as an example. But in the past month we have had a de-facto election campaign precisely because we do (ital) not (ital) know the election date.

If we had a fixed three year term, the election date would be know … say, March 16 … and the two parties could have a Bex and good lie down until, say, the beginning of February. There would be no wastage of ammunition in a phoney war.

There is no good reason why the government side should get the advantage of setting the date. Fairness suggests that all contestants should be able to plan with a set date in mind. It might improve government if policies were developed in the knowledge of the election date well-known. The present phoney campaign has resulted in a silly cat-and-mouse game the Government playing on Opposition paranoia of releasing policies too early because they might get subjected to a scare campaign.
Continue reading “1995_11_november_column07nov”

The theme music and credits of Neighbours disappear just before the major evening news bulletin on BBC One hits the air to tell that Diana does not think Charles is fit to be king.

The juxtaposition illustrates the images Britain and Australia have of each other _ Australia as an easy-going open land of sun and Britain as the nation of royalty, history, pomp and circumstance.

It is not the reality, of course, but the stereotypes do hinder business by raising false expectations. The Australian High Commissioner in London, Dr Neal Blewett, says, “”It is easier to operate diplomatically and in business terms if you have got realistic images of each other’s society.”
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Professor Michael Baum is confident that one day a rational, biological treatment for breast cancer will be found. It may be 10 or 15 years away. “”But in the meantime we cannot do nothing,” he says. So he is doing something, but he has come under a lot of irrational resistance.

Baum is on the co-ordinating committee on cancer research and is a professor in the department of surgery at University College Hospital in London.

He is working on a clinical trial of the drug Tamoxifen. And is seeking volunteers. It is different from a lot of medical trials. Rather than seeking people with disease and giving a new treatment to one group and no treatment or conventional treatment to another, this trial is not for people who have been diagnosed with cancer, but rather their sisters, daughters and others in families with high risk factors. The idea is that if the volunteers take Tamoxifen over five or more years it may prevent the onset of cancer. But Tamoxifen can cause cancer of the endometrium (the lining of the uterus).
Continue reading “1995_11_november_bcancer”

The Commonwealth snatched income-tax power from the states in 1942 using some artful legal arguments and the war. The theory was that the Commonwealth would give the power back after the war, but it never did. Legally and constitutionally, it still possible for the states to levy income tax, if the Commwealth will let them.

This week Prime Minister Paul Keating said he would propose a referendum to change the Constitution to cement in an exclusive Commonwealth income-tax power so no future conservative government could give any income-tax power back to the states.

The Commonwealth shut the states out of income tax in 1942 with several Acts of Parliament which were upheld by the High Court. Essentially the Commonwealth demanded that the states hand over their income-tax records; that all state income-tax officials be transferred to the Commonwealth and that if any state dared raise an income tax the Commonwealth would impose a 100 per cent tax on that state’s citizens, thus excluding any room for a state tax. The Commonwealth would then return to the citizen any part of the income it did not need. The Commonwealth agreed to give back to the states a share of the tax collected in the form of grants.
Continue reading “1995_10_october_tax”

When the head of Australia’s monopoly steel producer, BHP, comments on the state of the Government’s running of the Australian economy, a fair amount of the business community, some politicians but only a few ordinary voters take notice. Incidentally, all of the middle executive of BHP take notice. The political fall-out, in terms of changed policy or a changed perception by voters of the Government is not profound. Indeed it is quite small. In that context, it does not matter that BHP is a virtual monopoly. Nor would it matter much whether the head of one or other of a dozen monopoly or duopoly producers joined the political debate.

It is of consequence, however, when the head of News Ltd, Rupert Murdoch makes political assessments. News Ltd is the monopoly or dominant supplier of print news in Adelaide, Brisbane, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney, owning the major-circulation daily in each. News Ltd also owns the highest-circulation daily national paper. Further, the Murdoch controlled Foxtel is a partner with Telstra in a cable pay television venture that is being rolled out now to Australian homes. It will carry a news channel supplied by a venture dominated by Kerry Packer’s Nine Network. It also owns 14.9 per cent of Channel Seven, the partner in the pay TV news venture.
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