Crispin Hull

Few other products in the history of human merchandising have had such little testing in the marketplace in comparison to numbers of items sold as the operating software package Windows 95. It is as if the lemmings are buying what they are told to buy, by a massive advertising campaign and barrage of media hype, rather than what they need or want to buy.

Sure, Windows 95 will be an improvement on the old operating system. But initially, according to some experts, it will have bugs.

Other experts suggest that Windows 95 will do nothing more than Apple computers have been capable of for years. If this is the case Bill Gates and his Microsoft corporation are to be congratulated on one of the biggest corporate scams in human history _ to get 50 million users to pay for the repackaging of someone else’s ideas to run on machinery that other people have bought from someone else.
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Now the furore over the Chinese Embassy has died down, the Federal Government has taken a more sensible and conciliatory approach on the publication of security matters. Earlier this year, the Foreign Minister, Gareth Evans, sought “”significant penalties” to deter publication of security matters. He wanted to fine and jail journalists and fine media companies for publishing a wide range of material that might affect Australia’s national interest. There are already penalties for the security operatives who leak the material in the first place. There already are some sweeping, but unused criminal provisions for those who publish the leaks. Senator Evans, however, wanted more detailed and explicit sanctions to stop secondary publication. It was a dangerous course in a liberal-democratic society.

The formulation and application of tests about what is a “”security matter” could see any attempt at legal sanctions be turned into bans on publishing things which might embarrass the government rather than things genuinely prejudicial to Australia’s national interest. Presumably, Senator Evans thought that the disclosures over the bugging of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra would be enough to attract criminal sanctions under his new regime. Yet, just a few months later, we see that there is no discernible difference in Australia-Chinese relations as a result of the disclosure.
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Of the 21 people who have been Governor-General of Australia, only one has been called upon to make a decision that in any way prfoundly affected the lives of Australians. That was Sir John Kerr in 1975.

For the rest of the 95-year history of the position, the occupants have not had to make serious decisions or to weigh up competing interests or arguments. In that sense it is not a taxing job. Sure, it is demanding on time and requires a modicum of social grace and an ability to make a good speech. Stripped of its nominal casting as the top position in the Australian political heirarchy, the practical elements of the job are not difficult. The mere fact that various incumbents and supporters of the office have protested too much to the contrary illustrates the point.
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The owner of the hand that signed the paper apparently did not use her own name and identity. Helen “”Demidenko”, the 24-year-old winner of the Miles Franklin award with her first novel The Hand that Signed the Paper is not the daughter of an illiterate migrant Ukrainian taxi driver telling a a story about her father’s wartime experience. She is Helen Darville, daughter of English migrants, who used the Ukrainian name, according to her brother, to protect her family and to make the story of the book “”seem more real”.

The former is an acceptable reason for taking a nom de plume. The latter is a deception. That deception has been compounded in subsequent interviews when Demidenko has presented as fact various lies about her family.
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There is something disquieting about developers sooling lawyers upon citizens giving submissions to the leasehold inquiry.

The sooling has taken the form of defamation writs and applications to cross-examine those giving written submissions _ people of modest resources who do not have tax-deductible legal expenses and who are not working from the profit motive, though the developers would argue they are coming from a selfish position of keeping the city as it is.

Justice Paul Stein, who heads the inquiry, has quite properly rejected submissions to have lawyers cross-examine those giving submissions. The inquiry is not adversarial. It is an inquiry to see whether the law and administration of the leasehold system are working well or if there have been defects, to recommend change.
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Nick Greiner has certainly learnt his lesson about Australian politics in the 1990s. How dare he be so courageous as to say something about gutlessness in Australian politics. And what a foolish fellow to imagine that the Australian media would have treated a thoughtful hypothesis of trends and ideas in any way other than in terms of personalities. Mr Greiner has clearly been in the business environment too long _ fancy imagining politicians (former or present) actually reading the text of what he said before opening their mouths.

The reaction to Mr Greiner’s speech was a delicious confirmation of its content _ the price of courage in Australian politics these days is to have your ideas spun, misinterpreted and hit with a fear campaign so that retreat or defeat is inevitable.

It means, of course, that any attempt at worthwhile reform is doomed. It means that change that result in dishing out govenment money gets done, but changes for greater efficiency or changes with short-term painfor long-term gain get taken off the agenda.
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Parliament sits next week after the long winter break. Federal MPs have been out of Canberra in their electorates and elsewhere for seven weeks. Talking to the “real” Australia as they like to portray it. Labor MPs will come back to a caucus meeting on Monday and backbenchers are expected to relay to the leadership some of their electors feelings and concerns. It is likely they will portray concerns about the electorate’s dislike of Paul Keating, especially the feeling that he is aloof from the concerns of ordinary Australians. Mr Keating does not have long to correct that; the next election is only six months or so away. Essentially, he has the parliamentary session up to Christmas to turn around the perception that his Government has not delivered on the economic recovery and that he is not alert to the economic concerns of ordinary Australians.

The most recent opinion polls suggest that Labor can by no means be written off. After lagging the coalition for months, Labor has bounced back to level pegging. Mr Keating, too, has bounced back to be level with John Howard as preferred prime minister.
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It is almost ritual for any in-coming government to tussle with the Public Service. The tussle can be over suspicion by the Government about the political sympathies of senior public servants; suspicion about their empire-building and empire-consolidating tendencies; or suspicion over inefficiency.

The ACT Government appears to have no difficulty on the first count. Most senior ACT public servants have worked with governments of both complexions. However, it has a determined view that the ACT Government Service is too large. That view seems to be a combination of two things: that the same job could be done with fewer people or that the ACT simply cannot afford to have a service of the present size so it must be cut and if that means fewer functions, so be it.

Ideally, a government would like to deliver the same functions and services with fewer people, or at worse deliver the same services, even if some are contracted out.
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The idea of having the head of a the ACT police force as a statutory appointment under ACT legislation is merely one of symbolism. At present the nominal head of ACT policing is an officer of the Australian Federal Police appointed by the Commissioner of the AFP who is answerable to the Federal Government. In fact the appointment is made with consultation with the ACT Government. If the office were to become an ACT statutory office it would not be filled without consultation with the Federal Government, so in practice nothing much would change _ both Governments would have an effective veto.

Some see having a separate statutory head of ACT policing as the precursor of a separate police force. The ACT used to have its own police force answerable to a Federal Minister. However, since the creation of a separate Australian Federal Police, the ACT force has been subsumed – to the advantage of the people of the ACT. The AFP provides better career opportunities and the ACT gets the advantage of officers moving between ACT and federal duties. The ACT also gets all the economies of scale associated with a bigger force.
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The ACT Government’s decision to sell Jindalee Nursing Home has to be seen in the framework of the Commonwealth’s increased role in the field. The Commonwealth has increasingly used its control over the purse strings to exercise ever more control over all aspects of health, including nursing homes. At present it grants nursing homes subsidies according to patient numbers. In return it demands certain standards are met. The trouble at the moment is that the ACT Government is not meeting all the standards. It is not very good at running nursing homes _ unlike others in the private sector and in the non-profit (charity) sector. The ACT Government is running Jindalee at a loss after Commonwealth subsidy and is running it sub-standard. It meets medical and nursing standards, but not all the quality of life standards.

It would be better for the patients and for the ACT Budget to get someone who is good at running nursing homes to run Jindalee. The Commonwealth subsidy would continue. Moreover, Commonwealth standards would more likely be enforced unlike now.
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