Crispin Hull

This is a pertinent question right now for the National Library of Australia on two levels.

The first is that it is one of the most frequently asked questions by non-research visitors to the National Library. They imagine a library full of books they can see, like the local library. But when they arrive they do not see shelves and shelves of books as they imagined. The vast bulk of the collection is hidden from public view.

The second is that more and more information is to be found electronically. Either the search is done electronically to find the information on paper, or both the search and the information are electronic.
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The proposal by the Deputy Prime Minister, Brian Howe, for a social performance charter is well worth further consideration. Mr Howe put the idea forward this week that Australia have a charter of rights and responsibilities. It was not a Bill of Rights in the classic sense, nor even a set of enforceable legal rights. Those are separate issues. Rather Mr Howe was talking about all levels of government setting objectives endorsed by the people and measuring performance against them for things like the delivery of housing, health and education.

Mr Howe was putting his ideas quite tentatively. They deserve exploration and debate. He pointed out that there was strong public support for Medicare, public education and housing and social welfare benefits, but these values had never been formally articulated.

Perhaps more importantly the performance of the service providers has not been measured well.

In the private sector, competition and the profit motive have a strong self-regulatory influence to ensure organisations deliver efficiently or at least go some distance to satisfy public complains when that delivery breaks down.
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On Saturday an extraordinary event will occur that will illustrate the vulnerability of humankind and its fragile tenure on planet Earth.

Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 will crash in Jupiter. A similar collision into Earth would perhaps eliminate human life leaving the planet to another phase of evolution, much as what happened when the dinosaurs became extinct 60 million years ago.

The comet has already broken into 20 pieces and astronomers are calculating with increasing precision where and when the bits will strike. Imagine if it were heading for Earth.
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The leading constitutional lawyer Colin Howard called for the opening up of the process of appointment of High Court judges at a conference at the weekend. Dr Howard, formerly professor of law at Melbourne University, told the Samuel Griffiths Society that nominees for the High Court should be examined publicly by a committee, with some non-politicians, and approved by each House of Parliament.

This is reminiscent of the system in the United States where presidential nominees for the Supreme Court must be approved by the Senate. A Senate committee then examines the nominee before making a recommendation to the Senate.

In America it has resulted in detailed raking over of the personal affairs of nominees, both financial and sexual. On some occasions it has caused accusations to fly so the hearings have taken more the form of a trial than a confirmation hearing. Before Dr Howard’s suggestion were taken up, a way of preventing that would have to be obtained.
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The Attorney-General’s Department has spent $700,000 in its bringing-law-to-the-people program on work already done by private enterprise, according to computer industry sources.

The department has confirmed spending the money on creating an electronic database of consolidated Commonwealth legislation which has just been completed.

A consolidation of the legislation, however, had already been done by Diskrom Australia and been available and constantly updated since last October.

There are 92,907 sections in just over 4300 Acts of Commonwealth Parliament.
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Brian Howe must have bitten his tongue as his leader weighed into urban planning during the week.

The Prime Minister’s prescriptive foray neatly illustrates some of the frictions in Australian urban planning and some of the frictions in Australian politics.

Keating has a list of about 10 points that make his vision for central Sydney. For our purposes the most important are: demolishing the Cahill expressway; relocating the casino project; and bringing affordable quality housing to the water’s edge.

Removing the expressway is visionary.
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Some of the early Marion Griffin drawings of dwellings and other buildings in the centre of Canberra are very different from what has happened.

The Griffins imagined a far more densely populated city. However, they were designing before the internal combustion engine had its way. Now, as people see cities less dominated by the car, higher densities and greater reliance on walking and public transport have dominated public-policy thinking. This would result in greater efficiency of use of infrastructure, it has been argued. The public appeal has been for a livelier city centre that does not empty at 5pm.

Riding on the back of this policy have been several major high-density developments in the centre of town: James Court, pictured above, Monterey and the ANZ site on Ainslie Avenue.
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A 70-year-old woman from the suburb of Griffith rang this week.

She has lived in her house in Griffith for more than 40 years. Now the house nexxt door is to be bull-dozed and replaced with three three-bedroom, two-storey units.

Her house is on the southern side of the new units in Lefroy Street and even if the units themselves pass all the solar-efficiency tests, her house, in particular a special sunny spot in her garden, will be shaded.

She does not want to make her name public. She is fearful. However, she makes the point that she will have the option of making a private protest at the ACT election next February.
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E-mail has no body language. Body language can make a lot of difference. Try listening to the soundtrack of a musical you have never seen; it does not make much sense.

The words on their own can convey the wrong impression. People can sound grumpy, sharp or serious. Or sound flippant when they are being serious.

If you are too pompous, or if someone disagrees with you a heated response can come back _ it is called flaming.

Another Internet tradition, FYI, is abbreviating, BTW. IMHO (in my humble opinion) and PMJI (pardon me jumping in) are other examples.
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My daughter bought a new car the other day and I took it for a test drive.

In an utterly unremarkable way I put the key in the ignition turned the engine on, put it in gear, flicked on the right indicator and took off. It was a bit warm so I hit the button for the electric window. Then I washed the front window. It was an ordinary Japanese Hondoyitshi car.

In 1961, my father bought a second-hand Morris 10. It was in fairly good condition. Even the manual was in the glove-box.

The manual showed you where to find the crank-handle and how to work it, if the starter motor did not work. It showed you how to wind down the windows and described the workings of clutch and gear lever.
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