Crispin Hull

Half a century ago a republican in Australia would have been an iconoclast _ someone who tilts at icons.

Now, the iconoclast is someone who tilts at the icon of the coming republic, which is increasingly seen as “”inevitable” and a Good Thing.

Next month will see the publication of a history of the common law, Barbarism to Verdict, by author and barrister Justin Fleming, who in an almost off-hand way joins these latter-day iconoclasts.

“”If a country can itself decide simple to remove royal authority, then it must already have independence, in which case the change of Head of State is a mere formality of no consequence which can in no way change the material quality or spirit of life,” he writes. “”It wouldn’t magically reduce the fantastic excess of prosecutions in a land where life is madly over-governed and lived out under the voracious appetite of almost every authority from parking inspectors to health authorities for court orders and penalties. The fact that there would be no royalty in Australia would not remove Australia’s dire need of a Magna Carta to address an intolerable level of official interference in liberty. The impression that change would be experienced is illusory.”
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They all share a belief in direct democracy and will play a central role at a conference on it on Thursday. The aim is to enable citizens who gather a threshold number of signatures to force a referendum on a law they are proposing or a law they want repealed.

Federally, this may be far-off fantasyland, but not so in the ACT. Some form of direct democracy is very likely very soon. The Liberals are to put a Bill to the next sitting and the Independents are very likely to support it.

Whenever I mention direct democracy I get a scornful reaction, usually along the lines that it will enable the far right to get up lunatic proposals, like castration for rapists, right to carry guns, capital punishment and so on.
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At present copyright subsists in “”works” and copyright is the exclusive right to copy or perform the “”work”. The right includes a right to go to court to stop others copying or performing the work, to deliver up any profits made and damages.

Works are broadly categorised as literary (anything written, not necessarily of literary merit); artistic, musical, photographic and cinematographic. Copyright will also protect three dimensional things in sculpture and architecture.

Notice, there are two essential elements: copying and works.

In the past three decades, copyright law has belatedly dealt with easy copying of records on to audio tape; copying of paper by photocopiers and of film through video tape. More recently it has dealt with copying of computer programs in business, but household piracy is still rampant.
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The longest section in Australia’s Consitution, by far, is Section 15 on replacing dead and resigning senators. It came into the Constitution after a referendum in 1977 when Malcolm Fraser was still trying to prove he was a decent chap after all and would never do what awful Joh did by appointing someone not of the dead senators’ party.

It was passed at a time of unprecedented mistrust of politicians of each other. All t’s had to be crossed and all i’s dotted.

The one section takes up more space than the whole list of powers of the Commonwealth Parliament. It rabbits on attempting to answer all the sceptics’ and politicians’ “”what ifs?”

The section should have read: “”A senator elected as a member of a political party who resigns or dies will be replaced by a person from that party.”
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This is not the same as the American system, where the lawyer takes a percentage of the winnings. Rather it is a no-win, no-fee system. The client does not pay his own lawyer if he loses, but would still be up for the fees of the other side.

The Melbourne firm’s action follows a recommendation in the Access to Justice report that came out in May, but it is not especially new. In Canberra, for example, firms have been quietly doing the right thing by poor clients for decades. It would be fair to say that in personal injuries cases in Canberra, no-one with a reasonable case would be denied legal representation just because they did not have enough money. The trouble is, lawyers have either not trumpeted their good works, or the rules about advertising have prevented them from making the practice more widely known.

The practice varies. Some say they will only charge if they win. Others say they will not require payment until the outcome is known (maybe years later), but clients will be required to pay if they lose. Also, the practice varies on disbursements (doctors’ reports and other out-of-pocket expenses). Barristers, too, often work on a no-win, no-fee basis.
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Architectural vision is being obliterated because of design by committee and the need for the consent of too many bureaucrats and community groups, according to leading Australian architect, Philip Cox.

Mr Cox was speaking at Parliament House yesterday at the launch of Better Cities National Status Report for 1994 by the Deputy Prime Minister, Brain Howe.

Mr Cox said those cities which were celebrated and loved were created by people of design and vision: Wren’s London, Craig’s Edinburgh, Peter the Great’s St Petersburgh, Haussman’s Paris and the Athens of Pericles.
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Prime Minister Paul Keating and Opposition Leader Alexander Downer were described as elitist yesterday by best-selling author Bryce Courtenay and others for dismissing the idea of citizens’ initiative referendums.

Mr Courtenay, author of (ital) The Power of One (end ital) and (ital) April Fool’s Day (end ital), said there was disenchantment with the political system in Australia because four or five people in Cabinet made all the decisions.

Of course people were apathetic and did not have an opinion. “”There is no opinion to have,” he said. Politics had disappeared into “”smaller and smaller concentric circles about smaller and smaller things”.
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An ACT referendum will be required on a issue if supported by 10,000 signatures under a proposal detailed by the Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, yesterday.

She said the Community Referendum Bill would be introduced into the Legislative Assembly next month. The trigger number of signatures would be 5 per cent of electors, or about 10,000, collected in six months.

Her announcement came before a federal conference on citizens’ initiated referendums (or direct democracy) on Thursday. That conference will be addressed by Liberal Peter Reith, Democrat Leader Cheryl Kernot, Independent Ted Mack, authors Bryce Courtenay, Tom Kenneally and Morris West, and Ms Carnell.
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Apologies to Keats for mashing his beautiful sonnet “”On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer” penned in the early years of last century. And apologies to Chapman, for likening him to a CD-ROM player, but just a Keats marvelled at his new view of Greece after being introduced to Homer after Chapman did the translation, I am marvelling at the power of CD-ROM to do things with law and encyclopedias.

And like Keats, I am a late-comer. Most of his companions learnt Greek and did not wait for Chapman. CD-ROMS have been around awhile, especially in the workplace, but to have one in the computer at home, with some useful CDs is different.

So many CDs for computers are rubbish _ vast computing power wasted on games and sound effects. However, an encyclopedia or the volumes of Commonwealth law that take up eight metres of shelves on CD is another matter.
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How cute. The cat replaces the mouse. Above is the ACECAT II (pen and electronic tablet) which can be used as a computer pen for drawing, drafting and for doing all the usual thing the mouse does.

ACECAT II uses precise positioning. The tablet and the screen correlate. Where you point on the tablet is exactly where your cursor appears on the screen. When you hold the pen down the nib clicks, in an equivalent to the left mouse button (the right button is on the handle of the pen).

The ACECAT II costs $199 at Dick Smith Electronics.
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