Crispin Hull

The ACT Liberal Party is seeking some quality women candidates for the next Legislative Assembly election in February.

The ACT president of the party, Gwen Wilcox, said yesterday that seven candidates would be chosen for Molonglo and five for Brindabella. Five had already been chosen for Ginninderra.

The party’s leader, Kate Carnell, the only woman of the six Liberal MLAs, said the party was looking for good women candidates.

The Liberal Party does not have an affirmative-action policy like Labor which re-orders candidates if necessary to give women winnable positions.
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Professor Ron Sackville and his Access to Justice Advisory Committee have done an extraordinary job in the past seven months in producing a 500-page report on ways to improve access to justice. Professor Sackville delivered his report this week to the Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, who has outlined a process to convert the recommendations of the report into action.

Among its recommendations were: contingency fees (no-win, no-fee); lawyers to freely advertise everything, including fees; abolition of scale fees and a requirement that lawyers tell clients the fees beforehand; an complaints body independent of the legal profession; televising of some court proceedings; abolition of wigs and gowns; more and better directed legal aid; more alternative dispute resolution; more court-controlled case management; simpler legislation; cheaper electronic access to legislation on database; better harmony of the laws of the states.

A couple of commendable aspects to the recommendations stand out. Often the major recommendations of committee involved in questions of social justice respond with calls to throw dollars at the problem. The vast majority of this committee’s recommendations are commonsense changes to practice that will cost nothing. Secondly, the vast bulk of the changes will not result in a transfer of money from the well-off to the not-so-well off. Indeed, the wealthy will have as much to gain from the recommendations as the not so well-off.
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Aside from wanting to conquer the world before he is thirty-something, the Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, has something else in common with Napoleon.

He wants to simplify the law and have it available to all in a pocket-book.

Well, it may have to be a notebook computer, but the principle is the same.

Last week, the Access to Justice report called for greater access to legislation, simpler legislation and cheaper legislation. Much of that is in hand at the Commonwealth level.

Earlier this month tenders were sought for a program to make the laws of the Commonwealth available cheaply to the public on computer. The project will be done in stages. The first stage is to make the Attorney-General’s Department’s present electronic law database, called SCALE, available at all AGPS bookshops by July 1. And it will be free. At least to browse. It you want print-outs you will pay.
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ACT Opposition Leader Kate Carnell has called for a two-part referendum on the republic.

The first part would have the simple question: “”Do you want the present constitutional monarchy or change to a federal republic?”

The second part, if there were a majority for change would ask how people wanted the Head of State chosen: popular election, two-thirds of a Federal joint sitting or two-thirds of a join federal and state parliamentary sitting.

She said the real test for proponents of a republic was whether it would give citizens an extra say.
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A series of radical changes to legal and court practice were recommended yesterday by the Access to Justice Advisory Committee.

It said high lawyers’ fees were preventing people from asserting their rights and that governments and courts could do more to improve the cost, speed and access to justice. however, there was no single, simple solution.

Among its recommendations were: contingency fees (no-win, no-fee); lawyers to freely advertise everything, including fees; abolition of scale fees and a requirement that lawyers tell clients the fees beforehand; an complaints body independent of the legal profession; televising of some court proceedings; abolition of wigs and gowns; more and better directed legal aid; more alternative dispute resolution; more court-controlled case management; a review of court fees which should not be user-pays; simpler legislation; cheaper electronic access to legislation on database; better harmony of the laws of the states.

The committee said, “”We think the plan we have proposed offers an unparalleled opportunity for the Australian Government in particular to improve access to justice for all Australians.”
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A design for an extra nine holes for Royal Canberra Golf course is to go before the club’s board this week.

However, a small land swap with the ACT Government will be needed before construction can go ahead.

The club’s board would meet on Thursday to discuss the plan, a club spokesman said. It would then seek the Government’s view on the land swap before putting the development to members.

The bulk of the development is to be constructed on the club’s lease on Lees Paddock between the Scrivener Dam Road and Dunrossil Drive (the road to Government House).
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A defamation action has closed five years after publication with a policeman plaintiff paying The Canberra Times the last instalment of $22,500 in costs over his unsuccessful action.

The policeman, Daniel Peter Edwards, sued over the publication in April, 1989, of a report of court proceedings in which he gave evidence. Mr Edwards won in the Magistrates Court, but the Supreme Court ruled the magistrate had erred. Justice Gallop said the report was fair and accurate and gave a correct impression that Mr Edward did not recall or did not know the answer to questions asked of him.

Evidence in the Magistrates Court suggested that most of Mr Edwards’s costs were being borne by the ACT Police Association.
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The man who in 1988 ran one of the most successful “No” campaigns in Australian constitutional history, Peter Reith, wants to run a successful “”Yes” campaign.

The change he wants is direct democracy, or citizen’s initiative.

Under it, the people would get a direct say to propose a law or repeal an existing law in a referendum provide a threshold of signatures has been collected.

Reith, opposition spokesman on defence, is the first to acknowledge he does not have wide support among his parliamentary colleagues. They see it as a threat, or at minimum a signal that they might not be doing such a good job. However, he thinks that if they see widespread public support for it, they will support it.
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They unerringly go for the jugular.

The one scene in a Steinbeck novel that stands out above all else, indeed, it stands out in American literature as a whole, is the scene in the Grapes of Wrath where Rose of Sharon gives her breast to a man dying of starvation.

Steinbeck’s publisher wrote: “”Taken as the finale of such a book with all its vastness and surge, it struck us on reflection as being all too abrupt. It seems to us that the last few pages need building up.” The publisher suggested that the starving man, a stranger, needed some introduction.

Of course, Steinbeck’s very point was that he was a stranger, that Sharon of Rose brought the stranger (and all of humankind) into the Joad family.
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Sometimes I also get a piece from Charles Wright (Lost Clusters), but it has been rather haphazard in its arrival and he’s just about impossible to contact.

Mike Carrol will probably send in stories, as will Bill Olson. Olson’s stories are pretty good generally but they need translating (changing) into useable English.

I also will be sending in stories. The first won’t arrive until next Sunday or Monday, obviously too late for Monday 23’s paper. Phylly also will send in advenure page section. She is joining me in UK at end of May but she will send enough stories to keep you covered until she gets back in Mid June.
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