Crispin Hull

At the outset he said that he would ask the questions; witnesses could have lawyers present, but the lawyers could not speak nor question witnesses. Witnesses would get a chance to respond to what other witnesses said if they wanted at the end.

And the inquiry ripped along.

Also last week, the High Court ruled that witnesses at government-appointed inquiries do not have a right to publicly funded legal representation. Some witnesses whose credibility and reputation were at stake at a NSW inquiry sought to stop the inquiry unless they got free legals. The High Court said no, refusing to extend to inquiry witnesses its earlier ruling that an accused at a trial had a right to representation if he could not afford his own. It has not published its reasons.

This was bad news for lawyers. Lawyers have made a fortune over the years at Royal Commissions, perhaps the WA Inc Royal Commission being the zenith. Getting their paws on public money would have added to their take.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_column09may”

The court divided. Justice Brennan was in the minority. His minority judgment has been seen (incorrectly in my view) as a “”natural law” position as distinct from a “”positivist” position. And even though he was in the minority in this case, it has been seen as part of a general swing by the High Court towards the “”natural-law” view of the world.

Natural law goes back to ancient times and has taken many forms. Broadly, it appeals to some higher form of universal morality beyond church and nation. Legal positivism, a creature of the scientific age scoffed at this, arguing that the only law was the law factually promulgated and enforced by the state. The positivists argued that natural law was a lot of unprovable wool.

In the face of continuing world horrors, however, the natural-law position is now gaining more respectability. Murder is murder, rape is rape, we all know that, so it doesn’t matter if the “”positive” law in Bosnia at the time allowed it _ to put the natural-law position at its crudest.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_column02may”

Independent MLA Michael Moore expressed concern yesterday over a proposal to put closed-circuit television monitoring in Civic.

The proposal has been put by the Australian Protective Service to the Community Safety Committee which was set up by the ACT Government to look at ways to curbs violence and disorder in Civic.

The APS proposal would put closed-circuit television cameras in Civic and monitor 24 hours a day. An operator in the remote monitoring station would scrutinise television signals and alert police of incidents requiring attention. It would cost about $250,000.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_civictv”

The CSIRO, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and the Australian Institute of Marine Science will get in total an extra $34 million average in each of the next three years.

In 1994-95 general outlays on general and scientific research are expected to be 0.9 per cent of GDP, the same as last year. Of that, 43 per cent goes to CSIRO and 30 per cent to the Australian Research Council.

The general trend is one of increased external earnings and declining Budget allocations and towards applied research rather than longer term strategic research.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_chscie”

Arts and cultural funding is little changed.

A further half a million Australians will get SBS following a $5 million allocation for transmitters in the Tweed Heads and Wide Bay areas.

There is no funding to start the National Museum.

Film Australia’s National Interest Program has been renewed following the end of the three-year program which produced 69 films and a review of the program which reported good television coverage and a high standard.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_charts”

The good news for the ACT in the Budget is a new building for the Department of Industrial Relations and other capital works and federal funding in line with expectations.

The bad news is that there is no announcement on the National Museum.

The new building will be 14,000 square metres and the department will be its main tenant. Several sites in Barton are under consideration. However, its precise cost was not announced because it is being contracted to the private sector. Construction is to begin at the beginning of next year.

However, some idea can be gained by comparing the Foreign Affairs building: 46,000 square metres, $187 million and 1500 jobs (directly and indirectly). The IR building should be a bit less than a third of this.

The Budget papers said it would be financed on instalment payments. The developer would provide the initial capital and be repaid over the construction period when the Commonwealth would take ownership.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_chactfin”

A shake-up of one of Canberra’s largest building and land-development companies will be sought at a shareholders’ meeting tonight.

The company, Consolidated Builders Ltd, is made up of about 100 medium- and small-builder shareholders, nearly all of Croatian background.

The company’s aims were to enable smaller builders to get access to Canberra’s land-development market which since privatisation has had erratic releases and domination by several large companies. The original intention of the company was to provide mainly for first-home buyers in Canberra.

In March a general meeting of shareholders appointed a four-member committee, including a solicitor, to look at the conduct of the company’s business. In a report, the committee said it found several areas of concern and has recommended publication of a more detailed formula for distributing land among the builder shareholders. The committee also recommended that no shareholder (including immediate family and related companies) own more than 9 per cent of the company.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_build”

The lights burned most of the night in Barton and West Deakin.

Canberra’s third biggest industry was at work. Ralph Willis had just delivered the Budget and industry groups (at least the active ones) had to have all the pertinent bits circulated through their industry first thing next morning.

The executive directors and their minions thumbed through the voluminous Budget papers members getting an overview and extracting the detail of what might affect their industry.

It is a hard slog. It is easy to miss something.

At 1pm that day about 400 journalists attended a lock up in Parliament House. For six and a half hours before Mr Willis gets to his feet, they, too, slogged through the papers. The journalists were given _ wait for it _ 1.2 tonnes of paper. Some journalists are the comentators, the overview writers and those who concentrate on the new big-ticket items. Others are specialist writers: science, education, sport, health, arts, defence, law and so on. The things they write about (arguably the more important elements to the Budget which appear well back in the newspaper) are usually scattered in bits all over the Budget papers.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_budget”

The American Civil Liberties’ Union is underwriting an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against the sentence imposed on the two boys who killed two-year-old toddler James Bulger in England last November.

They are arguing the indefinite sentence “”to be detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure” breaches the UN Convention on Human Rights because it will finally be determined by the Home Secretary, not the judicial system and that the two boys, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, both 11 at the time, suffered inhuman and degrading treatment when they were tried in an adult court.

Australian states and territories have trial by jury in adult courts for serious offences committed by children, but the “”detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure” is unnecessary or unusual with children in Australia because most states (including the ACT) do not have mandatory life sentences for murder, but up to life, so the court can fix a maximum and minimum sentence. Lesser offences by children are dealt with by magistrates usually in closed court.

However, Australian states do have “”Her Majesty’s pleasure” in cases where people are found unfit to plead or not guilty on the grounds of insanity. A woman was thus sentenced last week in NSW.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_boyslife”

Competition by private lawyers for Attorney-General’s Department services has been more restricted and will be introduced a year later than many in the private profession had hoped.

However, the Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, says that 75 per cent of the non-policy legal work of Government departments and agencies will be open to private competition from July 1, 1995.

The private profession is to be excluded from litigation and policy legal work. Some private lawyers say they can understand the policy and Cabinet exclusion, but litigation is the most interesting work.

The profession has argued for widespread competition by July 1, 1994. A Department of Finance-Attorney-General’s review has now put that back to July 1, 1995, and narrowed the scope of work available for competition.
Continue reading “1994_05_may_ags”