Crispin Hull

The Watson Community Association filed an application in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal yesterday seeking an order to make the Department of the Environment Land and Planning comply with a Freedom of Information Act request on Better Cities money.

The association asserts the department has not complied with a request within the statutory 30 days. The request seeks information about the ACT Government’s action on its agreement with the Federal Government on Better Cities funding for ACT projects.
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Payments to visiting medical officers in the ACT came under attack by the Auditor-General in a report tabled in the Legislative Assembly yesterday.

The Auditor found:

1. Evidence of (visiting) doctors charging for babies delivered by another (resident) doctor.

2. There are no procedures for verifying that VMOs actually provided the services claimed.

3. Allegations about obstetrics patients being asked to pay the VMO “”booking fees” of up to $500, where patients were booked in as public and treated by the VMO as private.

4. There were financial incentives for VMOs to make patients public patients at cost to the ACT.

5. VMOs are generally paid more than their counterparts in the states.

6. Only limited information for control and budget of VMO payments was available.

7. Papers on VMO contract negotiations in 1987 and 1990 could not be found.
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Tuggeranong is being deprived of sporting facilities and the ACT will pay in health and social costs, according to the executive director of ACTSport, Tony Naar.

He was expressing disappointment yesterday that an indoor sports stadium for Tuggeranong was not in the 1993-94 capital works program, even though it had been in the forward design program the year before. He said Tuggeranong had more sporting teams set to play than there were courts or fields for them to play on.

ACTSport represents 93 sports and 160,000 registered participants. Mr Naar said the demand was there now in Tuggeranong for an indoor stadium. The ACT, which to date had always had excellent sporting facilities, was falling behind. Sporting facilities were not being built hand-in-hand with development in new areas, as it had done in the past.
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The Society for Growing Australian Plants is incensed at a $375,000 agreement between the ACT Government-owned Yarralumla Nursery and MBA Land to supply mature trees during the next three years for Gungahlin’s parklands and streetscapes because only one of the nine species being used is native, and that one is not native to the Canberra region.

The society’s president, Geoff Butler, also criticised yesterday (Friday) the use of mature trees _ at an average cost of $40 each _ when experience showed that young native trees soon outstripped mature trees. Planting mature trees resulted in later problems because they were often root bound and blew over in storms more easily. “”Is this a bush capital or not?” he asked.

His society had advised the Minister for Planning, Bill Wood, that conservation authorities were spending vast sums restoring lost native habitat, and now $375,000 was to be spent repeating those past mistakes.
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The ACT Government has welcomed a proposal for a Speedrail which would link Canberra with Sydney and Melbourne.

The private-enterprise proposal is different from the Very Fast Train which was put on hold a year ago after it did not get a Federal tax break. The Speedrail would use existing corridors.

Ms Follett said yesterday the Speedrail would have a profound impact o the ACT economy, especially if finished before the 2000 Sydney Olympics. It would help make Canberra a freight and tourist hub.

A third 15-storey residential for Kingston was ruled out by the National Capital Planning Authority yesterday. In doing so it imposed a new tree-canopy height limit in the national areas except the parliamentary zone, Russell, Campbell Park and sites adjoining Northbourne and Constitution Avenue.

The chief executive of the NCPA, Lyndsay Neilson, said the community had reacted strongly against the tower.

The Federal Minister for Local Government, Brian Howe, who with the NCPA is responsible for the national elements of Canberra, had signed the new height limit. It would be typically three- or four-storey at tree-canopy height. The 80-unit tower would have gone opposite the Kingston shops.
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The Australian Tourist Commission gets $38 million over four years for overseas marketing. $10 million will be provided for a national ecotourism strategy.

The Budget provides $42 million over four years for a Tourism Forecasting Council and to develop tourism in “”regional and rural Australia”, according to a statement issued with the Budget papers by the Minister for Tourism, Michael Lee. It would help the rural, backpacker and cruise-ship markets.

Mr Lee said there was “”a need to create jobs and long-term alternatives to a largely agricultural economic base.”
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Cam: for a panel breakout if there is room. this is the text of the two pertinent sections of the constitution that the govt and opp are warbling about. ta. michelle is keen on this piece, apparently.

Article I, Section 7: All Bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills.

Section 53: Proposed laws . . . imposing taxation shall not originate in the Senate. The Senate may not amend proposed law imposing taxation . . . .
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The Opposition makes a very solid point morally and a good one legally about the Government’s Budget trick.

The Government has hinted that it might put its Budget goodies and baddies in the one Bill so that the Senate has to knock back the goodies if it is to knock back the baddies. The Opposition would then be accused of preventing people’s tax cuts.

Let’s leave aside the political brawl for a moment and turn to the dry old Constitution. The Founding Fathers in Australia wanted to avoid a trap found in the United States Constitution. In the US as in Australia, revenue Bills had to originate in the House of Representatives. But in the US, the Constitution allowed the Senate to amend them. Often amendments took the form of trivial pet projects and laws, such as desexing cats or gum-tree preservation. When the amended Bill was sent back to the House, the House had to either to accept the pet project (which could be quite unpalatable) or reject the whole Bill, including the tax.
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The Mount Stromlo Observatory condemned the ACT Government’s in-fill housing development at North Duffy-Holder yesterday as a threat to an international astronomical project.

It said it would unnecessarily bring forward the day it will have to relocate and it also differed with the Government over the costs of relocation.

The acting director of observatory, Don Faulkner, said he accepted the long-term precariousness of the observatory’s position near a major city. However, the Duffy-Holder development posed a special problem because of its proximity. Alone it would shed up to an extra 10 per cent glow beyond what the observatory was already suffering.
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