Crispin Hull

Angus Rigg, who was found hanging in a NSW police cell in July, 1991, is suing the NSW police for damages for negligence in the Victorian Supreme Court.

Mr Rigg, now aged 20, is in a vegetative state with severe brain damage in Melbourne Albert Hospital. His mother, Carolyn, is also suing for pain and suffering.

The Rigg case sparked great controversy over a dispute between the then Minister for Police, Ted Pickering, and his police commissioner Tony Lauer, over the extent to which Mr Lauer had informed Mr Pickering about the case.
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Graham Richardson is a practical man; not an ideological one. He is also a long-term politician; not a short-term one.

His suggestion this week that private “”gap” insurance should be allowed tilts at the sacred windmills of 25 years of Labor health policy _ free and universal health care.

He did not wake up one morning and decide to spout it on the John Laws show. A least a week ago, he told some health-insurance people to listen to the show carefully. They would not normally be Laws listeners. And then he made sure the Press Gallery got the transcripts.
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The Australians for Constitutional Monarchy have moved to straighten out their Canberra branch after a heated public meeting last week.

At the meeting, Tony Miller, who said he was speaking for ACM, was accused of inciting sectarian hatred after he made references to the Irish Republican Army and Italian fascists.

ACM’s executive director, Tony Abbott, said yesterday that Mr Miller had been told that he was not entitled to speak on behalf of the organisation.
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A public meeting of the Republican Advisory Committee, chaired by Malcolm Turnbull, will be held tonight (wed july21) in the Nicholls Room of the National Convention Centre from 7.30pm to 9.30pm. Speakers include Professor John Molony, formerly of the ANU history department; Professor Brian Galligan, of the Centre for Research on Federal Financial Relations; constitutional researcher Anne Twomey; and John McMillan of the ANU Law School.

The public will be able to question the speakers or members of the committee and make general comments.

It might sound like astral travelling, but when the members of the Republic Advisory Committee flew across the ACT border yesterday they entered a body politic under the Crown.

We know this because it says so in Section 7 of the Australian Capital Territory (Self-Government) Act. For all intents and purposes that Act is the Constitution of the ACT.

The ACT’s Constitution could provide a very useful model for the committee as it looks for options for an Australian republic. The reason is that the ACT Constitution avoids nearly all of the ephemeral and uncertain elements that imbue the Federal Constitution.
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People paying in full by August 15 will get a 4 per cent discount. The first of four instalments is due anyway by August 15. Failure to pay it results in the whole lot becoming due, accruing a monthly penalty of 20 per cent if it is not paid.

The Commissioner for ACT Revenue, Gordon Faichney, said that people finding it difficult to pay should contact the ACT Revenue Office to see if they are eligible for assistance or to work out a better payment schedule.

Land tax (on properties not owner-occupied) will be payable by instalments this year for the first time. Payment by instalments will result in an administrative charge of 4 per cent of the assessment.
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John Guilliatt was messing about with his kayak at the back of Jadine’s Motel on Thursday Island. He seemed like just the bloke to tell me about the abandoned and decaying dug-out outrigger canoes on the beach.

They conjured romantic images of Thursday Islanders going fishing before the Mercury or Yahama outboard wrecked traditional ways.

Wrong. More prosaically, they had been towed there from Papua New Guinea by the Australian Customs Service which had caught their occupants fishing illegally. The Thursday Islanders thought they should not be burnt, but left of the beach as a reminder of bygone days.
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A group of the 56 Chinese refugees who arrived on the Isabella in north-west Australia had just got their visas to stay in Australia for four year.

Several of them will live in Canberra and continue to study English, others will return to Melbourne to work. It has been a long bureaucratic battle with authorities, fought on their behalf by Marion Le and others.

The group were in the Port Hedland detention centre for more than a year before the Government recognised the refugee status of some of them. Mrs Le points out the seemingly arbitrary nature of the process. Some with seemingly identical circumstances get different status. The cases of the remaining Chinese from the Isabella and some Cambodians who came by boat are still going through the courts.
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The Minister for the Arts, Bob McMullan, is confident that the Government pre-election promise on the National Museum would be met, despite specualtion that it will come under fire at the Expenditure Review Committee.

On February 28, the Government promised $26 million towards the $65 million Stage 1 of the museum on the Yarramundi Reach site. A further $13 million in infrastructure (roads sewerage, water electricity) was to come from the ACT and the private sector was to provide $26 million.

A spokesperson for Senator McMullan said the promise was looking strong, but “”the Minister cannot make any formal announcement in the pre-Budget context”.
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Father David Passi calls it black man’s science _ a malevolent force on the island or Mer in the Torres Strait.

“”Oh yes, Malo has an evil side,” he said. “”And I know its power.”

He spoke of gardens poisoned by sorcery and people killed by it. His grandfather refused to teach it to him because it was evil.

“”It is such a destructive force economically,” he said. “”Why plant a garden up there if it will be poisoned by a man sitting on the beach.”
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