Crispin Hull

The High Court’s Mabo decision was not a judicial decision at all, but a usurpation of the powers of the people and Australian Parliament, according to a Queensland professor of law.

Professor Geoffrey Walker, of the University of Queensland, said yesterday that the decision was right according to the facts as they applied on Murray Island in the Torres Strait, but the judges had gone well beyond their judicial function because it was “‘a sweeping change of policy” requiring legislative implementation rather than a judicial settlement of one claim applying the law only to the case at hand.
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The use of the term “”minimalist” should be abandoned, the chair of the Republic Advisory Committee, Malcolm Turnbull, urged yesterday.

It meant different things to different people.

He said also that Australians wanted a popularly elected president, but wanted a non-politician, according a large body of opinion expressed to the committee.

Mr Turnbull said, however, that the two views were inconsistent.
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The ACT is to ban commercial surrogacy but look at regulating non-commercial surrogacy, the Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, said yesterday.

His comments come after a meeting of community services ministers in Melbourne and an appeal by a Canberra couple for a surrogate mother.

Mr Connolly said the ACT was now like NSW _ in a legal vacuum. Victoria, South Australia and Queensland have made it a criminal offence to enter into surrogacy arrangements or to publicise them, punishable by between one and three years’ jail. In those states the agreements are void.
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1. McMullan confident of $26m election promise on museum despite specualtion that Finance wants to chop it at ERC because private sector has not come up with the goods. Private sector says it has promised nothing. ACT is still behind museum.

2. chasing resutls of Libs abortion poll.

3. Rates and land tax notices going out.

Torres Strait Islanders are organising a series of sea-rights claims in the High Court and will ask the court to stop fishing by non-Torres Strait boats.

One claim has already been filed in the High Court by Carlemo Wacando on behalf of the people of Darnley (Erub) and Stephens (Ugar) Islands, claiming the islands and the seas around it.

Mr Wacando said yesterday that he wanted all the councils of elders of islands in the Strait to join his claim. He said fishing by non-indigenous boats should stop immediately.
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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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