Crispin Hull

An anomaly in the land-tax legislation will result in people being hit for a whole year’s land tax even if they hold a rental property for a few days in the new financial year.

The president of the Landlords’ Association, Peter Jansen, said yesterday that he knew of a case of a woman who had sold her property, but as settlement was scheduled for July 3, she would be hit for the whole year’s tax of $1000.

The legislation assessed tax for the whole year on the basis of ownership on July 1. Mr Jansen called for quarterly assessment.
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PAUL KEATING was being dismissive. “”I think a lot of this stuff just slips into … history,” he said. He was being interviewed on Four Corners about the coming series Labor In Power, a five-part documentary over the near-decade-long leadership contest between him and Bob Hawke.

His dismissive comment could not have been a higher compliment. History is what it’s all about. And the story of political history is the story of power.

The writer-creator of Labor in Power, Philip Chubb, said this week, “”I wanted to prise the lid off how power works, who exercised power, how they exercised it and why.”
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GET me a copy of that letter we sent to Jones about the car insurance. Now A fairly typical demand in any office.

“”Some months ago I wrote an article about buses using ethanol. Can you dig it out for me? I need it yesterday.” A fairly typical inquiry of a newspaper library.

Now scurrying through paper files is at and end. Instead, full-text electronic searching is here with a program called ISYS. Another document-finding program, Sherlock, has also come on to the market. Sherlock is not very good, but it is cheap. ISYS is stunning. So is its price.
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City Hill is one of the points of the Parliamentary Triangle _ an intersection of Canberra the national city and Canberra the municipal city.

It is now also the centre of a bureaucratic and political triangle _ or more correctly quadrangle.

The sides of the quadrangle contain the ACT Government, the National Capital Planning Authority, the parliamentary Joint Committee on the National Capital and the Federal Minister responsible for Canberra, Brian Howe, also affectionately known as the Minister for Better Cities.
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The Governor-General, Bill Hayden, dabbled in some more sociology yesterday, this time with a little help from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

Mr Hayden set out to lay to rest yesterday the myth that Canberra workers had high levels of earnings.

He did this in three ways. He compared Canberra to other capital cities (as distinct from whole states or territories). He standardised the Canberra figures making allowances for Canberra’s higher education. And he compared Canberra with other similar-sized urban statistical areas in Sydney, and found they were better off.
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A residents’ group has come into conflict with Canberra’s “sporting heartland” over controlling traffic from Belconnen to the city.

After the publication of the Territory Plan earlier this month, the North Canberra Protection Group said yesterday that Ginninderra Drive should be extended from its T-junction with Mouat Street to Northbourne Avenue rather than widening Mouat Street to take the Belconnen traffic.

The group said the $4 million proposal under the Territory Plan to widen Mouat Street would adversely affect residents with noise and would not provide as good a traffic flow as extending Ginninderra Drive to Northbourne Avenue.
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Students who over-enrol or tackle subjects without passing the prerequisites are more likely to fail, according to a University of Canberra study.

But once failed, the chances of repeating students are the same as other students.

The study looked at Finance 1, one of the university’s subjects with a reputation for being difficult to pass.
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Rosemary Follett’s fiscal frolic last week (jun12-jun 19) brought a predictable round of squeals from those hit hardest, in this case land owners.

Ms Follett could have raised some of the amount $13 million a year in a very similar way and not received the same squeals. She could have re-introduced death duties. Then those taxed could not squeal.

Oh no, not death duties. All the think tanks have praised John Bjelke-Petersen for abolishing death duties in the 1970s, setting off a “”competitive” chain of death-duty abolition among all the states.
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The ACT Government was over-reacting in asking the Deputy Prime Minister, Brian Howe, to overturn the federal parliamentary committee’s finding on City Hill, Independent MLA Helen Szuty said yesterday.

“”The Deputy Prime Minister is hardly likely to overturn the decision of a broad-based parliamentary committee in which both Senator Margaret Reid and John Langmore have been involved,” she said.

Federal sources point out that the ACT Government might be barking up the wrong tree in turning to Mr Howe to overturn the committee’s recommendation. As the law stands Mr Howe, as Minister, is only empowered to disallow an NCPA draft variation of the national plan. He has no power to create a variation, such as one to permit six-storey buildings.
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THE Chief Magistrate, Ron Cahill, has a point. He has seven or eight courtrooms in four or five locations.

It is inefficient to have magistrates wandering about the town and court staff working all over the place. How much better it would be to have one court building next to the Supreme Court with a common library, cells and offices for court staff.

And thus the ACT Government came up with a plan for a six-storey building next to the Supreme Court in Vernon Circle. But that area is part of the national area of Canberra and the present national plan has a height limit of three storeys, so as not to detract from City Hill, one of the points of the Parliamentary Triangle.
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