Crispin Hull

THE issues paper published this week by the Republic Advisory Committee makes two things plain. The first is that any change to a republic cannot be achieved merely by crossing out the words “”Queen” and “”Governor-General” and inserting “”President”. It is more complex than that. The second is that given that it is a complex matter, the Federal Opposition better stop its internal bickering and get involved in the process.

The issues paper is a clearly written statement of the minimalist dilemma. At present the Governor-General is, in effect, appointed and dismissible by the Prime Minister. The Governor-General has wide stated powers: to appoint and dismiss ministers, including the Prime Minister and to dissolve the House of Representatives an call elections. But those powers are exercised according to unstated conventions. Moreover, if the Governor-General looks like over-stepping the mark, he or she can be dismissed by the Prime Minister. If you have a President selected and approved by some other method (such as by Parliament or directly by the people) and dismissible only by some other method (such as Parliamentary vote), then the powers of the President are exercised from a higher platform than the Governor-General. If, in the pursuit of minimalism, the powers of the Head of State are left as is, then by default the President would get very wide powers indeed, and have a firmer base upon which to exercise them. That firmer base would be the mandate obtained by whatever the head of state’s election process is and by the security of tenure obtained from the more onerous process of the head of state’s dimissal.
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Claims and insurance premiums for lawyers’ professional negligence are rising sharply, according to figures published yesterday.

One of the main reasons appears to be financially tough times causing people to seek a scapegoat and more lawyers advising people to sue other lawyers.

Often solicitors are being sued after financial institutions seek to sell up a house. People say the witnessing solicitor did not explain the documents. Women, particularly, are saying that at the time mortgage documents were signed, “”the solicitor spoke only to my husband, virtually ignoring me”.
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Misuse of residential areas for business on the fringes of the present Kingston and Manuka business areas should no longer be tolerated, the Assembly’s planning committee warned yesterday.

The Planning Development and Infrastructure Committee said recommended that the Government police land use in Kingston and Manuka and not permit office and business uses outside existing business leases unless people went through proper planning processes.

The clamp-down was one of 11 recommendations of the committee in presenting its proposed Territory Plan.
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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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A Charnwood woman says her privacy has been invaded by a real-estate agent after she advertised her house for private sale.

Mrs Elizabeth McGee said yesterday that she had advertised in üThe Canberra Times@ for private sale, giving only her phone number and a brief description of the property. There was no name or address.

Several days later she got a letter in the mail addressed to her by name, with a mock-up display advertisement with a photograph of her house, its full address and a description. The letter, from Raine and Horne, Belconnen, said it respected her wish to sell privately and wished her luck, but if unsuccessfully it offered marketing skills to sell her house.

Mrs McGee said they should have asked permission to take the photograph and that she was uneasy about how they got her name and address from just a phone number.

Russell Hardy, from Raine and Horne, said Mrs McGee’s was the only complaint. Others had sought his marketing help after getting the letter.

He got names and addresses from phone numbers through a commercially available, computer-based reverse telephone book. The photographs were taken from the public street.

He preferred to show his initiative and marketing skill through the mail rather than harass people over the phone. People who did not like his letter could just throw it away.

The federal Privacy Commissioner, Kevin O’Connor, has on several occasions expressed concern about use of computer databases.

His concerns centre around using databases for purposes different from the purpose for which the person gave the information.

Mrs McGee said she gave an entry to the phone book so people could find her phone number who already knew her name, not so “”any Tom, Dick or Harry can get my name and address from my phone number”.

The executive director of the Real Estate Institute of the ACT, Bruno Yvanovich, said it was something he had not come across before and the institute had yet to formally consider it.

Agents could not be blamed for using a commercially available product and were entitled to take photographs from public places. However, he could understand Mrs McGee’s unease. Agents had to respect privacy and feelings.

“”They haven’t got carte blanche,” he said.

However, agents had to get stock and “”that sort of prospecting is part of commercial life”.

It was a fine line between congratulating the agent on his inventiveness and expressing privacy concerns.

Canberra has played its role as a national communication centre haphazardly, to the delight and amazement of our international competitors, according to a senior communications academic.

Dr Graeme Osborne, of the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Communication, said communication was more than transmission of information.

“”Australian society, Canberra included, has largely failed to understand or even systematically assess the role of communication in its national life,” he said. “”At the international level we still see the spectacle that amazes and delights out international competitors, that is of Australian states and companies bidding unnecessarily against each other for overseas contracts.”
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Ten top ACT bureaucrats met at Commonwealth Club yesterday to hear a top private-sector financial guru tell them how to get better results with public money.

The meeting came the day after the Federal Auditor-General said that the Commonwealth Government was getting worse financial advice than the average company.

Bart Vogel, from Deloitte, Touche and Tohmatsu accountants and management consultants told the ACT bureaucrats that “”salami slicing” was a silly way to control costs.
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The ACT Government is on the verge of a decision to give it some extra land around the margin of Lees Paddock on the northern side of the Scrivener Dam road and along its Dunrossil Drive boundary so it can put in 18 more holes, subject to membership approval.

There would be a crossing across Dunrossil Drive (the road to Government House) to link the present 18 holes with the new ones.

The club has wanted to expand for more than a decade. It got a lease on Lees Paddock in 1984. There was a delay while the club negotiated with a potential developer for the adjacent Old Canberra Brickworks. There was a plan for a shared 18-hole course with the hotel development, but plan failed when the developer could not raise the money.
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The Commonwealth Government is to limit its employment growth in Civic and give priority to developing more office space in Gungahlin, Tuggeranong and Belconnen.

It made the announcement in a response to recommendations on transport links between Gungahlin and the rest of Canberra by the Federal Joint Parliamentary Committee on the National Capital, chaired by John Langmore.

The Government has also supported: A study of a rapid-transport system for the ACT, which is under way by the National Capital Planning Authority and the ACT Planning Authority.
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The Federal Government should retreat to the Parliamentary Triangle, leaving the rest of Canberra to develop like any other Australian city, a former chairman of the Grants Commission, Justice Rae Else-Mitchell, said yesterday.

He said there was little more to do on the national scale in Canberra, so the Federal Government should look after the Triangle and a few major national institutions outside it and let the rest of Canberra be just like a state.

From 1957, when the National Capital Development Commission began, to the time of Fraser Government, “”vast amounts of public money were spent in the ACT.” The money spent on national institutions was by-and-large “”a proper manifestation of national aspirations”, however, the money spent on non-national services to the populations was “”extravagant and beyond the standards of similar projects and services provided to the rest of Australia’s citizens living in the cities, towns and rural areas of the states”.
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