Crispin Hull

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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The ACT electoral authorities should work out the theme for the naming of the three ACT electorates and then call for public comment, Independent MLA Helen Szuty said yesterday.

The ACT redistribution committee is meeting this week to draw up provisional boundaries and give provisional names for the electorates.

Very few submissions have been received about the names.

Ms Szuty said to date they fell into three groups: geographic, Aboriginal and names of people who had made a contribution to Canberra.
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Residents in the Tuggeranong suburb of Conder were celebrating what they see as a partial planning victory yesterday.

The Department of Environment Land and Planning has listened to some of their objections over medium-density re-zoning of a site in their street, Darebin Place.

Residents’ spokesman Neville Shelley said the department had agreed to set a maximum of 10 private dwellings on the site, previously it had been open-ended. The department had also set conditions that would result in the protection of several mature eucalyt trees on the site.
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The issues paper has firmly recognised the complexity of the republican question. It is not a question of crossing out “”Queen and Governor-General” and inserting “”President” _ the “”minimalist approach”. Once the Head of State is elected and removable by some other instrument than the Prime Minister (by advising _ read telling _ the Queen) the President has an independent fountain of power.

And that means if you leave the rest of the Constitution as is, you give the President very wide powers: to appoint and dismiss ministers including the Prime Minister and the power to dissolve Parliament and call and election. In other words, the so-called “”minimalist” approach becomes a “”maximist” approach.
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Sometime in the 1940s Justice Owen Dixon and Justice George Rich were overheard leaving a concert in Sydney given by an ABC orchestra.

Dixon was Australia’s most pre-eminent judge, noted for his fine powers of reason.

The conversation went something like this:

Rich: Splendid concert, wasn’t it?

Dixon (deep in thought): Oh yes, quite. But I still don’t see what it has got to do with postal, telegraphic, telephonic and other like services.
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THE natural lawyers and legal positivists have come the full circle. Last week the UN Security Council resolved to set up a permanent war-crimes court. The Security Council, of course, comprises those countries on the winning side in World War II. Between them, they set up the first war-crimes trials at Nuremburg after that war. They resparked a great debate among legal philosophers. On one side were the natural lawyers and on the other were the legal positivists.

Natural law goes back to ancient times and has taken many forms. Broadly, it appeals to some higher form of universal morality beyond church and nation. Legal positivism, a creature of the scientific age scoffed at this, arguing that the only law was the law factually promulgated and enforced by the state. The positivists argued that natural law was a lot of unprovable wool not worthy of consideration by the fine minds of the law schools of the world.
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ONE of the tribulations of journalism are “”nutters”. They telephone you and hound you with lunatic theories or obsessions based on the flimsiest link with an article in that day’s paper.

Telecom and Voltaire between them, however, have provided a solution. Voltaire is attributed with saying: “”I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Telecom’s role, on the other hand, is more prosaic. It has sold me a telephonist’s headset.

You see, hanging up on “”nutters” is no good; it does not deter them. They just ring again. Rather than attempting to silence people, it is far better to let them have their say. So I just put the headset on and let the “”nutters” prattle away while my two hands are free to continue work at the keyboard on something else. I occasionally mutter a “”yes, yes, of course, certainly” every time the meaningless buzzing noise in my ears stops, or occasionally I may put the headset aside to get some files from the library while the “”nutter” prattles on.
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KATE Carnell’s populist appeal to convert the ACT Government into a town council attacks the issue from the wrong angle.

It does not matter what you call it; it is what it does and how it does it, that matters. Town councils are just as capable of spending huge amounts on their office spaces, cars, and perks of office as a cute little Westminster-style government. Moreover, a Lord Mayor is equally or more likely to fall victim of self-importance and self-aggrandisement as a Chief Minister. Indeed, one could imagine (perhaps not Rosemary, or her predecessor Trevor) but other MLAs and some of the more vain former MLAs delighting in mayoral robes and gold chains and the like.

For all of the fun poked at our cute little Westminster-style Assembly, it has several features that make it better for the people of Canberra than a town council.

Unlike some councils, none of its hearings or the hearings of its committees are held in camera. The Assembly is open.

Unlike councils, the Assembly has ministerial responsibility. Combined with a Question Time, this can be a powerful weapon. It may well be that the Opposition does not use Question Times particularly well at present, but it remains a weapon for accountability. A Minister who misleads the House is out (at least in theory). Theory or not, Ministers have to be careful at Question Time.

The Assembly has full-time paid members. Many councils are part-time. Having part-time members is not a good idea. You either get people who work at it full-time because they have other income or if you get good employed people they are invariably in a busy job and cannot devote the time needed without going mad through overwork. A raft of good people are excluded.

The Assembly has an Opposition, unlike many councils. Combined with a committee system, this can be a powerful weapon for accountability. Ministers and public servants can be grilled at committee hearings. The Opposition has an interest in exposing incompetence and chicanery. That is the avenue to office.

Town councils are notorious hotbeds of corruption and mismanagement. In the NSW the Government regularly has to dismiss a council and appoint an administrator to sort things out. The Independent Commission Against Corruption has unfolded numerous instances of corruption in councils.

The corruption and incompetence is obviously not purely a function of the system of government at that level. Other factors come in to play. However, in town councils a closeness builds up between councillors and administrative staff that make corruption easier and indeed a closeness builds up among councillors as a group that enables the blind eye to be turned.

With a formal Opposition and an open committee system it is not as easy.

Moreover, with a Westminster-style system, the ACT has taken on board a raft of administrative law that helps keep government open and clean. The Freedom of Information Act may have been blunted by bureaucratic manipulation, high fees and legalistic exceptions, but every ACT Government bureaucrat is aware of at least the possibility that a determined journalist or community group can prise the can of worms open using FOI. The potential of it must have an effect on keeping things clean.

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal enabled the review of administrative action by ACT bureaucrats.

This system is far more accessible to community groups than a council. Community groups have more weak spots to find and more weapons with which to attack. Some community groups are dismissed as NIMBYs and self-servers by people in government. However, they have had some modest successes in changing what government does and how its does it since self-government _ probably a lot more success than if we had a council.

Moreover, a Westminster-style government legislates, not merely administers other people’s legislation, as with a council. Ministers and departments are bound by the legislation. The separation of these functions is another element of accountability.

The ACT is not immune from incompetence and corruption. The Assembly system is not perfect. The points outlined above can be abused, misused, circumvented or ignored, either deliberately or through neglect. However, it is better to have the safeguards of a Westminster-style government to deal with the huge range of state and local functions than to have a council, even if it costs a little more.

These points as aside from those made by Trevor Kaine that a town council would not have a seat in the Loans Council or the Heads of Government meeting where the key decisions are made on ACT funding.

Our mini-House of Commons has many faults, but at least they are obvious. A council would have many more faults. And more sinisterly, we would probably not know about them.

Ms Carnell should forget about a town council and concentrate on using the weapons at hand to improve the governance of Canberra.