Crispin Hull

Three leading community groups have condemned a north Canberra redevelopment project which has attracted federal Better Cities funding so it can be a model for urban-renewal. The Royal Institute of Architects, the National Trust and the Conservation Council of Canberra called on the Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, seeking the inquiry into a joint ACT Housing Trust-private redevelopment on Section 22, Braddon.

Mr Coe, speaking on the Ten Network’s program, üMeet the Press,@ said the High Court had not given sufficient clarity to native title.

He thought test cases could be run in the High Court. It was scaremongering to say they would take years to resolve.

“”If people acknowledged that Aboriginal people have a right to land and resources that attach to land, and first asked the consent of the owners of the land as to how that land should be used, you’d find that most Aboriginal groups would agree to some form of land usage and mining by non-Aboriginal people,” he said.
Continue reading “1993_05_may_addcoe”

There’s been some jockeying for positions over at The Little House of the Limestone Prairie is the past couple of weeks.

Part of it results from the drawing of the electoral boundaries.

The electoral committee carved out three electorates and we may as well get used to the new names now: Ginninderra equals Belconnen; Molonglo equals the centre and Brindabella equals Tuggeranong. I’ll use the new names from here on.

It’s a big problem for the major parties. The Labor Party has too many sitting members in Ginninderra and not enough in Brindabella. The Libs on the other hand have too many in Molonglo and no-one in Ginninderra.
Continue reading “1993_05_may_actcolumn”

The following are some major events and policy issues on Aboriginal affairs.
1967 referendum: Gave Aborigines full citizenship rights and gave the Federal Parliament power to make laws with respect to Aboriginal affairs, if necessary over-riding the states.

1972-75: Major boost to funding for Aboriginal programs under Whitlam Government with varying success at reaching targets. Push for land rights.

1976: Fraser Government passes Northern Territory Land Rights Act. It enables Aboriginal people to claim unalienated Crown land in the NT provided they can show a connection to the land through usage and sacred sites. Land vests in a land council which can never sell the land.
Continue reading “1993_05_may_absumm”

The anger at the appalling statement recently by Collingwood president Allan McAlister that as long as Aborigines “”conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire them” should now be channelled into constructive change.

The reason for the poor record of Australian rules is a combination of its Melbourne base and the nature of psychological warfare in sport.

Psychological warfare has always been part of sport. Undermining your opponent through taunts and muttering is part of the sport from the highest to the lowest. Often the crowd joins in, and the crowd can be worse than opponents.
Continue reading “1993_05_may_absport”

Canberra is joining in. The Legislative Assembly commissioned a study of what Canberra would and should be like in 2020, using a pun on twenty-twenty vision.

It is to issue the third of four quarterly reports on Monday. The first was a quick demographic projection. The second was some 300 pages on recycled paper. Third will perhaps be as long and will come down a few days after a information technology academic, UC’s Professor Mary O’Kane, called for more government data to be available electronically.

IT is the bore-word for Canberra’s future, along with tourism. If that is the case it is a shame that history is becoming so easily disgraced. It is a shame it is being replaced by sociology and “”communications” and other mumbo-jumbo, because history can tell us so much about the future.
Continue reading “1993_05_may_2020”

Self-government for indigenous people would help stop the drain on the federal treasury and help stop welfare dependence, according to a visiting Canadian expert.

Professor Thomas Courchene, who has spent a lot of time in the past two years helping the 14 First Nations of Canada’s Yukon draw up self-government agreements, said yesterday that neither Canada nor Australia could be proud of its treatment of their first peoples.

In Canada per capita spending on Indians resident on reserves was roughly $10,000 per person.

“”Something must be very wrong at the policy level when spending of this magnitude does not achieve meaningful results,” he said. The policy failure was a major reason why Canadians were sympathetic to First Nations self-government.
Continue reading “1993_04_april_canada”

Some Aborigines are seeking independence with international recognition, others are joining the Federal Government’s reconciliation process and others still want a treaty.

In Canberra this week a visiting Canadian professor put up a model for Canadian Indians which is different from all of these. He thought the Canadian First Nations could become a province of Canada, the equivalent of an Australian state.

The professor, Tom Courchene, said at the outset that his model was purely Canadian and he did not want to give it an Australian application.

None the less, the idea of Australia’s indigenous people becoming a state is not as looney as it sounds.
Continue reading “1993_04_april_canabo”

When the Labor Party was socialist, in its pre-Whitlam days, conservation was a largely a matter for political conservatives.

Heritage and environment had to be protected from Stakhanovite socialists who would industrialise everything in the name of giving the workers a higher standard of living.

Now conservation values have to be protected against capitalists in the form of pastoralists and miners and against a spreading population that demands more and more water.

Early this century in NSW, conservative politicians sought to protect tracts of Crown land by creating what they called primitive areas and national parks.

One was Mark Morton, elected to the NSW Parliament in 1901. Morton National Park, between here and the coast, was named after him.
Continue reading “1993_04_april_budawang”

Three leading community groups have condemned a north Canberra redevelopment project which has attracted federal Better Cities funding so it can be a model for urban-renewal.

The Royal Institute of Architects, the National Trust and the Conservation Council of Canberra called on the Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, seeking the inquiry into a joint ACT Housing Trust-private redevelopment on Section 22, Braddon.

Mr Wood said yesterday that as this was the first urban renewal under the new planning laws it was inevitable that it was attract attention.

He was prepared to demonstrate the integrity of the legislation and process. He would discuss them with the department and taking options to Government.
Continue reading “1993_04_april_bradplan”