Crispin Hull

Permanent arrivals have fallen to their lowest since May, 1984, according to monthly figures issued yesterday.

In January there were 5460 permanent arrivals, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics figures issued yesterday. In January 1992 it was 8410. The January, 1993, figure was the lowest since the last recession.

However, the figures showed also a record number of overseas movements at 1,002,500. It was up 13 per cent more than January, 1992.
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The implied freedom of political communication in the Constitution should be used to protect the confidentiality of journalists’ sources, the chairman of the Australian Press Council, Professor David Flint, said yesterday.

Professor Flint gave four grounds upon which a journalist was justified in disclosing sources: if the source agreed; where the journalist was satisfied that the source had misled the journalist for personal gain; if there was a life-threatening situation; if somebody’s innocence of a crime was at issue.

However, the courts were demanding disclosure on what he thought we unjustified grounds.
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The Free Speech Committee has called on the Federal Government not to approve an increased shareholding in the Fairfax group by Conrad Black.

It said in a statement yesterday that it was a chance for the Government to more clearly define its media policy. Readers had seen a change in quality and direction in a Fairfax papers since Mr Black had taken 15 per cent. It criticised the appointment of senior executives from overseas, who might not share Australia’s cultural identity.
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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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If Professor C. Northcote Parkinson were writing his 1957 gem üParkinson’s Law@ today, he no doubt would have had something to say about computers.

One law would have been: Computer users will obtain as many program and data files as it takes to fill whatever size disk they happen to have.

Others would have been: The first time you do something new on a computer it will not work; a computer or program will cost twice as much as you think and will do only half the things you want it to do; the first time you show someone else a new trick you have learned on a computer it will embarrass you by not working. Attempts to upgrade a computer or a program will initially fail and attempts to restore it to the old position will also fail, usually rendering a computer useless at a critical time.
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SOUTH African journalist Anthony Heard pointed out this week that the murder of communist and ANC leader Chris Hani broke an unwritten rule: political leaders do not order each other’s assassinations.

Thus Saddam Hussein is still alive. An exploding cigar send to Havana or a bomb attack over Libya are exceptions, not the rule. Politicians have an understanding not to kill each other. They are the rules of the club or the union.

In politics there are only a few occasions where the common interests of the calling are put above the usual name-calling, denigration and muck-raking within it. I can think of only three others.
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People identify with a marathon runner. The marathon requires persistence and commitment, like life. It is a challenge.

Pat Clohessy has given that persistence and commitment, not in running marathons, but in coaching Australia’s best-known marathon runner, Robert de Castella since Deek was 14.

Tomorrow, 22 years later, Robert de Castella will run what is likely to be his last competitive marathon _ the London marathon.
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Aborigines are being jailed at 26 times the rate of whites in Australia despite an overall reduction in the number of people taken into custody, according to survey results published yesterday.

The Australian Institute of Criminology’s survey showed also that female Aboriginal custodies were 44 per cent of total female custodies, though they comprise only 1.5 per cent of the total female population.

It is the second survey of prisoners. The first was in 1988. It follows a recommendation by the Royal Commission in to Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. The survey covered every incident of custody (Aboriginal and white) in Australia in August, 1992, and was done in co-operation with all federal and state police forces.
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Being Australian wasn’t the exclusive province of the Republicans last night, as Andrew Denton mercilessly pointed out.

He leaned over the Minister for Health, Graham Richardson, condemning the unAustralian activities of the Keating Government.

“”I sit in the section of Qantas you didn’t sell to British Airways,” he said. “”I ate the few Arnotts biscuits you didn’t sell to Campbells.”
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IT IS very galling to have statements taken out of context. The South Australian judge who made the comments out a man being allowed to use “”rougher than usual handling” in obtaining the consent of his wife to sexual intercourse suffered from this. After a long and difficult rape case, the judge made a summing up in which he said: “”There is, of course, nothing wrong with a husband, faced with his wife’s initial refusal to engage in intercourse, in attempting, in an acceptable way, to persuade her to change her mind, and that may involve a measure of rougher than usual handling.”

This was taken out of the context of the trial and seized upon by many, including the Prime Minister, to make comments. The statement, by Justice Derek Bollen, came to light in January upon the hearing of a Crown appeal on questions of law. They sparked calls for the judge to apologise and for him to be sacked and for wide re-education of all judges.

Having taken that one statement out of context, a Democrat candidate for the South Australian Parliament started a petition calling for his sacking for his “”apparent support of violence in marriage”.
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