Crispin Hull

Every year the Australian Bureau of Statistics puts out stats on birth and death. They issued a lot last week, but the coverage was small. We are more interested in the beginning and end of working life than the beginning and end of life itself. We are more interested in the balance of trade than in the balance of health.

For the first time since statistics began, you are more likely to die of cancer than any other cause. Tragically, women are smoking themselves to death. Conversely, men are slowly stopping themselves from smoking themselves to death.

The big-ticket items in media coverage _ AIDS, murder and suicide _ hardly rate on the death tables.
Last week’s statistics and a book put out earlier this year by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, Australia’s Health 1992, show the trends.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_death”

Paul Keating senses the political danger of the loans affair. For a start its mere name has a haunting resemblance to the 1975 loans affairs which brought down the Whitlam Government.

Unlike Whitlam, Keating has engaged in decisive early damage control. First, he has taken the wind out of Jeff Kennett’s sails by giving him what he wants: lots of extra loan-raising capacity.

The essence of the Federal Opposition’s complaint is that the Treasurer, John Dawkins, hid from the Loan Council and its members (the Premiers of the States) the fact that Victoria had borrowed well beyond Loan Council authority, and further that he hid this from the public and misled the Parliament about it.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_dawkins”

Two judges of the High Court have extended the idea of implied rights in the Constitution, by saying the Constitution guaranteed a right to fair trial.

However, five judges shied away from implied rights and decided on other grounds.

Earlier this year six judges ruled that the Constitution carried with it a right to freedom of political discussion. Shortly after that, one judge, Justice Toohey, gave a speech to a conference in Darwin suggesting that a whole raft of human rights could be implied in the Constitution. His reasoning was that when the people approved the Constitution they could not imagine a Parliament taking away fundamental common-law rights, thus there was no need to express them as in America. They were implied.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_comment”

WHEN will we see the first chink in John Hewson’s determination to keep Fightback intact? Most eyes are on the GST and the industrial-relations package, but it may come elsewhere.

Emotion aside, Hewson and his shadow Treasurer are right when then refuse to exempt the basics of life: clothing and food, but the explanation requires more than the average nine-second live grab that television networks give politicians. The nine-second figure, incidentally, comes from research done during the recent US election; American sociologists take a profound view of the trivial.

So if you have more than nine seconds to spare, the reason for not exempting food and clothing is as follows: everyone knows what food and clothing is, right? Not so. Australian customs law is littered with cases about what category and therefore what duty applies to certain items. Is a Superman outfit clothing or a toy, for example? Is a diving or surfing wet-suit clothing or sporting gear? What of ski-boots? Is caviar food? Are non-prescription cough lollies food? Certainly some of the substances sold by some franchised outlets might have difficulty qualifying as food.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_column30”

POOR old Chester Carlson. He spend nine years trying to flog off his useless invention. Then in 1944 an obscure company signed a royalties agreement with him.

That company is no longer obscure. Carlson’s useless invention was to replace the perfectly efficient practice of using carbon paper in type-writers with a machine that made copies. The company became Xerox.

Now five billion photocopies are made in the world each day. In Australia alone 500 million photocopies will be made this year.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_column23”

THE fall-out from the profligate 1980s continues. The response from the Federal Government was to tighten up. This meant a plethora of new law and bodies to administer them. In turn this has led to a debate about the best way to regulate corporations.

Last week, the retiring head of the Australian Securities Commission, Tony Hartnell, made a novel contribution to that debate.

But first some background. On one hand, we have the proponents of what is charmingly called black-letter law these are essentially the Federal bureaucracy and the parliamentary drafters. Black-letter law is the unintelligible language of Australian statute law. It arose because crooks found loopholes in simply worded laws: they obeyed the letter of it, not its spirit. Courts, very stupidly allowed them to get away with it. They applied the letter of the law, rather than the spirit. That made life more certain, the judges said.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_column16”

LAMBERTUS is injured in a car accident. It is the other driver’s fault. Lambertus needs 24-hour care. He has psychiatric problems caused by the accident. His wife is a part-time nursing aide. She gives up her job to care for Lambertus full-time. It is expected this will go on for seven years when Lambertus will go to a state-run hospital for the rest of his days.

Lambertus seeks damages. What should he get _ the amount of wages his wife has lost for seven years or the full market value of full-time care for seven years? Or something in between?

The question was answered by the High Court last week. The question was loaded with policy and moral issues. What is the value of “”women’s work”? Why should Lambertus get money compensation for services his wife was providing anyway? Why should the other driver or his insurance company benefit just because their victim has a loyal wife willing to sacrifice herself for her husband? and so on. And then there is the possibility that the wife might stop the self-sacrifice for reasons unconnected with the accident or because the accident makes the husband unable to fulfil his part of the partnership by doing things for the wife. Lambertus might be left high and dry.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_column9”

Evidence given by the mother of a baby who died after an operation at Royal Canberra Hospital, if true, would cast doubt on whether those named should hold the positions they do, the ACT coroner said yesterday.

However, the coroner, John Burns, suppressed the evidence, saying it was not relevant to his inquiry as it happened after the events surrounding the death of Brian Lankuts, who died aged five months after an operation on his skull two years ago.

Paddy Bergin and Stuart Littlemore, representing several doctors connected to the case, objected to the evidence saying it made accusations against doctors who were not represented at the inquiry and who had had no formal notification of it.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_brian20”

Two obstetricians verbally abused a woman and told her no specialist in Canberra would treat her because she had dared to tell the Press about the case of her son who died after an operation, the ACT Coroners’ Court was told yesterday (mon16nov).

The court is inquiring into the death of Brian Lankuts who died after an operation at Royal Canberra Hospital two years ago.

The father, Michael Lankuts, who is representing himself and his wife, Carol, said from the Bar table he wanted to make a statement.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_brian17”

Ben’s adult son came in with a packet of cigarettes. It seemed a bit lazy for some trying to salvage self-respect after years of compulsive gambling. Not so.

“”I don’t allow myself access to money,” Ben says. “”My son goes to get the cigarettes.

“”No two ways about it. If I have money I will go to the club. I don’t want it. I don’t want control over it. I don’t carry a credit card, or a keycard. If I need milk or bread something during the day, my wife gives me exactly enough for it, and then never much.

“”I’ve got the love of my family. I’m buggered if I know why. But I’ve got to work to get their trust back. That’s my ambition now, and to get a job.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_ben”