Crispin Hull

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”

People leave some strange things in banks. A customer of the Belconnen Mall branch of the ANZ Bank left a parcel containing an anguished letter from President Abraham Lincoln to Mrs Bixby, of Boston, in November, 1864, expressing his sympathy over the death of her five sons in the American Civil War. It looks like a replica. The parcel also had several 1950s colour photographs of smiling babies.

Bank supervisor Leighanne Hobden said the parcel had been left around noon and not claimed by close of business. The owner can claim the parcel (on proof of ownership) at the bank today, after which it will be sent to police lost property. Perhaps the whole thing was intended as a frame up.

A short distance away Robert Gordon Menzies is telling us how the mining of uranium at Rum Jungle will contribute to world safety.

It was a white Australia. A fawning Australia. A paranoid Australia. And a land of full employment and promise. It can be seen in a splendid exhibition called “”Within Living Memory” by Australian Archives at Parliament House until December 20.

The pictures are a drawcard. They are there to attract attention to the gems in the documents beneath. But you can’t have an exhibition of boring old documents.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_archives”

The law of Tasmania should apply in Antarctica, not the law of the ACT and Jervis Bay, according to a parliamentary committee.

The committee is headed by Duncan Kerr who represents the Tasmanian seat of Denison. The committee said that the law of the state closest to an Australian territory should be the one that applies to the territory.

The committee said in a report issued yesterday (thur5nov) that Australia should declare a 200-nautical-mile fishing zone around the territory to protect marine life and regulate fishing.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_antarct”

Legal aid totalling $179,000 was paid to three of the four candidates for the Federal seat of Wills involved in the High Court challenge.

A spokeswoman for the Attorney-General’s department said yesterday that the aid had been given under the public-interest and test cases part of the legal-aid guidelines.

The department thought that it was in the public interest that a dispute on Section 44 of the Constitution be properly constituted.
Continue reading “1992_11_november_aid”

The Australian Constitution already had a Bill of Rights implied in it, according to an argument put by a High Court judge yesterday.

Justice John Toohey hinted that a court could go much further in implying a bill of rights into the present Australian Constitution than it did in the two freedom-of-speech cases brought down last week.

He said also that Australia did not protect individual liberties as well as those nations with bills of rights.
Continue reading “1992_10_october_toohey”

The Premier of Tasmania, Ray Groom, condemned yesterday what he called “”coercive federalism” to give the central government more power.

He said coercive federalism had come about in two ways: the Commonwealth’s “”ruthless” use of its superior financial power and the High Court’s redefinition of the Commonwealth-State balance of power.

He was speaking at a conference on “”Constitutional Changes in the 1990s” held by the Legislative Assembly of the Northern Territory.
Continue reading “1992_10_october_state”

In the European sense she works for the Catholic Church whose missionaries set up St Teresa’s school on the island in 1911. In reality, she works for the Tiwi (Aboriginal) people. She will retire in the next few years, and in due course she will be replaced as principal.

The miracle, not in any sense recognised by the Vatican’s Sacred Congregation for the Causes of Saints, is that Sister Anne will be replaced by a Tiwi.

It will be the culmination of her mission and many years of training Tiwi teachers at the school through the teachers’ college at Batchelor. Indeed, the name of the school was changed three years ago from St Teresa’s to Murrupurtiyanuwu Catholic School in honour of Murrupurtiyanuwu, the first Tiwi to qualify as a teacher, who since died of a brain tumour. Her name means the wave that pushed against a boat.
Continue reading “1992_10_october_sranne”

The High Court’s judgment on Wednesday on the broadcasting ban has been greeted enthusiastically as upholding the “”right to free speech”.

Alas, it does no such thing. The reasoning is not directed at all towards an individual’s right to free speech, nor even to the right of a commercial television station to broadcast freely.

The judgment has also been greeted as laying the groundwork for some implied Bill of Rights in the Australian Constitution. Once again, it does no such thing.
Continue reading “1992_10_october_speech”

Every electiontide, boring commentators and analysts say things like, “”This is the most important election since the war.” Or this is the most important election since 1949, or whatever.

Importance is more a mantle for historians to bestow than for journalists to predict. Obviously, an election is likely to be important if there is a change of government and if the new government takes a machete to the existing jungle, carving a new way forward.

In that respect 1949 and 1972 were important, whereas the changes of government in 1975 and 1983 much less so.
Continue reading “1992_10_october_senate”