Crispin Hull

Australians should reject the cow-cocky, one-paddock-at-a-time mentality when talking about a republic, the Australian author Thomas Keneally said yesterday.

He rebuffed critics of the Australian Republic Movement who said that the idea of a republic was only fit for discussion in good times. Those critics thought that to discuss a republic was “”a wilful slight to the economically decimated.”

People in the republican movement were as aware as any of other issues: unemployment, the environment, Aboriginal sovereignty and so on.

He rejected the logic of those who said the economy must come first and republicanism be put aside.
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Spartacus was perhaps first to put human rights on “”the agenda”. He did it in Roman times. Since then it has dropped off and come back on without especial rhyme or reason. Joan of Arc, Lord Shaftsbury, Abraham Lincoln have tried to put human rights “”on the agenda” at different times and in different places.

On-again off-again has been the case in Australia. The leaders of the Rum Rebellion, Lalor, Caroline Chisholm are cases in point. In the meantime, of course, other have been trying to keep human rights off the agenda: Julius Caesar, the Revered Samuel Marsden and Vladimir Lenin spring to mind.

The point is that human rights cannot be dismissed as the fruits of the idleness of the chattering classes or the looney left. Nor can the calls for a Bill of Rights.
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An organisation to defend the Constitution has been formed and will have its inaugural conference in Melbourne this weekend.

The Samuel Griffith Society, named after the first Chief Justice aims to: defend the Australian Constitution against all who would attempt to undermine it and in particular to oppose the further centralisation of power in Canberra.

Among the founders is John Stone, former National Party Senator and Secretary of the Treasury.

Speakers at this weekend’s conference include former Chief Justice Sir Harry Gibbs, Hugh Morgan, chief executive of Western Mining; journalist Frank Devine; lawyer Dr Colin Hughes and Dr David Chessell from Access Economics.
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There was a second element to Gough Whitlam’s famous “”maintain your rage” speech on November 11, 1975.

He also urged those gathered before Parliament House to “”maintain your enthusiasm”.

Seventeen years later he was still at it: taking an active part in public debate of constitutional issues and urging students to maintain their enthusiasm for it.

In the Senate chamber of the old Parliament yesterday, Mr Whitlam called for a Republic, yet again. He told about 400 law student students (crammed into the chamber which 17 years before had denied Mr Whitlam’s Government Supply) that Australia should have a President elected by a secret ballot of a joint sitting of the two Federal Houses of Parliament.
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The sign was on the colonnade next to fish pond at University House, scene of quiet academic debate in Canberra for more than 30 years. The fish obeyed the sign. It was a brilliant Canberra winter’s day.

The meeting was the ANU Centre for International and Public Law’s conference on Australia and Human Rights.

Suddenly a hand-held megaphone shattered the quiet: “”What about human right in East Timor. Stop the genocide.”

Human rights were on test. The Foreign Minister, Senator Gareth Evans, was to address the conference.
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The Federal Court has ruled that the plan of management for south-east Australia is based on a statistical fallacy.

The fallacy caused an absurd result.

The court did not overturn the whole plan, but is fairly clear from Justice Maurice O’Loughlin’s judgment that he would be prepared to unless the Australian Fisheries Management Authority did something about the plan or at least gave some redress to a fishing company that brought the action saying it had been badly treated.

A spokeswoman for the authority said yesterday that the authority’s board is meeting today (thursjul30) and tomorrow (frijul31) to discuss what it will do.
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The garden city is in peril, according to the Australian Institute of Landscape Architects.

The institute says, “”The Garden city image of Canberra will inevitably decline if the (ACT) Government’s attitude to urban landscaping continues.”

The institute was responding to the ACT Government’s call for submissions on its capital works proposals for 1992-93. Its president, Judy Butt, said yesterday that the decline the standard of public works in the ACT was not restricted to the parliamentary triangle.
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A High Court judge warned yesterday of the dangers of poll-driven policies that could disregard the rights of minorities.

Sir Gerard Brennan, High Court judge since 1981, was addressing a human-rights conference organised by the Centre for International and Public Law at the Australian National University yesterday.

He said a Bill of Rights might protect minorities against the political branches of the Australian polity, the legislature and the executive.

Sir Gerard referred to phrase used by Lord Hailsham, a former British Lord Chancellor, that modern parliamentary government was an “”elected dictatorship”.
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Competition creates some strange bedfellows. It is not often that someone like Hugh Morgan seeks wider Commonwealth powers and a greater role for a government instrumentality.

That is what he did last week.

Mr Morgan is managing director of Western Mining Corporation. He has been an outspoken critic of Federal Government environment policies. He says government red tape is holding business back. But last week it was different. He was wearing the hat of chairman of the Business Council of Australia’s business law and regulation panel.

He sided with the Federal Government in calling for a wider role for the Trade Practices Commission. He attacked State Governments yesterday for not following the initiative of the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, in cutting state and professional monopoly powers. He said the states should reconsider Mr Keating’s call for an open inquiry into whether the Trade Practices Act should apply to government trading enterprises, marketing authorities, unincorporated bodies, government procurement and the professions.

At present the Act applies only to trade by private-sector corporations, interstate trade and trade within the territories because of the limits the Commonwealth’s constitutional power.
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The Government could be quite relaxed about increasing foreign aid, despite the recession, the Member for Fraser, John Langmore, said yesterday. ÿ(sunjul26)@

He was speaking after calls at the weekend by two major non-Government aid agencies for increased help for Africa.

Both CARE Australia and Australian Catholic Relief have painted a desperate picture in several African countries, notably Somalia, Sudan and Mozambique. The effect of civil war and drought is threatening the lives of millions of children.
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