Crispin Hull

In layman’s terms Barry Hart has been completely done over by the medical and legal professions.

On February 28, 1973 he walked into Chelmsford Private Hospital. Two weeks later he woke up with double pneumonia, pleurisy, deep vein thrombosis and anoxic brain damage. He had been given deep-sleep therapy and electric shock treatment against his will.

Last week the NSW Court of Appeal brought down a judgment against him with costs. He is left broken, heavily in debt on the verge bankruptcy, his life in tatters. The brain damage was not immobilising, but with the other injuries enough to prevent employment.

On the other hand, his psychiatrist, Dr John Herron, who the Royal Commission described as “”manipulative both as a witness and as a person” and who administered at Chelmsford a “”thoroughly dangerous” treatment that killed and injured people, is still practising. Counsel assisting the commission, Brian Donovan, QC, said the evidence was capable of sustaining manslaughter charges against Herron.
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Last year, when Windows 95 came out, the computer writers duly filled their columns. By then, however, I had tweaked Windows 3.1 into working the way it should (the way that was promised by Microsoft when Windows first came out). It did not crash without ample warning enabling me to save any work. It ran four or five major programs at once. It had a extra menu to access often-used programs easily.

How was this possible? By adding Ramgate, Magna-Ram and Plannet (correct) Crafters’ Plug-In for Windows. Together they cost a tad more than Windows 95, but everything was working and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. I had a souped up version with triple overhead camshafts, twin SU carburettors and a fox tail on the aerial. Should I trade this in for the latest model Commodore?

I was told that if I want to get seamless Internet connection with Netscape 2.0 whether my laptop was docked or standing alone, Windows 95 was the way to go.
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University vice-chancellors are marshalling their arguments against looming cuts to funding in the lead-up to the August Budget. Some of the arguments have merit; but others would not pass muster in a first-year logic exam.

The vice-chancellors are arguing on many fronts. They say education and research are important for the long-term future of the nation. That is true, but there are questions of quality and quantity. The vice-chancellors argue that cuts in funding will result in a reduction in the number of places. Well, that may not be such a bad thing. Perhaps too many students are going to university with the result that standards are falling or the range of subjects is far to broad. Certainly the number of students has ballooned in the past 10 years. It may be that a lot of the subjects taught at some universities would be better taught on the job, though that assumes an improving economy that provides the job. The government would argue that without significant public-sector cuts, there can be no economic improvement.

The so-called gang of eight elite universities have tentatively proposed that they should be treated better when it comes to research funding. There is merit in that argument, but it comes a little late. The administrations of these universities either acquiesced or allowed themselves to be bullied into the Dawkinisation of the universities with its entirely inappropriate amalgamations and conversions of colleges. Now the vice-chancellors of the gang of eight want to re-establish the “”real” universities. Of course, if there were a more objective, measurable standard across the universities, the divvying up of research funds would be that much easier and their case would be that much easier to make.
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ACT Housing is half way through a program of installing smoke detectors in all its housing stock. It is a worthy program. Smoke detectors should be installed in all houses. Smoke detectors cost very little, about $15 or so. The program began after several fires in ACT Housing homes causing large property losses, and more importantly, a potential for loss of life.

The trouble is that ACT Housing expects the program to last two years. It will take another year for it to be completed. ACT Housing is using the ACT Fire Brigade to install the smoke detectors. The fire brigade does not have a large staff. Its main function is to put out fires and to maintain the wherewithal to put out fires. It is likely that in the next year it takes to install smoke detectors in the remaining houses, that preventable property damage and perhaps loss of life or limb will occur.
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The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has expressed concern that free markets and government deregulation will make life more difficult for the poor and hungry. It argues that the free market, geared as it is to profit, is not the best way to secure stable supplies that work as a buffer to prevent hunger and starvation.

Free marketeers can point out that food production in the world has risen a a greater rate than population since about 1970 and that this has happened at a time when the application of free-market philosophies was increasing throughout the world. However, it is probable that increased production was more due to technological changes that would, up to a point, have happened irrespective of the economic philosophies of the various governments. None the less it is likely that greater freedom of markets has resulted in other economic efficiencies … particularly in infrastructre … that have improved the production and distribution of food in the world.

FAO is correct to point out that with the onset of greater aherence to free-market principles, governments are moving away from mainatining large stocks of grain as a way of stabilising grain prices in the home market. Often, fears of unrest that follow sharp increases in the price of stable foods have caused governments to control prices. However, that has been offset by requirements from the World Bank and other economic conditions for governments to cut spending.
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The proposal, announced this week, for a 550km/h Transrapid train between Sydney and Canberra is a significant step up from the 350km/h Speedrail. Neither train, of course, will be travelling top speed for even most of the journey. It seems that the Transrapid train will do the journey in an hour, whereas Speedrail will do it in one and a half hours. Both, presumably, will go to central Sydney.

The significance of this week’s announcement, if realised, is that the train time to Sydney central will be faster than the air time if the taxi or bus journey from the airport to central is included. It could mean the virtual closure of the Sydney-Canberra air route as train travel becomes quicker, cheaper, more comfortable and more reliable, particularly as Sydney airport’s problems are likely to get worse rather than better. It may result in greater capacity at Canberra airport.

The Labor Opposition has done the right thing in exempting the proposed tax levy to pay compensation for automatic and semi-automatic guns from the Government’s pre-election promise not to raise taxes. Clearly circumstances have changed since the election and such a tax is a reasonable way for financing what is clearly in the public interest and desired by the vast majority of Australians … to help rid society of the danger of death and injury arising from semi-automatic and automatic weapons.

Given the overwhelming response to the massacre at Port Arthur, expressed in opinion polls and endorsed by the state police ministers, a levy seems a reasonable way to finance the program. It would be unfair to gun-owners, who bought their guns when it was legal to do so, not to receive compensation if the guns become illegal. Moreover, fair compensation will encourage them to respond to the amnesty. For that reason, compensation should err on the side of generosity.
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Once again the United States has put trade before world peace and human rights in its relations with China. Last week it decided not to take any action against China over China’s sale to Pakistan of ring magnets that can be used in centrifuges in the production of enriched uranium. The sale comes after Chinese sale of material that can be used in the nuclear-weapons-production process to Iran. The decision over the sale to Pakistan came after Chinese officials said they did not know the technology had been sold by the Chinese Nuclear Industry Co. That assertion is little dubious given that Chinese large-scale industry, especially nuclear industry, rarely acts autonomously. True, the magnets were not on the international list of items that should not be sold to non-nuclear nations, but China seems oblivious to the risk of proliferation.

It is sad that the US is not prepared to send a message to China, rather settling for an empty promise that China will not do it again. That promise is hopelessly inconsistent. Caught this time, Chinese officialdom protested they did not know about the export. If that is the case, how can they hope to ensure there will be no repetition? How can they control what they do not know about?
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On its face the Acton-Kingston land swap should go ahead. The Acton peninsula, jutting into the lake so close to Canberra’s political heartland, should ultimately be for a great national purpose. The Kingston foreshore, near residential and retail sites and facing sunny north across the lake, is much more suited for territory purposes.

Last week, Chief Minister Kate Carnell rightly condemned the year’s delay caused by the ACT Legislative Assembly’s Planning and Environment Committee inquiry and the fact that even after a year the committee issued on an interim report. Moreover, the committee appeared to do little more than collect submissions and synthesise them. There is little evidence of any searching questioning of the submissions. Small wonder, then, that the ACT Electricity and Water put in an ambit claim on the cost of removing some of its facilities from the Kingston site.

Mrs Carnell pointed out that a study into contamination had already been commissioned, presumably through the Interim Authority for Kingston Foreshore and that the clean-up of the site was a mater for further negotiation with the Commonwealth.
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It is likely that the ACT will lose the third House of Representatives seat which it gained at the 1996 election. At the 1993 election, the two ACT seats, Canberra and Fraser were the two largest (by population) seats in the House of Representatives. At the 1996 election, the three ACT seats, Namadgi, Canberra and Fraser were the three smallest mainland seats.

Under the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act, he ACT is right on the cusp between two and three seats. If the ACT returns to two seats, it will cause great inconvenience and considerable overall under-representation compared with other Australia states and Territories. But overall, the electoral system is a fair one.

Under the present system, House of Representatives seats are allocated among the states a follows. A quota is struck by dividing twice the number of state Senate seats (148) into the whole population. The quota is divided into the population of each state and territory to determine the number of seats each gets. If left-over is greater than half a quota the state (or territory) is given an extra seat, if the left-over is less that half a quota it is ignored. Having determined the number in each state, boundaries are drawn so that seats within each state are, as far a practicable, equal.

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