Crispin Hull

The argument over advertisements on the ABC might be largely academic.

Section 31 of the Australian Broadcasting Act provides, very simply: “”The Corporation shall not broadcast advertisements.”

There are exceptions for self-promotion, and we see enough of them, but without a change in the law there can be no advertisements, even of the staid SBS variety where they are restricted to the top and tail of programs SBS.

And a change in the law requires Senate approval. The chances of the Democrats and Greens agreeing are nil. One might think the same for Labor, unless it allows the change through on the you-voted-for-the-bastards principle. That principle was put forward by Paul Keating in the 1993 campaign when he said that Labor would not block a GST in the Senate if John Hewson won the election. On that occasion, Keating wanted people to know that people could not vote for Hewson and avoid the GST. Now, Labor may apply the principle differently. It may allow some non-critical laws through, so that it can hit the Government around the head with them down the track. A theme of the 1999 election, for example, might be that it was the nasty Coalition that put advertisements on the ABC.
Continue reading “1996_04_april_column23apa”

Industrial relations aside, the two big-ticket items since the change of government have been Telstra and Aboriginal affairs. Perhaps it was coincidence, but the legislation for each reveals a change of, what sociologists call, the dynamic between the legislature and the executive.

In the days when the executive usually controlled the legislature in Australian federal and state parliaments … from about 1942 to 1972 … large slabs of the legislative function were delegated … without a right of parliamentary veto … to the executive. Typically, this meant legislation along the following lines:

“”This is an Act to do XYZ. . . . It will come into effect on a date the Minister sees fit. The Minister may make regulations not inconsistent with this Act to do whatever he wants with respect to XYZ.”
Continue reading “1996_04_april_column16apr”

The Canberra Times library has cancelled its subscription to the ACT legislation series. This is not in a huff after taking offence at a small part of the contents (as some CT readers do), but rather to get the same material in a different form … on CD-ROM.

We have at last achieved the desire expressed by Napoleon 200 years ago to have the laws of the land being able to fit in the pocket of its citizens.

The technological and intellectual achievement (culminating in the first issue last week) is undoubted, but I am not sure it is such a good thing.

Two decades ago, when I dare say the ACT was as well governed as today, the laws of the ACT fitted into three volumes. Now they stretch to three metres of shelf; I estimate some 25,000 pages.
Continue reading “1996_04_april_column09apr”

Did you get the feeling of waking up in the dark in the closing days of daylight saving? Did you think that that did not happen at the beginnig of the daylight-saving period?

It is true. Southern Australia’s daylight daving period is hopelessly out of whack. You would expect that, because it is a creature of political compromise. The result is that daylight saving does not begin soon enough and ends a tad late.

There are a few figures to prove the point, but bear with me.

First, what would happen in a rational world? You would expect that daylight saving would begin and end on days with a roughly equal lengths of daylight. For example you might expect it to begin when daylight got to 12 hours and end when it shrank to 12 hours.
Continue reading “1996_04_april_column02apr”

The success of the Wood Royal Commission into police corruption has been widely applauded.

But we have to ask why it has been successful. And the reason may not be very palatable because it flies in the face of generations of unquestioning veneration of the British system of justice.

Wood succeeded where other inquiries have failed. The Independent Commission Against Corruption was singularly ineffectual in uncovering the corruption and nailing those who engaged in it, even though a range of informed people in NSW knew it was going on. Those people included journalists and Members of Parliament.

Similarly in Queensland, the later-to-be Chief Justice of Australia Harry Gibbs conducted an inquiry into prostitution and gaming in Queensland in the 1960s which came to the laughable conclusion that there was no evidence that it was going on when anyone who knew anyone in Brisbane knew. And there are others.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_wood”

1. Short title

1. This Act may be cited as the Substitute Parent Agreements Act 1994.*1*

2. – Commencement

2.*1* (1) Section 1 and this section commence on the day on which this Act is notified in the Gazette

(2) The remaining provisions commence on a day fixed by the Minister by notice in the Gazette

(3) If the remaining provisions have not commenced before the end of the period of 6 months commencing on the day on which this Act is notified in the Gazette, those provisions, by force of this subsection, commence on the first More? Enter Y (yes), N (next) or X (exit) :- y day after the end of that period
Continue reading “1996_03_march_surrog”

On its face, Labor was routed at the weekend and the Coalition victorious on a huge scale. But appearances can be deceptive.

Aside from the ministerial blood all over the floor, the outward appearance is as follows: Labor won 81 seats in 1993. On Saturday it won just 48. The Coalition went from 65 in 1993 to 95.

So Labor, a nominally leftist party, lost 40 per cent of its seats. On its face, a debacle. The Coalition, of two conservative parties, did 50 per cent better than in 1993.

But what is the real result as an expression of the will of the Australian people.

In 1993, Labor got 44.9 per cent of the primary vote and the Coalition got 44.3 The rest went to minor parties. After distribution of preferences the result was 51.4 per cent Labor to 48.6 per cent to the Coalition. In 1996, after preferences, Labor got 46 and the Coalition got 54. That is not an enormous swing of opinion.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_pollsum”

About 11.5 million Australians will go to the polls tomorrow to elect 148 members of the House of Representatives and 40 members of the Senate.

At present Labor has 79 seats in the House of Representatives and needs to retain 75 of them to keep government. A uniform swing of just half a per cent would give the Coalition Government. Opinion polls have been giving the Coalition a lead of between four and eight per cent throughout the campaign which began with the election announcement five weeks ago.

Today, The Canberra Times brings you a comprehensive guide to the election. Today’s guide includes a comparison of policies, a summary of marginal and interesting seats to watch a guide to the count in the Senate and a guide to coverage by the electronic media tomorrow night.

On Sunday, The Canberra Times will carry the last count of all House of Representative seats and the Senate, expert analysis, details of where doubtful seats are likely to go, reports of victory and defeat speeches and detail of how the ACT voted.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_polfront”

The leasehold-freehold debate was fired along during the week.

Jim Service … banker, property developer, businessman and long-time Canberra resident … condemned the Stein report as an extremist philosophy because it supported the retention of leasehold.

He argued that leasehold was preventing investment in the city because it made investment unwelcome.

It is a bizarre argument. If it were true, there would be no Canberra. The whole lot has been built on leasehold. And in so far as investors and economists like “”growth” Canberra has had the greatest total growth of any city in Australia since federation. Clearly leasehold does not prevent growth and investment.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_lesae”

There is something out of the ordinary with Justice Burchett’s handling of the ARL-Super League dispute.

It seems he has taken on the role of determining the fate of rugby league in Australia rather than ruling on a series of contracts and trade practices claims. It seems he is determined to crush super league and give the ARL a clear run, as if he were Minister for Sport, rather than a judge in a commercial dispute.

In the original court case, the judge found that News Limited and Superleague using dishonest tactics had enticed clubs to breach their contracts with the ARL. They had done that by signing up individual players direct with Superleague. He found that individual clubs had breached contracts with the ARL. The players do not have contracts directly with the ARL. Those findings are quite supportable on the evidence.
Continue reading “1996_03_march_league13”