It is so easy. Out comes the credit card. A quick slash across the electronic reader and the purchases are taken away for consumption. Last month Australia put another $2 billion on the international credit card, according to figures issued yesterday. Next month interest will have to be paid on it, and the rest of the $180 billion we owe overseas. Continue reading “1996_01_january_leader19jan”
1996_01_january_leader18jan
The move by ACT Attorney-General Gary Humphries to install security cameras appears to be a knee-jerk populist reaction to problems in Civic that have quite complex causes. Wormald Security has made Mr Humphries an offer of a free trial, so Mr Humphries has accepted it without taking sufficient time to consider fully a range of issues such as privacy and cost-effectiveness. Even if the cameras are free, the labour-intensive work of monitoring them and following up what they reveal is not.
The move comes immediately after the stabbing of a 17-year-old boy in Civic at the weekend. Apparently Mr Humphries feels something must be seen to be done.
While it is true that installing the cameras might be an administrative matter not requiring legislative action, it would have been better if the Assembly had had a chance to express its view. While many people in Canberra may well feel all steps should be taken to prevent and punish crime, others would feel uneasy at the prospect that law-abiding people going about their business can be videotaped from secret vantage points in the city.
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1996_01_january_leader17jan
The decision by the NSW Government to change the role of Governor is a welcome one. Indeed, one could well ask why any state needs a Governor at all. The ACT system is a good example of how that level of government can do without the role. The Chief Justice swears in the MLAs after an election, who in turn elects a Speaker who presides over the election of a Chief Minister or Premier. The Chief Minister then formally sign Bills into law when they are passed by Parliament.
At the national level there may be some argument for an office that somehow symbolises the nation, carrying with it some social and community function in addition to the formal watching-eye functions of dissolving Parliament, calling on someone to form a Government and signing Bills into law. But at the state level, the paraphernalia and trappings inherited from colonial times are unnecessary.
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1996_01_january_leader16jan
People in developed countries for several decades after World War II became complacent about infectious disease. AIDS has to some extent dented that complacency. But, having conquered major killers like smallpox, tuberculosis, pneumonia, meningitis and poliomyelitis through vaccinations and antibiotics we still remain too complacent. That complacency reveals itself in too little vigilance with childhood vaccinations and the abuse of antibiotics.
Dr Peter Collignon of Woden Valley Hospital and the Australian Group on Antimicrobial Resistance have warned in an article in the Medical Journal of Australia that several serious diseases are becoming resistant to antibiotics, leaving patients with only natural resistance which might not be enough to hold off long-term damage or death. These warnings must be taken very seriously. Fortunately, Australia does a reasonable job of policing drug prescription. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the world does not, allowing antibiotics to be sold over the counter, and the prevalence of travel makes the spread of resistant bugs more likely.
Australia must to more to curtail the use of antibiotics where they are not really needed (in curbing minor infection) or are useless (in curbing viruses).
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The wonder of Undara lava caves
January 1996
It happened only recently; just the other day geologically speaking.
A couple of hundred kilometres south-west of what is now Cairns, the Undara volcano erupted. That was 190,000 years ago.
Lava spewed from the volcano covering some 1500 square kilometres. Liquid lava is like water. It does not spread out as a sheet, but rather forms rivers. This is what the Undara lava did. One such river flowed, red-hot at 1200 degrees, for 160 kilometres before the lava stopped spewing from the volcano.
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1996_01_january_governor
The move by Bob Carr to put the vice-regal officer in a city office has a precedent … from the equally republican-minded Prime Minister of the Irish Free State, Eamon de Valera.
In 1932, De Valera engaged in a concerted attack on the office of Governor-General and the incumbent, James McNeill, whom he saw as an unwarranted and unwanted English entity.
De Valera clashed with Governor-General McNeill over invitations to functions at Government House, culminating in McNeill threatening to make public correspondence about the clash which would have embarrassed De Valera unless De Valera apolgised for his behaviour.
Continue reading “1996_01_january_governor”
1996_01_january_governor
The move by Bob Carr to put the vice-regal officer in a city office has a precedent … from the equally republican-minded Prime Minister of the Irish Free State, Eamon de Valera.
In 1932, De Valera engaged in a concerted attack on the office of Governor-General and the incumbent, James McNeill, whom he saw as an unwarranted and unwanted English entity. Continue reading “1996_01_january_governor”
1995_12_december_rights
Not worth the paper it’s written on, like many quotes, has strayed from the original intention of Sam Goldwyn to mean the exact opposite of what he intended.
Goldwyn used the line “”not worth the paper it’s written on” when referring to verbal contracts. With typical Goldwyn cynicism he was suggesting that the wheelers and dealers of Hollywood could not be trusted; their word was as nothing. He was saying that the only way to get something enforceable is to get it in writing on paper so you could go to court.
Nowadays, with perhaps greater cynicism, people use the expression to say that certain written documents or agreements are worthless. For example, some might say the new treaty with Indonesia is not worth the paper it is written on. The expression was often applied to the Soviet Constitution which guaranteed freedom of speech and religion.
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1995_12_december_london
Commerce, climate and environment combine to determine the best places to live. Planners may help, but people are not stupid.
In Canberra, the early settlers knew Burley Griffin had made a visionary mistake. His plan put all of the monumental and institutional buildings on the south side of the lake. They were elevated and looked north into the sun. The people, under his plan, were put on the north side looking to the monumental buildings that were lit up by the splendid sun.
Thus, under Griffin’s plan the people were to live with the cold southerly orientation. Moreover, on the eastern Ainslie side north of the lake, the slope of the hill gave them a westerly aspect, facing the worst of the weather, the hot afternoon sun and in the shadow of Mount Ainslie in the morning … the time when the sun is most welcome in both summer and winter.
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1995_12_december_leader26dec
The most powerful nation on earth has shut itself down. The Government of the United States will be closed for business (or at least most of its business) until January 3. This is because the legislative arms of government, controlled by fiscally frugal Republicans, cannot agree with the executive arm, controlled by the more spendthrift Democrats headed by President Bill Clinton.
There have been signs of compromise, over payments of welfare to the most needy, but 260,000 federal employees remain on compulsory leave because no Budget law has been passed to pay them.
Continue reading “1995_12_december_leader26dec”