Crispin Hull

The Budget reveals a shift in grants to non-government community bodies and a greater empahsis on user pays.

Precisely which non-government grant recipients will lose and which will gain is not revealed. Under the let-the-managers-manage approach, it may be left to departments to deal with.

The losers are in the portfolios of arts and heritage (21 per cent or $1.2 million), government schools (38, $320,000), housing (17, $20,000) and conservation (2, $10,000).
Continue reading “1995_09_september_grants”

Pledge to live within three-year bottom line. Moving from $44m deficit this year to $21m surplus in three years.

ACTION: Subsidy down $6m. By third year down by $12m a year. Corporatised by July 1.

Payroll tax: Threshold rising to payroll of $800,000 by 1997. Business to benefit by $13.5m.

Tourism: $10m for promotion, including upgrade of information centre and new body called CanTrade.
Continue reading “1995_09_september_glance”

ACT residential leaseholders have more secure title to their land than freeholders in some states. Their title is as least as secure as freehold in other states. For practical purposes ACT residential leasehold is perpetual.

The reason is that under ACT law residential lessees have a right to renewal. That is granted by the ACT Land (Planning and Environment) Act (s172). It is subject to the payment of an administrative fee which must not be more than the administrative cost. It is subject also to the lease having less than 30 years to run. It is also subject to the Commonwealth or Territory not needing the land for a public purpose.

The grant of the right to renewal is a property right. It cannot be taken away without payment of just terms or compensation. The guarantee of just compensation lies in the ACT Acquisition Act, the Federal Self-Government Act and perhaps the Federal Constitution.
Continue reading “1995_09_september_free”

I thought of writing to you when the woman in Grace Bros made her third attempt at getting the right box for the champagne glasses. Instead of taking the glasses to the room where the keep the empty boxes, she scurried back and forth selecting a box, unsuccessfully trying to pack the glasses in it, and going back for another try. Fred Hilmer, the oracle of efficiency would be interested in this, I thought. And as the glasses were for a prize for the squash raffle, I thought the IC might as well get a earful, too.

It was my turn to do the raffle … buy the prizes, sell the tickets on squash night, reimburse myself and hand over the profit to the treasurer.

Now you lot think you have turned over every stone in Australian society … culling inefficiency out of state government electricity generation; blowing the chill wind of competition through idle port authorities; rounding up slackness in government hospitals; sticking the needle into cosy lawyers’ and real-estate-agents’ monopolies; scything through unnecessarily detailed regulation … but you ain’t seen nothing as inefficient as raising 50 bucks in a raffle at ACT Masters Squash.
Continue reading “1995_09_september_column25sep”

ABOUT 10 pages in the middle of the S volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica in our school library were well-worn from much reading. When you closed the volume the tattered edges of those pages formed a thin brown line. The pages were, of course, the entries on sex. Teenagers will be teenagers. The librarian could hardly dismember (literally) the S volume after ruling that damaging books was a capital crime. Nor could he remove the whole volume, lest someone had an assignment on Scotland.

And that was before photocopiers would have made censorship attempts even more hopeless. Nowadays we not only have copiers, but the Net. There has been a fair amount of fear and loathing recently that teenagers will use the Net to get all sorts of smut. And the usual range of vote-trawling, knee-jerking politicians have demanded it stop.
Continue reading “1995_09_september_column19sep”

A gathering in Melbourne at the weekend gave tribute to Sir Anthony Mason’s eight years as Chief Justice of the High Court.

Mason and the majority of judges who have sided with him have come under a lot of public criticism, mainly from conservatives. They have accused the court of “”radical”, “”dangerously activist” things … like imply into the Constitution rights to freedom of speech; extract a principle of native title seemingly from thin air; require a right to legal representation; abolish centuries-old principles of property law; wipe out nine decade of Australian jurisprudence on free trade; and allow foreign treaties to govern Australian life. Tut, tut.

The detail may be new, but the broad approach is not. It is what much of the judiciary has done for a lot of the time. The approach has a long pedigree.
Continue reading “1995_09_september_column12sep”

I rather enjoyed Paul Keating’s speech in Parliament last week getting stuck into the Marks royal commission.

Before his speech it was not possible to write in this paper certain things without being cited for contempt. (The Canberra Times has a slight circulation in Western Australia.)

Now, as part of a commentary and reportage of parliamentary proceedings … which are protected … I can write that I agree with Keating’s summary that the commission is just a political witchhunt devised by a politician to destroy the career of another politician. But last week I could not write what Keating had said off my own bat. Silly isn’t it. It gets sillier.
Continue reading “1995_09_september_column04sep”

The commission also published its estimate of the two-party-preferred vote in the three ACT seats following the redistribution, based on the 1993 result, not the by-election vote, which the commission ignores for redistribution assessments.

Namadgi is 60.79 per cent ALP and 39.21 per cent Liberal; Fraser is 62.06-37.94 and Canberra is 60.81-39.19. In 1993 the figures were: Fraser 62.81-37.19 and Canberra 59.56-40.44. The ACT total in both cases is 61.19-38.81.
Continue reading “1995_09_september_addelect”

President Bill Clinton’s pledge to veto the lifting of the arms embargo against the Muslin Bosnians typifies his whole policy over the former Yugoslavia: ill-judged, ineffectual and too late.

He has constantly vacillated while making bold statements, with the result that all parties (the Bosnian, Serbs, Muslims, his NATO allies and even the UN) have come to regard any constructive US role as hopeless.

The latest pledge is in the face of a 298-128 vote in the House and a 69-29 vote in the Senate _ both large enough to override a veto should Mr Clinton be silly enough to go ahead with it _ requiring Mr Clinton to end US support for the embargo after the withdrawal of the UN force or within 12 weeks of a request from the Bosnian Government, whichever comes first.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_leader04aug”

The new draft code of ethics for journalists issued this week by a committee appointed by the Media, Arts and Entertainment has recognized the uncertainties of journalism and the need for judgment and assessment of degrees. It recognizes the grey areas and eschews absolutes. It talks of journalists “”striving” for accuracy; “”making efforts to” ensure people get a right of reply; that they should “”guard against” commercial considerations; “”aim to” attribute information to its source; ”exercise particular care for” the welfare of children.

The existing code, on the other hand, is prescriptive. It says journalists “”shall not” allow commercial considerations to influence them; “”shall” respect private grief and “”in all circumstances” respect all confidences.

The new approach is fine as a statement of high principle, but without strong, independent enforcement of principle rather than technicality, it could fail.
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