Crispin Hull

Who’s Who is not going on CD and has no intention of doing so. Their bread and butter depends on it. The reason is privacy. Ego aside, people give their names to Who Who’s so other people can look them up. In the computer speak, the entry point into the database is the name, surname first.

If the book came out electronically, the commercially minded could extract sub-databases according to sports and other interests from the 10,000 top Australians. Thus a list of wine-lovers or golfers could be constructed and a very targeted mailing list constructed. Thus, Who’s Who, not wanting to offend its clientele, does not publish electronically.

Most electronic phonebook products do not allow reverse searching _ that is from address or number back to the person.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_column29aug”

Doctor organisations have responded predictably to the ACT Government’s plan to give a patients access to their records. They did not like it. Their fear is twofold: an avalanche of litigation and a feeling that patients could easily misinterpret their records, leading to unnecessary anxiety.

The ACT legislation is prospective; it will not apply to existing records. However, a case is before the High Court about the status of existing records. If that goes in favour of patients it will affect all previous records.

The avalanche of litigation is a misguided fear; patients have had access to public-hospital records for about a decade under freedom-of-information legislation in various states and territories. There has been no avalanche.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_column22aug”

I did not contribute much to Australia’s gross domestic product or gross domestic consumption on Saturday.

As days go _ according to the measures of economists _ I had a pretty miserable day. My standard of living was equivalent to _ well, not quite a Bangladeshi _ but certainly no higher than an Egyptian, Thai or Peruvian.

Let me add it up. One home-made salmon sandwich. The bought ingredients must have put 80 cents on the national account.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_column15aug”

It’s official _ lawyerisation continues apace. The legal profession is growing, getting richer and more male-dominated.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics put out a report last week on the legal-services industry showing a modest increase in employment of 14 per cent between June 1988 and June 1993 (against a five per cent increase in total Australian employment).

But the figure disguises an even greater increase in the number of practising lawyers and a large increase in their incomes.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_column08aug”

It would not have happened a year ago. Gary Sturgess would not have been able to get published in a leading daily _ The Sydney Morning Herald _ a detailed article carrying the clear imputation that the NSW Police Commissioner, Tony Lauer, is incompetent and should be sacked.

Gary Sturgess was an adviser to the Greiner Government and helped frame the legislation on the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

Sturgess argued yesterday that, though he had no concerns about Lauer’s integrity, he thought he should go because he was warned about systemic corruption in the NSW force and did nothing about it.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_column01aug”

There is one rule for Carmen Lawrence and another for everyone else. Dr Lawrence was given legal aid by the Federal Government to fund her challenge in the Western Australian Supreme Court against a state Royal Commission inquiring into her conduct as state Premier. Brendan Kelson and Michael McKernan have not been so lucky.

A year ago a federal body, the Merit Protection Review Agency, inquired into the Australian War Memorial, of which they were director and assistant director at the time. The Minister responsible for the Public Service, Gary Johns, gave the MPRA a two-paragraph brief:

“”Recently I have had brought to my attention matters relating to staff management at the Australian War Memorial. I understand that there have been allegations made by staff at the Australian War Memorial of various types of workplace harassment over a considerable period.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_awm”

The NSW Royal commission shows how corruption starts small and gets worse. It shows the importance of nipping bad police practices in the bud, before they become entrenched and systemic.

The key reason the commission was successful was that it refused to use any NSW police at all in its investigation. Past inquiries failed because inquiring police tipped off their mates. Instead the commission used the Australian Federal Police.

The top brass in the AFP have a fair idea of the need to cull out bad police very early, but they are facing some difficulty.
Continue reading “1995_08_august_afp”

At last I no longer have to tiptoe through Windows. I have got Windows to run as its should _ no thanks to Microsoft.

Windows for Workgroups is worse that Windows but both programs have a habit of frequently bombing out with General Protection Errors or Application Errors. Inevitably it would erase some critical data _ the 1990s equivalent of Coleridge being interrupted by a visitor after composing the first verse of Kubla Khan and never being able to get the words right again. Two new programs have done the trick: MagnaRam and RamGate.

MagnaRam compresses code as it goes in and out of memory. It makes Windows work faster and use less memory. For example I now have Word 6, Excel, Lotus Organizer, FaxWorks and a special Canberra Times program open and I still have 31 per cent of computer resources available. I also have Plug-In running. Among other things this warns you if resources are running low.
Continue reading “1995_07_july_windows”

Parliament is now up till August and so it is now a fairly safe bet to assume there will not be a double dissolution and that only half the Senate is up for re-election at the next election.Technically, the Constitution does not permit a double dissolution after November 4. Even so a trigger is needed in the form of the Senate twice rejecting (or failing to pass) legislation twice passed by the House with a three month gap.

It is unlikely the Government would want to use existing blocked taxes as the trigger and there is not enough time to set up a new one. How does a half-Senate election suit the major players?

It should favour the Labor Party; be fairly neutral for the Coalition and not be kind to the Democrats.
Continue reading “1995_07_july_senforum”

We now have two Governments in Australia which got power with a minority of votes and which owe their existence to the donkey vote. The Carr Government in NSW and the Goss Government in Queensland both scraped home with one-seat majorities.

The counting in Queensland ended on Tuesday with the last seat won by Labor by 16 votes. In March, the NSW Labor Government won its majority with the last few seats being determined by a few hundred votes. Let’s go first to the minority-vote issue; then to the donkey vote.

In NSW Labor got a majority with only 48.8 per cent of the vote. In Queensland it got a majority with 47.7 per cent. (Estimates vary a little, but all are at least 1 per cent and 2 per cent under 50 per cent respectively.)
Continue reading “1995_07_july_qldpol27”