Crispin Hull

Canberra is to put in a bid for a co-operative multi-media centre under the Federal Government’s “Creative Nation” statement. The interim chair of the ACT consortium, Neville Higgins, and the Minister for Business, Employment and Tourism, Tony De Domenico, made the announcement last week. Under Creative nation about $60 million over five years would be spent in six multi-media centres. It was likely that Sydney and Melbourne would get at least one each. Multi-media is combined graphics, sound, video and text usually on compact disc for computers, but also delivered on-line. Dr Higgins and Mr De Domenico said Canberra was ideally positioned to get one of the centres.

This was because: Canberra had a highly educated workforce and a higher percentage of it than elsewhere in information industries. Its existing multi-media industry was the largest per-capita in Australia. It had the project in Gungahlin to link 5000 homes with an interactive broadband network which could be used to pilot CD and other interactive product. Canberra had a huge proportion of Australia’s information base _ in government and national institutions. It had the resources of the National Library, the ANU, University of Canberra, CSIRO, National gallery, War Memorial and National Museum National Film and Sound Archives. It had the support of leading Australian world-wide publishers of interactive entertainment titles, such as Electronic Arts, Beam Software and others. Canberra had good education resources. Dr Higgins said the consortium included local multimedia firms, the ANU, UC the Canberra Institute of Technology, Telstra and the CSIRO.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_multim”

Independent MLA Michael Moore owes his seat to Labor preferences and Labor voters not expressing a preference, according to the final scrutiny sheets issued by the Electoral Commission at the weekend. And in the other two electorates, far more of the preferences of the excluded Moore Independent candidates went to Labor and the Greens than to the Liberals _ nearly 3 to 1, in fact.

The result adds to the argument put by the Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, that Mr Moore should vote for a Labor Government and her as Chief Minister when the vote is taken in the Assembly on Thursday. It is likely that Mr Moore will not make his intention known until the vote as he is a strong believer in the forum of the Assembly. None the less people close to Mr Moore suggest he does not like the idea of supporting a Chief Minister and party who have been rebuffed by the electorate, and despite some policy differences will support and change. The scrutiny sheets reveal that preferences from David Lamont (who had a fair collection from other excluded Labor candidates) flowed to Mr Moore rather than the Liberals and put him over the line to get the seventh and last seat ahead of the Liberals’ Lucinda Spier. About 3200 of Mr Lamont’s live ballots were exhausted (voters did not express a preference beyond Labor); 700 went to Mr Moore and 300 went to the Liberals. If there had been a significant drift of Mr Lamont’s preferences (including the exhausted ones) it would have been a different story, with a fourth Liberal elected.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_moore6”

Independent Michael Moore would just as soon be out in the wilds of the Tamani desert or Cape York than weighing up whether Canberra is to be governed by a minority Liberal or minority Labor Government. He has none of the personal ambition that drives many politicians, but he has strong views and passions about certain subjects. They include euthanasia, drug-law reform, education, planning and to a lesser extent the role of the public sector. Superficially, one might think this would make it difficult for either major party to deal with him, but the major parties are lucky that one of Moore’s strong view is about open governance that makes concession-extraction unpalatable to him. In particular, he likes the Assembly _ the legislature _ to have a strong role, both as making the Executive accountable and in deciding key matters of public concern. On the accountability side, he has used his balance-of-power position with Liberal support to get machinery that exerts the Assembly’s power over the Executive. There are now a raft of provisions that make certain Executive acts “”disallowable instruments”. These include key statutory appointments and many actions by ministers. A minority Liberal Government may well rue the days in Opposition when it supported such measures. (And it now appears more likely than not that the Liberals will form minority government.) On the importance of the Assembly, he has a quaint 19th century view that debate on the floor matters and can actually persuade him to vote one way rather than the other.

This is infuriating for the deal-makers of the major parties, and, incidentally, the media who have to wait for the vote to know the outcome. Moore has made no bones about the fact that he regards personalities as very important in determining who should be Chief Minister. He said both before and after the election that the Hare-Clark system would result in people be elected on personal as much as party merit. He said also that his decision on who would be Chief Minister (and in effect it is now his decision) would be determined in part by who might take Ministries, as much as the stated policies of the parties. On this score, education and planning are crucial. Hypothesising for a moment, on the Labor side he might object, for example, to Bill Wood in either role because Wood tends to get driven by bureaucrats. On the Liberal side, he would object to Gary Humphries in education because of his school-closure history and would object to any “”white-shoe brigade” pro-development MLA in planning. That rules them all out bar Humphries, and perhaps the portfolio needs someone with a legal background given how ridden it is with process of one kind or another.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_moore2”

The 9.5 million Medicare cards held by Australians are to be replaced. An advertising campaign will begin this week urging people to ensure their Medicare address is up to date. Medicare cards with magnetic strips were issued with magnetic strips in 1991 and have a life of five years when they must be replaced for security and wear and tear. The first of the cards will expire at the end of April. About 400,000 cards a month will be replaced in April, May and June and 320,000 a month thereafter. The cost will be about $2 million year and will take about two years. The Minister for Health, Carmen Lawrence, said that people who had made a recent claim and as a result provided a recent address would have a new card issued automatically. But bulk-billed patients and those who had not had a claim in the past six months would need to renew. A letter would be sent inviting renewals. People should check the expiry date of their card and if they did not get a letter, it meant Medicare did not have their address. Cardholders can check their address at any Medicare office or phoning 132011 for the cost of a local call. Dr Lawrence said some leeway would be given, but it was important to have a valid card. The first bulk-bill lodged after expiry would be paid, but subsequent claims would be rejected until the patient got a new card.

It was a contest for the most Machiavellian conduct in the ACT Legislative Assembly yesterday. Was Rosemary Follett, who first raised the name of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), right in awarding the prize to Michael Moore? She did this because Moore’s proposal for a new committee system _ with himself as chair of the most important one _ had the numbers in the Assembly. Or should the prize go to the Greens voting for a Liberal Government _ on purely local issues, of course, but none the less sending a clear message to Federal Labor that Labor does not have a Gaia-given right to Green preferences or votes? Or should it go to Kate Carnell who within an hour of taking government announced the cupboard is bare, the revenue is down, we will have to tighten the belt? Or should it go to Rosemary Follett herself who _ silent about the sexual harassment charge hanging over the head of a Liberal MLA throughout the whole campaign _ suddenly started talking yesterday about a code of ethics for MLAs? Was is parliamentary privilege that enabled her to talk so freely or is there some new circumstance in her parliamentary party that now makes it possible for her side to be so self-righteous without being charged with hypocrisy? L-plates Only Paul Osborne _ with, as Ms Follett said, L-plates on _ is ineligible.

The prize can be judged on two levels _ one in the true sense of the much-maligned Machiavelli and the other in the popular sense meaning scheming evil-doer. The advice Machiavelli gave to princes (or these days politicians) was to be practical for the greater virtue of the stability of the state. He had seen Italian principalities torn apart through the virtuous but incompetent rulers _ to the great suffering of the people. So his advice was: don’t worry about small virtues if the practice of them will ruin you and make your subjects miserable. On the latter test, Moore would argue he is entitled to forget the virtue of modesty and say that for the good of the ACT he should chair the planning and environment committee because the Greens will have us living in small boxes next to a light-rail station; the Liberals will sell the lot to developers and Labor will flip between residents and developers so no-one will know where they are.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_machiav”

The Napoleonic dream of fitting the law of the land into one’s pocket comes closer _ but slowly. It is not a question of simplifying the law into one paper book as Napoleon wanted; rather a question of packing the ever-expanding amount of law into an ever smaller electronic space. Recent developments include: The joint publication last week of a CD by the Law Book Company and Aunty Abha of the Commonwealth Acts, Regulations and annotations and NSW Acts and regulations. A new CD by CCH Australia of its 30,000-page Tax Library. It includes all the tax legislation, rulings and explanations. Continuing improvements of case law and statute law by Computer Law Services (DiskROM Australia Ph 2496888) and a continuing push into government departments with its complete consolidation of Commonwealth law and some states’ law.

A promise by the Attorney-General’s Department to get its consolidation of Commonwealth and some states’ law on CD and available to the public in Apple and Windows formats. The Attorney-General, Michael Lavarch, has promised last year that his department would produce the laws of the Commonwealth consolidated in user-friendly electronic format for public access a very low prices. He said that regulations not available electronically would not be enforceable. The promise is taking a lot of time and a lot of money _ to do what the commercial firms say they have already done. Perhaps the Expenditure Review Committee should have a look at this one. The Attorney-General’s Department says it has completed the consolidation of the legislation and regulations on an electronic database.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_libs”

The courtroom drama holds a large place in Anglo-Saxon culture. Other countries do not have anything quite like it. The French have their dramas with crimes of high passion, but there is a presumption that the ends will be tidied up in a matter-of-fact way by the judicial system. In continental Europe, the drama ends before the courtroom door; in Anglo-Saxon countries the drama is set there.

The Anglo-Saxon courtroom provides drama’s most important ingredient _ uncertainty. What will happen? “”How to you find the accused? Guilty or Not Guilty.” “”Do you find for the plaintiff or the defendant?” The dramatic tension comes because the audience knows the case can equally go one way or the other. And whole plot lines have been very easily built around courtroom verdicts because the truth can just as easily be something quite different from the verdict or can coincide with it. There would be no dramatic point if verdicts are routinely right. Anglo-Saxon law, therefore provides plenty of material for both the writer or film-maker of fiction and non-fiction.

All this dramatic material and entertainment would be lost if we were silly enough to change the fundamentals of our law so that it was more predictable and that verdicts coincided with the truth more often. Have no fear, when the Federal Government brings down its response this month (MARCH) to the report of the Access to Justice advisory committee, there is no danger it will do anything to take away this fruitful source of dramatic material. The masterful public-relations con job that the common law has perpetrated on Anglo-Saxon societies for more than 100 years has been far too effective for that. The greater the lie and the more often you repeat it the more likely it is to be believed. Under “”our system” it is better that 10 guilty go free than one innocent person gets convicted.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_lawass”

The first newspaper to go on the Internet in Australia began its venture last week, and it should pose some thought for the major newspapers. The Employment Post is to become the first newspaper to go on to the Internet, according to the newspaper’s founder Kosta Nikas. The paper has already lodged its jobs section _ of about 350 jobs _ on the Net. It will go on every Tuesday and will include a selection of Commonwealth Employment Service jobs that the paper usually carries. Editorial matter will follow in the next few weeks. Access is http://www.world.net/emp-post/ That gives you the home page and you can click through from there or do text searches. The paper version will continue as usual.

Mr Nikas hopes the jobs advertised on the Net would not only be in the science and computing fields. He says Net users would pass on information to family members and friends not on the Net. The nascent service may be a sign of things to come, but at present there are not enough Net users to make it competitive with the major newspapers. There are perhaps as many as 500,000 Internet users in Australia _ about 3 per cent of the population. Many of these would get access through work. About 6 per cent of households have computers with modems in Australia. It is hard to tell how many of those are on Internet. On the other hand, the typical metro Saturday newspaper gets into perhaps two-thirds of households, and presumably all of households where there are serious job-seekers. The access costs for receivers are not really an issue because the cover price of newspapers and the cost of a phone call and connection time to the Net are both very modest. The real question is the cost to advertisers and the effectiveness of the advertisements.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_jobsnet”

The Federal Government’s spending on information technology _ now at $2 billion a year _ needs major changes to improve efficiency and to help Australian industry and exports, according to a report published yesterday.

The report of the Information Technology Review Group found there was no overall summary of IT used by the Government _ so it prepared one. The Government is the largest IT buyer in Australia and 65 per cent of the processing power is in Canberra. The Government owns about 100,000 PCs _ about two for every three public servants. The report found inconsistencies between departments; a lack of business sense and flexibility in purchasing; and a failure to take advantage of economies of scale. It recommended a whole-of-government approach headed by a Chief Information Officer in the Department of Finance advised by a high-level consultative body. It had 32 recommendations, most dealing with co-ordination and developing common approaches by agencies. The recommendations included: Widespread use of single points of access (electronic shops) by clients to various agency services, with appropriate privacy protection. Use of compatible systems on the desktop. It noted, for example, there were 26 e-mail systems in the government. A whole-of-government plan to make best use of new technologies and to make use of pooled demand for databases (with privacy protections). A whole-of-government agreement with unions to cover transfer of staff to the private sector where there are out-sourcing agreements. A review of contract staff _ restricting them to meet specific skill shortages. More cross-agency activity. Shorter processes for tendering by the private-sector for government IT purchases.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_itgovt”

Every Saturday three newspapers get dumped in my driveway. Together they contain at least 10 million words and cost about $4. To download that from the Internet, if it were available, it would take nearly 24 hours and cost _ depending on your provider _ anything up to $500. That is presuming you have $3000 worth of computer gear. Re the information superhighway, perhaps it is time to take a Bex and have a good lie down. The Internet is regarded as the precursor for the information superhighway that is _ we are told _ going to change our lives. There are about 5480 million non-users of the Internet throughout the world and about 17,950,000 non-users in Australia. Some of these may be wondering what the fuss is about, what the Internet is, what they are missing out on, and will it ever affect their lives.

It is a good time to ask such questions because the Federal Government’s Broadband Services Expert Group has just reported and it makes recommendations about how these non-users’ taxes might be spent to make them users either of the Internet or some super-charged version of it. Before looking at the future, let’s ask what is the state of things now? What is the Internet and how does it work. Picture your own computer, or if you don’t have one, picture your own filing cabinet. There are three drawers: private, restricted and public; or three directories: private, restricted and public. Your computer is attached to, say, five or six phone lines; or the handles on your filing cabinet drawers are in the street.

Anyone with the right phone number and computer can dial in or wander past and look inside the public files and take copies of documents (or pictures or sound tapes) within them. They cannot alter any file. Some people have passwords to get into the restricted files. Once again, they cannot alter them. However, they can add a file at any time. Now pictures thousands of these computers or filing cabinets. Some of them are very large. Let’s call them sites. Some of the sites are so large they need someone to look after the files _ chucking away old, useless or offensive files so that the computer or filing cabinet does not overflow.
Continue reading “1995_03_march_internet”