Crispin Hull

There is no middle course for the ACT now. The ACT is poised for significant change one way or the other. The most likely result is Liberals 7, Labor 6, Green 2, Moore 1, Osborne 1. Labor can only retain Government in an alliance with the Greens. The Greens have said they will extract concessions from Labor before it will support Rosemary Follett as Chief Minister. On the other hand, the Liberals may take government with the support of Paul Osborne and Michael Moore. Either way, the course that the Follett Government was taking Canberra is to change. What is in store. If the Liberals take Government, they will have to rely on the support of Michael Moore which will mean some concessions on their planning policy. Under a Liberal Government, excluding any concessions to Michael Moore, the ACT can expect the following changes. Casemix funding in health, which will mean an efficiency drive at Woden Valley Hospital bringing down overspending in administration and overheads and to a lesser extent doctors and nurses. The Liberals want to spending $30 million less a year in health by the third year, through efficiencies and have 50 more beds in the first year and 1000 more beds by 2000, though greater private-sector involvement. ACTION will face competition through privatisation with $27 million a year lower spending. There will be a boost for business. Payroll tax will be cut 14 per cent (one percentage point to 6 per cent). The 3 cents a litre tax on petrol will be abolished. The Gungahlin Town Centre will be begun by the end of the year. The leasehold system will remain only in name. The Liberals have promised automatic renewal of both residential and commercial leases. Labor said commercial lessees would pay 10 per cent unimproved value to renew. Also business will benefit from lower betterment charges: 50 per cent maximum for commercial, dual occupancy and medium density. Michael Moore could be expected to resist the latter. On education, the Liberals said they would bring in free school buses and real spending steady. On the other hand a Labor Government with Green support would be very different. One senior Labor Minister said before the election, “”You can deal with the Greens provided you don’t have any extractive industries _ and in the ACT we don’t have them.” However, the Greens have a full social and political agenda. Their policies were not limited to the environment. It is likely to be a question of the Greens and Labor negotiating and the Greens getting what they can. Some that Labor could live with include their policies include increasing petrol tax and changing the form of the city through higher density living along public-transport routes and support for the light rail.

The Minister for the Environment, Bill Wood, has been forced to withdraw a request for departmental help in dealing with an election matter because of the caretaker convention. Mr Wood had sought “”factual information” to help respond to an environmental log of claims sent by the Canberra Conservation Council to the Labor Party and other parties and candidates. A departmental spokesperson said the department had prepared policy material for an incoming government in accordance with caretaker conventions, but this was not for use till after the election. The Minister had separately requested factual information in connection with the log of claims, not analysis or judgments “”and this request has now been withdrawn”. Details of the log were published last week. It contained about 100 points of conservation, planning and other policy. The president of council, Jacqui Rees, said the log of claims was a political document issued in the context of the campaign. The Minister should not have asked his department to help answer it. “”It was unambiguously for parties and candidates,” she said. “”It was not a request for specific information that required departmental input. It is an example of Mr Wood not comprehending his ministerial responsibilities. Senior bureaucrats should have immediately refused to handle it. But it was only when more junior bureaucrats contacted us that the impropriety of the request acknowledged.” Mr Wood said, “”It is an excessively fine point, but to ensure protocol is absolutely observed I have withdrawn the request.” He had only sought facts. He said he still had a request to answer media inquiries and still had a big in-tray. These would require departmental help to work out the facts of any case. Ms Rees said there was no problem with individual matters being dealt with; but the log was a general policy and political document in the context of an election campaign.

The parliamentary press gallery, political scientists and the think-tank fish love a good by-election. Remember the 1975 Bass by-election when Labor Deputy Prime Minister Lance Barnard resigned to take a plum diplomatic job? The 17 per cent swing was a portent of the heavy defeat of the Whitlam Government a year later.

Forget the 1982 Flinders by-election on the death of Phil Lynch which was supposed to be the portent of the end Labor’s reign a decade later. The Howard-led Liberals won the by-election and lost the main game. Remember the how the tea leaves were arranged around the cup in the 1988 Adelaide by-election when Labor’s Chris Hurford left for greener pastures. Some of the tea leaves swung up the right-hand side of the cup indicating a natural swing to the right when a leftist government was in power. And there was a spray of leaves around the top indicating voters were about to spit the dummy over timed local calls. And what’s this? A hard dollop of leaves at the bottom of the cup surrounded by some yellow fluid, indicating voters were crapped off with Hurford leaving for a plum job. Still, Labor won the main game. And so to Canberra. The seat of Canberra that is, not the town. (And, incidentally, what confusion will this cause among the readers of metonymic headlines in the nation used to a diet of “”Canberra slashes pensions” and “”Canberra does XYZ”. “”Canberra by-election”? Does that mean Federal Government by-election?) On March 25, craftily subsumed by the NSW state election, the people of the seat of Canberra will vote in a by-election caused by the resignation of the deeply-committed-to-Tuggeranong Ros Kelly, who has gone to live in Sydney. The election will be in a seat that has more voters than any seat in the history of federation. Still, it will be less than 1 per cent of the Australian electorate. And it will a far less-reliable guide to the state of federal politics than a good opinion poll. The reason is that a different question is being asked. At the by-election voters are being asked: “”Would you like to give a free, swift kick in the pants to the Keating Government without having to even think about whether the government will change?”
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An ACT Liberal Government will grant automatic free lease renewals, cut payroll tax by 14 per cent, abolish the three-cents-a-litre fuel tax and contract out ACTION bus services, under promises made by Opposition Leader Kate Carnell yesterday. They were part of the small-business policy launched at a Mitchell-Gungahlin Chamber of Commerce lunch. A Liberal Government would set up a one-stop system for new businesses to deal with planning, leasing, building and other regulatory steps to set up a business. It would establish ACTTrade with a $5 million Budget to attract tourism and business to Canberra. Kingston foreshore would be redeveloped with outdoor cafes, medium density housing closer to the lake, offices and cultural space. The empty powerhouse would be converted to cultural space. “”At present it is an ACTEW dump in a prime site,” she said. “”A public-private corporation will be set up to get on with it.” A Liberal Government would set up a business-government body to cut red tape, similar to the Greiner model under which 3000 pages of regulations were repealed. Mrs Carnell indicated she would like to have freehold land, but said the Constitution prevented it. She promised automatic free renewal of all business and residential leases. The Government says it will charge 10 per cent of unimproved value for commercial leases and an administrative fee for residential leases. Mrs Carnell said the 10 per cent fee was unjustified because land values in Canberra indicated land was being treated as freehold, so the fee was a revenue-raising exercise. She promised to cut betterment tax from 100 per cent to 50 per cent. The tax is charged when people change the lease purpose of their land, say, to medium density housing or different commercial uses. Mrs Carnell said the Government had lost revenue since increasing the tax because commercial development had slowed because of it. Rates would be held to the CPI pending a renew on assessment methods. Mrs Carnell attacked business an employment costs. She said reducing payroll tax to NSW levels was not enough. The ACT had to attract business so she promised to cut it from 7 per cent to 6 per cent. (Payroll tax now nets the Government about $90 million a year. It is the largest revenue item.) She promised to abolish the rule requiring occupational health and safety committees and training in places that employed 10 or more people. The one-stop approach would mean that one person would be responsible for the carriage of a new business. This meant they were more accountable and could be rewarded for extra effort, she said. The ACT tourism and business promotion effort “”is a joke” compared to other states. The ACT spent $4.6 million on tourism, $2 million of it on promotion. Tasmania spent $22 million on promotion alone and the Northern Territory $21 million. A Liberal Government would begin development of Gungahlin Town Centre before end of the year. The legless lizard would be relocated (as was done at the Molonglo sewage treatment works). The centre would not be government-owned, nor owned by a large corporation _ as with the other centres. A strata title system would enable businesses to buy their shops in the centre. The Liberals would move away from youth training schemes because there were no jobs at the end of them and they unfairly raised expectations. Instead, employers would be subsidised to employ and train young people. On ACTION, Mrs Carnell said there would be competitive tenders for bus services with requirements to service certain routes. ACTION itself could tender competitively. She expected this would save $26 or $27 million of ACTION deficit of $50 million within three years. “”Under this system you tend to find more use of mini-buses and often you can get door-to-door service,” she said. Land tax would be assessed quarterly and only people earning an income from the land would be charged. After the launch she went to Ngunnawal to meet a home-owner, Normal Knowles, who has been hit by the present policy. Mr Knowles bought Tea Gardens, four 1857 rooms of which have been given a heritage listing, last year and is renovating with the intention of living in it. The house was extended in the 1950s. It now sits in a street surrounded by new houses. “”I was too honest; that’s my trouble,” he said yesterday. “”I filled out the land tax declaration and added a note that I was not living in the house but fixing it up before moving in.” The house does not have sewerage or water. He has never intended to rent it out. Mr Knowles was assessed for $1625 in land tax and the unimproved value of the place was assessed as $150,000 because the block is over 2000 square metres and was categorised as having medium density potential. However, the heritage listing prevents medium density development. Mrs Carnell said, “”Land tax is supposed to be for people renting places out; not for a renovator who intends to live there.” The Commissioner for ACT Revenue, Gordon Faichney, said the assessment and valuation had been objected to and the objections were under consideration. Several pics to chose from: Norman Knowles in unfinished bathroom// unfinished kitchen// outside (with or without Kate Carnell) at his partly renovated Ngunnawal home yesterday.

Brindabella, Ginninderra and Molonglo. By CRISPIN HULL Opposition Kate Carnell out-polled Chief Minister Rosemary Follett 20 booths to 11 in the central seat of Molonglo. Ms Follett took only two southside booths: Oaks Estate and Lyons. The booth-by-booth figures were issued by the ACT Electoral Commission at the close of counting early yesterday morning. The tables show the figures. The total booth-by-booth figures do not include postal and out of area votes, so the total is lower than the electorate count. Comparisons are difficult because Labor ran a ticket and the Liberals did not, so the Liberal vote was spread more among its candidates. The figures also show the effect of a ticket under Robson rotation. In Ginninderra, for example, voters took less notice of Labor’s ticket in the upmarket suburbs like Aranda and more notice in the lower-socio-economic suburbs _ perhaps it is a feature of education levels. In Aranda, for example, Roberta McRae, second on the ticket, got a higher proportion of first preferences than she did in the lower-end suburbs. In Molonglo, bucked the Labor ticket more in suburbs like Red Hill and Campbell than in Ainslie. In the former suburbs, second-placed Terry Connolly did proportionately better against first-placed Ms Follett. Perhaps it is an educational factor, or perhaps the up-market conservative suburbs preferred Mr Connolly.

However, there is a rough trend showing that the more up-market the suburbs the less inclined people were to follow the Labor ticket, though the trend is not as noticeable in Brindabella where there was widespread bucking of the ticket against the unknown first-placed Andrew Whitecross. Abbreviations in the tables are: Lab is Labor, Lib is Liberal, Grn is Green, MI is Moore Independent, SAV is Smokers are Voters and Civil Rights.

A Department of Health inspector has threatened the Canberra Blind Society with prosecution and a $20,000 fine for preparing food for public functions without a licence. The 12 women on the society’s auxiliary raise about $20,000 a year catering at functions with food prepared in their own kitchens. Now the department is demanding the society be licensed. “”They want to inspect our kitchens; we won’t stand for it,” the society’s president Molly Clark said in her spotlessly clean kitchen at her home in Griffith. “”And they want our recipes.” The department says it wants to reduce risks of food poisoning and would not charge fees to a charity. Money raised by the society is used to run the society’s office and is needed since a government grant was cut three years ago.

“If we lose our catering, we’ll have to reapply for the government grant,” Mrs Clark said. The society has been catering all meals and refreshments for 12 years, including for ACT Government bodies. The only complaint has not been about the food, but a request six years ago that the society be licensed that could not be enforced. The passing of the Food Act in 1992 has changed that. The department wrote to the society saying, (SUBS: plse leave in bureaucratic Capitals!) “”A search of our records has revealed that a Food Licence for your premises has not yet been issued. . . . The sale of food from food premises which do not hold a current licence breaches the requirements of the Food Act and can incur a maximum penalty of $5000 for an individual or $25,000 for a company.” The amount were in bold type. “”A moratorium of a few weeks is planned, after which legal proceedings will be commenced ”.
Continue reading “1995_02_february_blind”

Please leave in “”when asked to comment on the closure” … because it makes it clear Bates was not the leaker condemned by the spokesman). One of two post-natal wards at Woden Valley Hospital has been closed, with hospital management saying not enough patients were booked to justify it staying open and the AMA saying obstetricians were not consulted. ACT AMA president and obstetrician Dr Grahame Bates, when asked to comment on the closure, said it would make things tighter. “”It will put pressure on the nursing staff,” he said. “”It forces people out of hospital so they have quick through-put which makes the figures look good.” He had gone down to the ward last week and found it closed.

“”I thought they were cleaning,” he said. “”We are the last people to know.” A spokesman for Health Minister Terry Connolly said all 20 closed beds were fully staffed and funded. “”If 20 women turned up tonight requiring the beds, they would be open,” he said. “”But it was not good management or good for taxpayers’ money to have beds open when they are not needed.” The staff had been temporarily redeployed. The spokesman said people should know better than to run off to the media with scurrilous rumours, especially during an election campaign. The doctors and administrators who had to deal with the media inquiries had more important things to do _ looking after patients. The spokesman suggested that the leak to the media was politically motivated.

The question of who will form the next ACT Government will be determined on the floor of the ACT Legislative Assembly when it next meets _ next month. And that question will largely between determined by how the preferences fall in Saturday’s election. It now appears likely that the count will be quicker than expected. It appears probable that the Liberals have seven seats, Labor six, Greens two and one each for Michael Moore and Paul Osborne. On that scenario, if the Greens and Moore supported Labor Rosemary Follett would be Chief Minister. Osborne is any event is likely to support the Liberals so the Liberals would need Moore as well to get the Chief Ministership.

A Moore abstention would result in deadlock if the Greens went with Labor. On the other hand, if the Greens abstained because Labor did not deliver enough, the Chief Ministership would go to Kate Carnell irrespective of what Moore did. The Federal ACT Self-Government Act provides that at the first meeting of the Assembly after an election the Assembly shall first select a Speaker and then _ before any other business _ elect a Chief Minister. After the election of a Chief Minister the Chief Minister then appoints three other Ministers. To be elected Chief Minister an MLA needs a bare majority of those voting. That would usually mean nine of the 17, but might mean less if there are abstentions. There is a possibility of a deadlock if a combination of independents or Greens vote, say, with Labor against Kate Carnell and then with the Liberals against Rosemary Follett.
Continue reading “1995_02_february_whatnow”

With pic::: Kerrie Tucker recylces some of her posters from her unsuccessful 1993 Senate campaign. By CRISPIN HULL The Greens, who are now the leading minor parties and independents in the ACT elections, have a global and local message that would radically change society. The woodchip debate has brought the Greens into the limelight, but the ACT election policy and the Greens’ leading candidate are not widely known. Kerrie Tucker heads the Greens ticket in Molonglo and if there is no significant change in voting patterns in the last week of the campaign she could replace Michael Moore and hold the balance of power in the Assembly. “”Green” can mean a lot of different things to different people, and Greens policy goes well beyond natural environment matters. The Greens policy says: “”We aim to transform the political, social and economic structures that disempower people.” Tucker is an artist and gardener employed by the Canberra Environment Centre. She has lived in Canberra for 20 years and stood unsuccessfully in the Senate election in 1993 as Greens candidate.

She is “”committed to making Canberra the first ecologically sustainable city”. She says: “”We want to see a commitment from government to be sure that community participation and consultation is truly representative of all the people in a group or and area . . . . “”There are really interesting examples . . . For example, one woman I talked to from Brisbane, she was working in the Westend area of Brisbane and it had a lot of people who didn’t speak English, so they did artwork. They made a picture using fabric and paint to say how they wanted their area to be. So that was an example of reaching people who normally wouldn’t dream of coming to a residents meeting of a community-group meeting.” Question: What happens if you find that the community view is different from one of your policies or what you want.
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