Crispin Hull

I‘m on mobile 018 697972. If it does not answer try again half an hour later. At squash. picture: Zafar Ahmad, his wife Paryeen and second child Farheema at their Theodore homes yesterday. The Ahmad family arrived home from six weeks’ holiday last week to be told they have arsenic readings on their land four times the recommended safety level as a result of an old sheep dip at the site and they should consider moving. The level is higher than at two houses next door where the families were moved. However, Zafar Ahmad said ACT government officials had told his wife, Paryeen, that she could continue with a day-care group of five or six children that she runs before and after school, provided parents were told and children play at the back, not at the front of the house where the high readings were taken.

The day-care business is virtually gone. The Government has offered to help with the Ahmad’s move, but the Theodore Action Group says families should be offered legal help, counselling and guarantees of compensation before moving. Mr Ahmad said his neighbours had been gone for four months before he knew about it. The extent of arsenic on his land was only discovered in later testing. The problem of arsenic poison came about after the Minders of Tuggeranong Homestead and the Canberra Conservation Council started questioning about suitability of building houses on the homestead site which had a sheep dip. About 15 potentially contaminated sites have been found in Canberra residential areas and about 60 elsewhere in the ACT. Most were found from historic photographs and old maps and are being investigated with on the ground testing. The Theodore one is the only one where people have been moved.
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The following is a potted history of government in the ACT. 1890s: Constitutional conventions and NSW and Victorian politicians argue about whether Sydney or Melbourne should be the capital of the new Australia. Compromise is a separate capital in a federal territory within NSW but greater than 100 miles (160km) from Sydney. 1900: Constitution of Australia Act passes the British Parliament. Section 125 says the federal territory shall be greater than 100 square miles and shall be “”vested in the Commonwealth”. Section 120 gives the Commonwealth parliament power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of territories. 1911: Seat of Government Act creates the territory. All existing NSW law is brought over as at that date. New law is created by Ordinances approved by the Minister for Territories with the formal stamp of the Governor-General. 1930: Advisory Council set up: three department heads; three elected members and civic administrator.

1949: Cole report suggests municipal government for Canberra. 1949: ACT gets seat in Federal House of Representatives, initially only to have vote on ACT matters. Dr L. Nott elected. Jim Fraser elected in 1951. 1958: National Capital Development Commission set up _ anecdotally “”rules” Canberra through leasing and planning requirements. 1966: Full voting rights for Federal MP (Jim Fraser). 1967: Advisory Council, chaired by Jim Pead (Ind), by now fully elected seeks greater power. Council consists of 3 ALP, 3 Ind, 2 Lib, 1 True Whig, setting a three-decade pattern for Canberrans to vote independent and zany in greater or equal proportion to each of the major parties. 1969: All members of Advisory Council resign over three major decisions by Federal Territories Minister Peter Nixon. Nixon accepts resignations a reappoints all to an interim council to serve out the term till 1970.
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The federal director of the Liberal Party, Andrew Robb, said last night that winning the seat of Canberra would be a very difficult task, despite the Liberals’ good result in the ACT election. Earlier, the party had been undecided about whether to run a candidate at all because it was a 10 per cent seat. Mr Robb said this cautious approach had been confirmed by subsequent polling. Even with things going well for the Liberals locally in the ACT campaign and election the party was still down nine points federally in the ACT, according to state and territory break-ups in national polling done by The Sydney Morning Herald. Considering that Brindabella had got the least swing to the Liberals locally it showed that “”the seat of Canberra would be a pretty tall order”. “”But nothing is impossible,” he said.

When the Act Liberal Party expressed doubts about standing after the resignation of Ros Kelly, the former Liberal Member for Canberra, John Haslem, denounced the lack of will to stand and said he would be willing to stand again.
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The referendum to entrench the Hare-Clark electoral system is comfortably ahead, according to the latest Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll. The poll puts in the Yes vote at 58 per cent; No at 26 and undecided at 17.

However, the referendum may not be passed because Federal law requires that a majority of every enrolled voter approve it before it is passed. Because 10 per cent usually do not vote and about 6 per cent of those that do vote informal, it would require 60 per cent of the valid vote to be passed. The referendum is to decide whether the Hare-Clark voting system, which was approved by 64 per cent of people in an advisory referendum in 1992, be entrenched so that it can only be amended by referendum or a two-thirds majority of the Assembly. The referendum was proposed after an attempt by Labor to introduce above-the-line party voting was defeated in the Assembly. The affect of that would have been to hand to party machines the right to nominate a party ticket. The present system does not allow for a party vote; voters have to select candidates individually and the ballot papers are printed according to Robson rotation. This means the order of candidates on the ballot paper is scrambled so some papers, for example, might have the Labor team with Lamont at the top and others with Connolly and others with Follett.
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The referendum to entrench the Hare-Clark voting system got a solid 65 per cent majority by ACT voters yesterday.

The vote went within a whisker of the 50 per cent of the enrolled vote needed by the end of counting last night and only needs a tiny fraction of the remaining uncounted vote to pass that necessary hurdle. It means that the voting system cannot be changed without a two-thirds majority of the House of Assembly or a further referendum. In effect it means that the two major parties must agree to significant changes to the system. The referendum also entrenches compulsory voting.
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The referendum to entrench the Hare-Clark formally passed early yesterday morning when some additional postal votes put the Yes vote over the necessary 50 per cent of enrolled voters. The Yes vote got a solid 65 per cent majority of the formal vote, but under the Federal ACT Self-Government Act it must get 50 per cent of the enrolled voters. In effect, informals and no-shows are deemed to be No votes. Usually this means between 58 and 60 per cent must vote Yes for a referendum to pass.

There are 195,389 on the roll, and the 97,695th Yes vote was counted early yesterday morning. It means that the voting system cannot be changed without a two-thirds majority of the House of Assembly or a further referendum. In effect it means that the two major parties must agree to significant changes to the system. The referendum also entrenches compulsory voting. The key parts of the system that are entrenched are: Minimum of five members per electorate; Robson rotation; no party voting or above-the line voting; an odd number of seats per electorate; and optional preferential voting. It is the first time that Hare-Clark or compulsory voting have been entrenched in Australia.

Fundamental is the development of a network of sustainable bioregional economies. These must be sustainable in terms of the bioregional and the global ecological systems. If the parts are sustainable, so is the whole.

Public health has come a long way since the 14th century when it consisted almost solely of painting a cross on the door of houses where the plague had struck. Indeed, Monty Python’s wheelbarrow-pusher crying out “”Bring out your dead” grossly over-stated the extent of public health those days. People had to deal with their own. Since then, we have fixed the sewers and water supply and immunised kids against the major killers so public health is a lesser issue, and the health debate can concentrate on hospitals and hi-tech gadgetry and how much of it should be paid by Medicare and private health. Or maybe not.

The past fortnight has seen a confluence of events that illustrates public health’s re-emergence. Some more serious cases from poisoned mettwurst were reported; we had warnings about the worse of two versions of HIV taking over and we heard some Canberra residents going public over arsenic poison on their property. The three are good illustrations of the main new sources of public-health concern: long food-processing and food-delivery chains; increased resistance of bacteria and viruses to anti-biotics; and more poisonous chemicals in the environment. Humans being humans, all three carry a certain amount of emotion and even hysteria. And the emotion and hysteria is never qualified by the extent of the risk. Mention asbestos, arsenic, legionella or the death of a child from food poisoning and the over-reaction is astounding. This leaves the public-health official in a bind. What should the public be told about particular risks? How do you balance the avoidance of individual medical harm with the social damage done by the hysteria and irrational action that can follow general disclosure? Some of these questions are being considered at a conference in Melbourne next week. (For details ring the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine Sydney 02 2565404) The arsenic and mettwurst cases are good examples. Arsenic at levels greater than the public-health action levels which was left over from old sheep dips has been found on several residential blocks at Theodore.
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The ACT will wait a week before the ACT Electoral Commissioner is permitted to start counting preferences. Under the Hare-Clark system the direction of preferences is very hard to predict. There are several complicating factors. Many people only vote for major party candidates and do not express preferences beyond that. Their ballot papers are excluded. Many people cross-vote. This means they give one or two preferences with on party and then swap to others. It is likely, given the high personal popularity of Kate Carnell, for example, that she might have got a lot of first preferences from voters who direct their second preferences elsewhere _ even to Labor.

Further, under the system preferences get counted in several different ways. The preferences from candidates who have reached a quota are transferred at a discount. The preferences of excluded candidates are transferred at face value. And some preferences are transferred through while other ballot papers sit with the elected candidate. Small wonder last night that few people were willing to be too definite. That said, here is a likely possibility. Brindabella: Liberals definite two (the quotas are there on first preferences). They will got to the sitting members Tony De Domenico and Trevor Kaine. Labor will also get two (1.9 quotas means they only need a little shrapnel from elsewhere to get the second over the line.) It is likely that Whitecross’s preferences are probably not enough to save the number 2 on the Labor ticket over the high personal vote of Bill Wood (who was demoted to number 3). Wood has shown the advantages of the Hare-Clark system in that an individual can beat the party ticket. The last seat is likely to go to Osborne on 0.67 of a quota. This is because the Liberals have 2.23 quotas and Osborne could expect to pick up much of the over-quota as the Liberals directed preferences his way. The Greens, Democrats and Moore independents have in total 0.9 of a quota between them. It would need a very tight flow of preferences for the Greens Andrew Parratt to get over the line, but it is not out of the question.
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Health and economic management are the issues of most concern to voters in Saturday’s ACT election, according to the latest Canberra Times-Datacol opinion poll. The poll shows the Government scoring well on the environment, causing Environment Minister Bill Wood to say, “”There’s no need for the so-called Greens in this election. . . . Labor is the genuine green party.” The poll sows 40 per cent of voters are very dissatisfied with the way the government is performing in health, 28 per cent are dissatisfied _ a total of 68 per cent. Only 11 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied.

Yesterday The Canberra Times published details of voting intentions in the poll which put showed an increase in the Liberal vote with the two major parties neck and neck. The dissatisfaction over health comes amid a dispute over contracts for visiting medical officers’ contracts. The Government says they are being paid about 14 per cent over the Australian average and several million dollars could be saved if they came down to that average. This could be achieved by sessional payments, which the doctors reject. The Opposition says there are far worse blow-outs in health spending which have not been attacked _ the ACT spends more that 85 per cent over the national average on overheads and more than 45 per cent more on administration. It wants to make savings and channel a greater proportion of the budget in medical services to cut waiting lists. On economic management 51 per cent are very dissatisfied or dissatisfied. Only 14 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied. Opposition Leader Kate Carnell said the poll confirmed the Liberals’ campaign which was focused on health and economic management because the Liberals had seen those as the main issues of community concern.
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