Crispin Hull

The proposals announced yesterday by the ACT Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, to streamline legal claims below $5000 are welcome. They may go a small way to changing the view that the law in Australia is only for the very rich who can afford lawyers or the very poor who have legal aid. The proposal is to force people with claims under $5000 into the Small Claims Court, to be renamed the Small Claims Tribunal. Previously, plaintiffs had an option: to go to Small Claims or go to the Magistrates Court. The critical difference is that the Magistrates Court can award costs. The Magistrates Court also applies the rules of evidence and other procedures more strictly than the Small Claims Court.

Mr Connolly pointed out that corporations and big organisations, including the ACT Government, tended to use lawyers and the Magistrates Court, whereas ordinary people tended to pursue their claims in the Small Claims Court. To the Government’s credit it will be bound by its own rules. Under the new system all under-$5000 claims will go to the Small Claims Tribunal. It will deal with cases more quickly. The tribunal head will be able to be more active and questioning in the search for a resolution. Given the small amounts of money involved it seems that more importance should be given to quick and cheap resolution of disputes and less to procedural fairness and technicality.
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Every so often the ACT Liberal spokesman on emergency services Gary Humphries comes out with a ritual cry that Canberra should have a full-time emergency helicopter. He usually hangs his call upon some instant emergency involving injury or threat to life. He was at it against last week with the release of the year’s road toll figures, conjuring up images of an ACT helicopter beating out to remote regional roads plucking up injured ACT residents and whisking them back to the safety of Woden Valley Hospital.

The idea has a certain instant appeal. Helicopters can be visualised as quick and effective. Injured people get better treatment earlier because they get to hospital quicker and because helicopters can carry doctors. It has a superficial financial appeal because people treated earlier spend less time in hospital.

However, helicopters are expensive to buy and expensive to run. A bottom-end helicopter would cost at least $1 million and a further $600,000 a year to run. It would probably not do the job well. The ACT would more likely be looking at $5 million to $10 million. The money has to come from somewhere _ usually somewhere else in the same budgetary area. It means other emergency, rescue and health services would have to be cut. It might mean that on balance more people got delayed treatment because of service cuts to support a helicopter than got expedited treatment because the helicopter were in service.
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The ACT Government has a careful balancing act ahead of it in controlling unruly behaviour. The problem is not confined to New Year’s Eve, though that event seems to bring out the worst in some people. This New Year’s Eve the trouble seemed to migrate from Civic to Manuka _ and there are some lessons in that.

Some of the unruly conduct and violence in Civic has been contained by a co-operative and multi-point approach: more police, more responsible conduct by licensees, better late-night public transport, no-alcohol zones, bans on drinking with 20 metres of a shop and police power to pour away drinks of offenders without arresting them.

The difficulty faced by the Government is that it might not have the resources to engage in this approach throughout Canberra if troublesome people move from place to place. It may be tempted to deal with the problem by turning off the alcohol tap late at night in the suburbs, leaving 24-hour trading in Civic where it has the resources to police it better.The Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, suggested this was an option yesterday.
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Ros Kelly announced yesterday that she will leave Federal politics; she will remain in the Australian public perception as the Minister for Sports Rorts _ the Minister who had the “”great big whiteboard”. That may seem unfair from her point of view, but in six years in the Federal Ministry there are few achievements to outshine or mitigate the Sports Rorts Affair _ not her work to boost private-sector development in Canberra nor her tireless work to help the aged and young families in her constituency. Indeed, the affair appeared to diminish her two most abundant political talents: self-promotion and survival. Ros Kelly had an extraordinary talent for getting herself in the right place at the right time _ photographically. When Hawke fended off Keating she was near Hawke as he came out of the party room. When Keating won, there she was walking purposefully next to him down the corridor towards the waiting media.

In Parliament she sat near the dispatch box and was thus seen frequently on television. As a local member, before her days in the Ministry she was always in the right spot for the camera-person’s eye. Her children, too, were frequently used in the public domain. She proudly used her children as illustrations for political messages. Her detractors said she used her sex, her hair, her friends and even her dog in successful self-promotion. It is a skill not to be under-estimated, especially in politics where perception is more important than reality. Not only did she get herself into the right place at the right time photographically, but also politically. In 1987 Bob Hawke wanted three women in his ministry. Kelly had had the nous to align herself to the ascending Hawke. Kelly was appointed Minister for Defence Science and Personnel. She had displayed no pre-predilection for such a task. To her credit, however, she launched herself into improving the soldiers’ lot _ especially housing. However, she showed early signs of a perennial weakness: failure to brief herself of policy and departmental details. She proudly announced as new some leave allowances for transferring soldiers which had been in place some time.
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While everyone is carrying on about the information super-highway, a quieter revolution is taking place in information technology which may have just as a profound influence on humans as social animals. This is the gathering together of information about people from dozens of different public sources and putting it on easily accessible CD-ROMs. In the 1960s we talked about the global village because of the telephone and air-transport. The gathering of personal information on CD-ROM makes the nation a village _ in the sense that the village is a hot bed of gossip and a marketplace. The amount of public information about individuals is astounding. In disparate form it is of no moment. Collected, it is valuable and perhaps dangerous.

A Melbourne company, Oracle Library Service, is already doing this and has 2.5 million Australians on its biographical list. Oracle keeps personal and credit information separate and does not give it out without permission. However, the computer technology is getting so good that there is nothing stopping other companies from building up databases of personal, public information. Some examples. Names in newspaper articles. Several major papers are on CD now anyway, so the collection is even easier. Royal commission reports are easily scanned in. Searching names in the book form is hopeless; searching for names in CD form is a breeze. Other include: professional body disciplinary proceedings, criminal and civil court reports, bankruptcies, ICAC, Queensland’s Criminal Justice Commission, the Australian Securities Commission companies database, Who’s Who (only available in book form) could easily be scanned in, electoral rolls, phone books, the Commonwealth and State Directories of the several thousand senior and middle-rank public servants, dictionaries of biography, authors from bibliographies, press releases, Vice-Regal notices. And so it goes on. As time goes on more information is stored electronically and searching capacity improves. It will not be long before huge range of people will have access to very detailed information about millions of Australians. Debt-collectors, marketers, politicians, journalists, lawyers, recruiting agencies, credit providers and police will be able to get information very quickly which previously required memory. “”Wasn’t he named adversely in the Stuart Royal Commission?” “”Didn’t he go bust a while ago?” It may not seem to matter much. So what if someone can access huge amounts of detail quickly? Indeed, there may be a bonus that the electronically archived material is more accurate than memory.
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The ACT Government has built part of a pilot storm-water recycling plant over land designated in the National Capital Plan as an extension of Ginninderra Drive. Federal law requires the ACT not to do anything inconsistent with the National Capital Plan which is administered under Federal law. Moore Independent candidate for Molonglo said the ACT Government was using stealth closing off the Ginninderra extension which would help ease traffic in North Canberra suburbs The Minister for Planning, Bill Wood, said yesterday that the joint parliamentary committee on the ACT had recommended against the extension in 1991 and the Federal Government had accepted that, even though the plan had not formally been changed. Mr Dunstone accused the Government of using stealth instead of public processes. Also the housing development at Yowani would make it more difficult to extend Ginninderra Drive from where it presently ends at Mouat Street through to Northbourne Avenue. He thought this a better option than permitting Belconnen traffic to go along Mouat Street and other residential streets. Traffic claming measures were band-aids, often creating problems and noise for residents as heavy traffic tried to negotiate S-bends, roundabouts and humps. Mr Wood said that the 1991 recommendation was made as part of the Gungahlin External Transport Study which had received 60 submissions and had engaged in public hearings. The committee recommended that traffic calming begin immediately and the Federal Government supported that but noted it was an ACT responsibility. Four years later no traffic calming has been constructed in affected streets in adjacent Lyneham and O’Connor. Residents groups have complained to the ACT Government about it.

The Federal Government said also in its response that it would seek an amendment to the National Capital Plan, which requires a public consultation process. Four years later, no steps have been taken.

The Minister for Urban Services, David Lamont, said yesterday that letter from the accountants of the La Grange in Franklin Street had put the lie to Opposition statements that red tape had prevented the closure of Franklin Street for New Year’s Eve. Mr Lamont said the letter from Bates and Pickering endorsed the Government’s position that the street only be closed with the agreement of traders themselves _ something which the owners of La Grange and Opposition Leader Kate Carnell had failed to secure. He issued a copy of the undated letter seeking withdrawal of the request for temporary closure because of inability to get the public-liability insurance of $10 million per incident required by the department; failure by traders to give firm undertakings to meet the costs of closure leaving the Grange to be saddled with the costs; some traders reversing their position and being openly hostile to the closure; the requirement by the department made on December 21 for portable toilets to be installed. Mr Lamont said the letter had noted that departmental officers had been helpful. Mrs Carnell said that in fact the letter supported her position that the traders had been happy to have the street temporarily closed on New Year’s Eve if it could be done cheaply and easily by putting up some barricades, getting some security staff and cleaning up any mess. Once the department had started insisting on costly and unrealistic public-liability insurance and for portable toilets of course some of the traders changed their minds. Red tape had prevented the orderly closure of the street around 6pm. The proof of her position was that the police had had to close the street before midnight for public-safety reasons in any event. They had done so without public-liability insurance and without portable toilets, and had done it in the face of likely political flak because they knew the Government was opposed to a closure. The traders had only wanted closure for public safety and to generate a fun atmosphere without cars; they had not wanted to increase their licence areas.

Attorney-General Terry Connolly has acknowledged several ACT agencies have not responded within Freedom of Information Act deadlines to requests for access to documents about the Vitab affair. The requests were made by the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tony De Domenico, who said the $3.5 million payout by the ACT was a significant amount and more details should be made public. Mr Connolly said that under the Act the failure to met the deadline would be deemed to be a refusal for access. He thought that much of the request would have been refused in any event because the information was commercial-in-confidence. The delay had been caused by collating three FOI requests into one. Mr De Domenico could appeal the deemed refusal. Mr Connolly said he thought it inconsistent for the Liberals to be talking about openness in the light or recent events. Mr De Domenico said the ratepayers of the ACT had the right to know how their $3.5 million had been spent. Unless the Government released the information “”you could presume they have something to hide”.

Ending the use of drinking water to water Parliament’s lawns, an ACT population and growth study, native fauna corridors, a charge on plastic bags at shops and a ban on battery hens are among a comprehensive log of claims for the next Assembly made public yesterday by the Canberra Conservation Council. The Public Service should end provision of cars and parking fees as part of pay packages, the log said. The log ranged across 11 policy areas including nature conservation, air and water, planning, transport, waste and animal welfare.

The president of the council, Jacqui Rees, called also for the replacement of “”the undesirable system of patronage through ministerial appointment to government bodies” with a system of public nomination and vetting of appointments. On water, the council wanted lake water, grey water and storm water to be used for public place park watering, especially in the Triangle. It called for schemes to encourage reuse of waste water at private dwellings. It said the ACT should seek full membership on the Murray-Darling Basin Commission. On air, it sought air testing for benzene and other compounds in unleaded fuel; enforcement of penalties on excess pollution from fuel-burning heaters and stoves; encouragement of firewood plantations; mandatory public disclosure of excess pollution levels. “”Growth” should be replaced by sustainability as the imperative for planning and as a goal for industry.
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The result of the ACT election will not be known until at least a week after the vote _ due to the nature of ACT electoral law and the nature of the electorate.The result in the final seat in each electorate is expected to be known on the night of Saturday, February 25, or on March 3 by the latest.

On election night _ February 18 _ the ACT Electoral Commission will count only first-preferences. But more than 95 per cent of them will be counted on the night, unlike Federal elections where only 85 per cent are counted.

This is because the bulk of out-of-area voting in the ACT will be recorded as ordinary votes. People can cast an ordinary vote at a polling booth in any of the three electorates, irrespective of which electorate they are enrolled in. In Federal elections, these are out of area votes and because of verification procedures cannot be counted on the night.
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