Crispin Hull

After 18 months of negotiations, a little rationality is beginning to appear in government purchases of information technology. A revised set of government IT conditions has been prepared by the industry and government. It is already being used by NSW and Victoria and will be used by the Commonwealth starting in the next round of purchases in March.

To date doing business with government has been an ache in the posterior, especially for small and medium businesses.

Previously, doing IT business with government was a pain, especially for small and medium Australian businesses with smaller contracts. There was too much costly farnarkling and risk for the profit involved.
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The Australian summer is here and insects are buzzing on the screen in Windows and there are bugs in the computer. Yes, the CSIRO’s acclaimed Insects CD now comes in a Windows version ($99, 03 4187333). It came out earlier on Apple (coddling moths all over the place).

It is an exquisite use of multi-media. Watch the dung beetle roll up precious bits of dung. Listen to the female mosquito without reaching for the Aeroguard. Zoom in on the eye of a moth with an electron microscope.

In the increasing array of junk games for kids in the CD range, the CSIRO’s Insects is an educational joy.
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As a reporter versed in the law and politics, I was sent to cover a science conference. Newspapers are like that. I interviewed a scientist who had a story to tell. Reporters are like that. He told me how he set out to prove that wearing a copper bracelet to give relief for arthritis was nonsense, witchcraft and an old husbands’ tale. How could a common, raw, unsynthesised thing relieve pain? Treatments came in little white discs in little brown bottles with labels on them saying: “”Take one tablet every four hours.”

How could he disprove this copper nonsense? He had people sweating over the task _ literally. They ran on the spot in large basins and the scientist harvested their sweat. He mixed it with copper. He applied the mixture to arthritis sufferers who did not wear copper bracelets. And, lo, a goodly portion reported relief.

Further research, undertaken with all the controls and safeguards of a clinical trial revealed that the sweat chemically combined with copper to form a substance that was infused in the skin to relieve arthritis. Apparently research is continuing to formulate this compound to get more precise relief. But still many people prefer the copper bracelet.
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Canberra will be a better host to visitors over the summer holidays with a program launched yesterday by the new chair of the National Capital Planning Authority, Professor Evan Walker.

The Discover Your National Capital program will enable visitors to the National Capital Exhibition at Regatta Point to get a free showbag with $100 worth of discounts to 29 major Canberra attractions.
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The national president of the RSL, Digger James, has called for the next director of the Australian War Memorial to be a military or ex-military person.

A motion at the national executive meeting of the RSL held in Canberra last week called for the position to be filled by a military person. The motion comes after the Government earlier this month filled the position with a senior officer from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in an acting capacity for a year. The position became vacant following the retirement at the end of the month of Brendon Kelson, who was also a public servant. Mr Kelson, 59, said this week that he did not seek an extension of his term as he always had intended to retire for the Public Service well before 65 to pursue other interests. The Minister, Con Sciacca, thanked Mr Kelson for his excellent work.

Major-General James is to write to Mr Sciacca, putting the RSL view. He said he could understand that the Minister might not want to make a permanent appointment pending the result of the Merit Protection and Review Agency inquiry into allegations of harassment at the memorial, but “”the strong view of the RSL is that the appointment of a civilian is not the right person.
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Commercial leaseholders will be able to renew their leases on paying 10 per cent of unimproved value, under a policy announced yesterday by the Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood.

The decision ends more than two years of uncertainty. Holders of 50- and 99-year commercial leases were facing problems with long-term financing. Residential leaseholders can renew on payment of an administrative fee.

Some of Canberra’s first 99-year leases will fall within the 30-year period in the next couple of years. It would mean, for example, a purchaser of the old Canberra Times site seeking 30-year financing would have to pay about $700,000 to secure a renewal beyond the financing limit. Some 50-year leases are probably within the limit.
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Bob Brown is an articulate and thoughtful man. After spending much time working with community groups he stood for the Tasmanian Parliament and won. The following election he steered the Greens party in Tasmania to a pivotal position of power and developed a broad range of policies on industry, education and health among other things.

He acted in what he saw as the best interest of Tasmanians in developing and partially implementing policies for Tasmania.

It was a pity then he made an opportunistic attempt to play on the Federal Government’s woodchip decision to get people to vote Green in February’s ACT election.
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The case of Chelmsford Private Hospital is one of the most shameful in Australia’s legal and medical history.

It would be nice to write “”was” instead of “”is”. But the case goes on. Only two cases for damages for patients ever got to court, despite a Royal Commission finding a litany of wrong-doing by the hospital and its psychiatrists in the early 1970s. One of those awaits an appeal to the High Court and the other is that of Barry Hart. Hart heard last week that an appeal and cross-appeal in his case will be heard over five days from August 25.

On February 28, 1973, Hart, then aged 37, walked in to Chelmsford Private Hospital with a moderate case of depression caused by failed plastic surgery. Two weeks later he woke up with double pneumonia, pleurisy, deep-vein thrombosis and anoxic brain damage. He had been subjected to deep-sleep therapy and electric-shock treatment _ all against his will.
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Journalists tend to dismiss whinges from politicians about the way the media trivialises and sensationalises, but after the past fortnight, I have some sympathy.

All attention in the ACT was given to some idiocy over cannabis law which would have affected virtually no-one and not had any influence over the way the ACT or Australia is governed.

In the meantime, there were three Australian legislative firsts which will probably influence governance elsewhere and two major changes to the ACT’s constitutional set-up _ none of which made Page 1 and none of which got more than a cursory mention in the electronics.
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The NSW Parliament seems to have missed the whole point of the recent High Court case on freedom of political speech. Last week it passed a defamation “”reform” Act which does nothing to bring NSW law into line with the new case and does precious little to help free speech.

Bizarrely, the NSW Attorney-General, John Hannaford, said the recent High Court case caused him to push the reform.

Under the old NSW law the publisher had to prove truth (ital) and public interest (ital) to get a successful defence of justification.
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