Crispin Hull

Most of Canberra’s shopping centres were designed in the 1950s or 1960s.

Medium supermarket; smaller supermarket; takeaway; newsagent; butcher; chemist; petrol station; pharmacy; perhaps a manchester store of sorts; bank perhaps; post office.

Then women went into the workforce. Men still refuse to shop. So most of the changes we see are driven by the changes to women’s lives.

Others are driven by technology.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_shops”

Electoral roll information will be used by the ACT Government to target women over 50 with advice about breast cancer (with the Commonwealth’s permission) and personal invitations to a screening clinic will be sent out this week.

The Minister for Health, Terry Connolly, said the information from the electoral roll would provide an efficient way of contacting the women.

The move could significantly reduce the numbers of undetected cancers among women over 50 in the ACT and region.
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One of the stars of this year’s Raiders premiership, Paul Osborne, will consider running as an independent in the February 18 ACT election after turning down an offer by a group of Canberra businessmen to financially support him in a campaign to run as an independent.

“”If I decide to run it will be as a genuine independent,” he said yesterday. “”I would not want to be somebody else’s puppet.

“”Right now I’m relaxing after 10 years of football and I’ll think about it over Christmas.”

Nominations close on January 26.

Mr Osborne has been playing Rugby League for 10 years and has been with the NSW Police for seven. He laid on the critical passes for Canberra’s first to tries in the grand final.
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The doctors’ true colours are coming out over generic substitution of prescription drugs.

The loss of fringe benefits for doctors from the drug companies seem to have aroused more concern than patient welfare.

Under present law, drug companies get a 20-year patent or monopoly on new drugs, after which the patent is public property and any company can manufacture it. That is the trade-off for the government-granted monopoly.

Under present pharmaceutical-benefits rules, patients can ask their doctor to prescribe a cheaper brand or to prescribe by the generic name. Or at the pharmacy patients can ask the pharmacist to ring the doctor to see if the doctor will agree to a cheaper substitution. But otherwise it is illegal for a pharmacist to give the cheaper brand of the same drug if the doctor has prescribed the more expensive one by brand name.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_pharma”

There has been only one tender for each of the three trunk-route service stations reserved for independents _ Burmah Oil, the existing Canberra independent, according to industry and other sources.

Tenders closed on Wednesday. Apparently some late tenders also came in.

The office of the Attorney-General and Consumer Affairs, Terry Connolly, said the tenders were a planning matter. The office of the Minister for Planning, Bill Wood, said tender information could not be divulged.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_petrol”

The Government, through Communications Minister Michael Lee, says there will be competition in both services delivery and in the means of delivering them.

There had obviously been some confusion about earlier government statements about preferential treatment for the new carriers. The Government’s position was that the owner of a new cable network would be able to restrict access to their networks by other operators for five years to enable them to get up and running.

Until Lee’s statement this week, the Government had been silent on how many carriers would be permitted in one area.

Lee’s statement prompted Optus to say that unless the Government gives it a monopoly it will now dump is $5 billion plan and buy space on the Telecom network.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_paytv26”

The ACT Government lost up to $15 million by allowing the private sector to develop the Gungahlin suburb of Palmerston, according to three academics who won a planning award for their work last night.

The academics say that, alternatively, the Government could have cut the cost of land by about $9000 a block.

The academics agree with the ACT Government’s position of taking a greater role in greenfields development by moving from privatisation to more joint ventures. But they say the Government could take the whole thing over.

That would result in better returns to government for turning rural land to urban or alternatively could result in lower prices. It could also help improve housing quality.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_neutze”

The British and Australian Governments have been called upon to start high-level talks on helping the 10,000 child migrants who were brought to Australia after the war as part of a populate-Australia-with British stock scheme.

The plight of the migrants became publicly known seven years ago with press and television programs, but governments and the responsible charities had done little to help. Many of the migrants still did not have birth certificates or got close to reunion with relatives, and many were still suffering social dysfunction.

The head of the Child Migrants Trust, author and social worker Margaret Humphreys, said this week that the children, mostly in their 50s “”are facing reunions in Britain at gravesides, if at all, because of lack of money”.
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It has taken the ACT Government a long time to recognise the fundamental flaws in its planning policy. It did so yesterday in its response to the Landsdown report on urban renewal. It did so in the face of concerted community pressure which should not be mistaken for selfish anti-development NIMBYs. Most of those community groups have said consistently that they have no objection to in-fill or urban renewal provided it is done well. To date all the evidence is that too often it is done badly, which helps neither the efficiency of the city nor its environmental, heritage or aesthetic qualities. Further, the recent land glut in Canberra shows that much of the urban renewal push has been unnecessary _ driven by greed rather than need.

Yesterday, the government backed away from its 50-50 greenfields-renewal policy and its policy of prima facie allowing multi-occupancy throughout Canberra provided the building is within the footprint.
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It was a small matter about staff, but the response was telling.The Minister for Planning, Bill Wood, was asked at his press conference yesterday whether he would increase staff at the ACT Planning Authority, as recommended by the Landsdown inquiry.

“”I wouldn’t dare pre-empt what the Government might say,” he replied.

Hang on a moment, this was the Minister who momemts before had issued a written response to the Landsdown report laced with the use of the first person singluar.

“”I have accepted the vast majority of the review’s recommendantions,” his statement said. “”However, I have added a number of other elements . . . .” etc.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_landscom”