Crispin Hull

The states’ whinge last week about federal “”abuse” of its treaty-making power showed a remarkable naivety about the exercise of Federal power in Australia and remarkable ignorance about the way the Constitution works _ remarkable in the sense that I am about to remark on it.

The states said that the Federal Government was upsetting the federal compact by launching into fields hitherto occupied by the states.

Those fields are environment, employment, and a bevy of civil rights matters such as race, sex and age discrimination and privacy.

It has meant that a Queensland developer was stopped by the Feds from ripping up mangroves; that Tasmania’s law against homosexual acts is probably ineffective and employers and employees everywhere are subject to unfair dismissal rules.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_columnnov29”

Australia has turned its back on the White Australia policy. We now have a ministry of ethnic affairs.

Every government information leaflet is now translated into dozens of languages. Ethnic communities are represented on virtually every government body. People from “”non-English-speaking backgrounds” are now given a special place.

Every move government makes is made with half an eye on the ethnic lobby. Fine. People born overseas are a large portion of the population and like everyone else have a right to make representations to get more favourable treatment.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_columnnov21”

Australia has turned its back on the White Australia policy. We now have a ministry of ethnic affairs.

Every government information leaflet is now translated into dozens of languages. Ethnic communities are represented on virtually every government body. People from “”non-English-speaking backgrounds” are now given a special place.

Every move government makes is made with half an eye on the ethnic lobby. Fine. People born overseas are a large portion of the population and like everyone else have a right to make representations to get more favourable treatment.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_columnnov21”

The Federal Government failed again in the past week to stand up against media monopoly in Australia.

Two deals by Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd display the weakness of government to act in the public interest in the face of large vertical monopolies. One is the pay-TV deal it signed with Telecom and the other is its attempt to set up a rugby superleague.

They highlight five corrosive elements of present media policy: foreign and cross-media ownership; threats to Australian culture; disadvantage to people outside the capitals; inefficient duplication of resources; and governmental reliance on process and legalism rather than results.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_columnnov15”

I am told the existing one is awful. also i’m on a new computer so character count may be out. cheers.

The NSW Premier John Fahey announced last week that he would go ahead with defamation law reform. Both his arms were twisted. One arm was twisted by Independent John Hatton who has threatened an potentially ugly sitting of Parliament just before next March’s election unless defamation is dealt with, as required under the agreement the Liberals signed with the Independents after the previous election.

The other arm is being twisted in a more subtle and interesting way. Fahey said he would like to legislate to give effect the High Court’s recent free-speech judgment.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_columnnov08”

THE LATE Chief Justice Sir Owen Dixon is reput ed to have come out of an ABC symphony concert quipping to another judge: “”The concert was splendid but I don’t know what it has got to do with telegraphic, postal and other like services”

Those services are in the Constitution as a federal head of power and they are the words which enabled the Federal Government to set up a national broadcaster

These days one might well ask what the sexual relationships of Tasmanians have to do with “”external affairs”
Continue reading “1994_11_november_columnnov01”

Independent Michael Moore and Labor’s Annette Ellis did exactly the opposite of Mark Antony at Caesar’s funeral.Last week they formed a majority on a committee that moved to defer citizens’ initiated referendums until the next Assembly, where the numbers might be different.

Antony said he came to bury Caesar not praise him; and promptly praised him and immortalised his name. Moore and Ellis said they came to praise CIR; and promptly buried it.

A sensible government with nothing to fear would have welcomed CIR (where upon the gathering of the signatures of 5 per cent of the electorate a referendum has to be put at the next election).
Continue reading “1994_11_november_circomm”

Independent MLA Michael Moore yesterday ended the Liberals’ hope of passing their citizen’s initiated referendums law before the next election.He joined Labor’s Annette Ellis in a majority committee report saying there were defects in Bill and its implications for ACT democracy had not been fully worked out. The report said the matter should be inquired into by a committee of the next Assembly.

The Bill would have forced a referendum on an issue if an organising committee collected signatures from 5 per cent of the electorate.

The fate of CIR will now depend on the composition of the next Assembly.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_cir”

The ABC’s jump into pay TV was questionable and done without ABC examining its role in Australian broadcasting, according to the chairman of The Canberra Times, Kerry Stokes.

The ABC had two important roles: to reflect Australian culture and to service needs which are not catered for by other media, Mr Stokes said in his sixth and final Boyer lecture being broadcast today on Radio National (at 8.30am and 9.30pm).

“”The problem is to some extent these roles are contradictory,” he said. “”How can one reflect the culture of a nation if one is catering only to that segment of the audience not being satisfied by other services? Surely that means excluding a large part of the Australian cultural mix?
Continue reading “1994_11_november_boy6”

Those manic user-pays, economic rationalists are at it again with the Australian War Memorial _ memorial, that is, not museum.

They want to charge people to go in. They tried it in 1991 but it was knocked back by the Senate after a storm of protest by ex-service groups.

A confidential report (leaked to soften people up for the fees suggestion) by KPMG Management Consulting warns that the memorial faces a shortfall of $9 million in the next four years.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_awmfee”