Crispin Hull

A glut of building land in the ACT has caused the ACT Government to tighten supply by delaying some of its greenfields joint ventures.

The move was welcomed by the Master Builders Association yesterday but criticised by the Opposition, an Independent and an umbrella community group as evidence that the Government’s in-fill program has been unnecessary.

The Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, said two greenfields developments involving about 800 blocks would be postponed for five months.

He said the increase in interest rates, lower population migration into the ACT and a large jump in completed but unoccupied houses required steps to reduce the amount of land coming on to the market.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_landglut”

This is a tale about the big picture and the small picture.

Paul Keating likes pulling the levers and looking at the big picture.

When Treasurer he used interest rates as one of his main levers, though many economists would argue he should have used the steering wheel of reduced government spending for more controlled driving of the national economy.

It appears the Federal Government is at it again, using interest rates as its main lever of economic control.

The Government obviously thinks the squeals from voters who might lose from cuts in government programs are louder than the squeals of voters who lose from higher interest rates.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_interest”

The Federal Opposition called yesterday for voluntary voting.

The call came in a minority report by coalition members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters.

They argued that compulsory voting was undermining efforts to prevent electoral fraud and it should be abolished.

The committee was reporting on the 1993 election. Most of its recommendations were unanimous and technical, usually concentrating on machinery matters to make elections and the count go smoother _ perhaps suggesting the state of Australian democracy is reasonably healthy.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_elect”

The ACT Electoral Commission is to launch a major education program tomorrow for the lead up to the February 18 election.

The campaign starts with a letter-box drop of all ACT households by Australia Post with addressed mail tomorrow and Friday. It will be followed by a series of newspaper and television advertisements.

The commission faces the task of explaining to about 180,000 voters the new elements of the ACT voting system: three electorates; Hare-Clark; Robson rotation.

(subs bold) Three electorates: (end bold) Voters will vote for candidates in one of three electorates: Molonglo, Ginninderra or Brindabella (see below for the suburbs in each electorate). On election day voters can go to a booth anywhere in the ACT all of which will be able to take votes for all three electorates, though the commission prefers people vote in their own electorate. There will be a polling booth at Bateman’s Bay on the day.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_elect30”

In another panel, perhaps, could go the following quote: “”At a time when empty cradles are contributing woefully to empty spaces, it is necessary to look for external sources of supply. And if we do not supply from our own stock we are leaving ourselves all the more exposed to the menace of the teeming millions of our neighbouring Asiatic races. . . The policy of bringing out young boys and girls and training them from the beginning in agricultural and domestic methods has the additional advantage of acclimatising them from the outset to Australian conditions.”

Archbishop of Perth welcoming British boys arriving in Australia on the SS Straithaird, August 1938.

Start of main story:

By CRISPIN HULL Her birth name was Elizabeth Ball. But they even took that away. They called her Christine and told her parents were killed in a car accident. In 1939 she was taken from a home in England at the age of eight and was sent to an orphanage in Australia. For nearly 50 years she was alone. During her childhood she had no family and was abused by a teacher at the orphanage. During her adulthood she could trust no-one easily.
Continue reading “1994_11_november_cradles”

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”