Crispin Hull

The voluntary redundancy program in the ACT Government Service is to be nearly three times the size predicted this time last year.

The main reason is that many more people opted for redundancies last year than there were funds to accommodate them and so there will be a spill-over.

In the past financial year about 482 took up redundancy averaging $36,000 each with a total cost of $17.2 million. Only $6 million was projected this year and now the Budget has increased this to $17 million. About 430 people are expected to take the option averaging $40,000 each.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_redund”

Architecture in Canberra is coming to the people; or the people are coming to it.

For 80 years Canberra has been a city for architects. It was designed by one and is a place where other architects could place the monuments and symbols of the nation. It is still the city of architectural symbols of nationhood, but now the ordinary people who live here are the inheritors of an architectural standard not available, perhaps, in any other city in the world of comparable size.

That was epitomised on Friday night when an architectural firm, now with a home in Canberra and responsible for the design of the nation’s most important symbol of democracy (Parliament House) won an award.

The award was for the design of . . . wait for it . . . the refurbishment of the Ainslie Fire Station.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_archfeat”

The association said yesterday that all ratepayers received the same services so the cost should be the same. The only variation should be to reward conservation, as with the new water charges.

The president of the association, Peter Jansen, said, “”By and large the lower-income households are concentrated in the inner areas, yet the government is hitting them the hardest because land values in these areas are rising faster.”

The Government should look at other ways of charging. In parts of Queensland, for example, people paid rates according to the value at the time of purchase. Eurobodalla charged a flat rate for everyone based on a $65,000 unimproved value and added a small amount for values beyond that.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_ratescam”

The ACT Government should not go ahead with the legislation for separate public service in its present form, an Assembly committee said yesterday.

It should also abandon its July 1 deadline and seek more consultation with those affected.

It said the witnesses it had heard made it clear that to go ahead would be “”ill-advised”.

The committee, in a majority report, said the Government should also drop its plans to embrace ACT Electricity and Water from the centralised service and should look at changes to increase the independence of the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Legal Aid Commission. It should also have separate whistle-blower legislation with wider coverage.
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The design study has come up with about 20 major concepts for the Central National Area.

1. The completion of the Russell corner. It would be a new gateway as the entry point from Sydney, Melbourne and the airport. And would be an exchange with bus and rail terminal.

2. Constitution Avenue would be a high street, an avenue of commerce and apartments.

3. An indigenous park between Kings Avenue and Commonwealth park, contrasting with the formal Commonwealth Park.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_points”

Australians are to be asked what to they want from their capital under a project launched yesterday by the National Capital Planning Authority.

The authority says it is “”time to reassess the vision of Canberra to take the National Capital into the next century.

That would be done through the central national area design study, the acting chief executive of the NCPA, Gary Prattley, said yesterday.

It would be the third major vision step in the continuous development of the capital. The first was the gazettal of the Griffin Plan in 1925 and the second of was the adoption of the Holford Plan in 1958.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_plan”

The old rules said that the telecommunications companies could ignore “”state and territory” planning laws, which meant they could build mobile-phone towers wherever they wanted in any state or the Northern Territory, but not the ACT.

The ACT is unique in Australia because it contains the National Capital and has Commonwealth planning laws. A Federal Act of Parliament called the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act puts in train the National Capital Plan which has the force of law, and because it is specific over-rides the general telecommunications provisions. The National Capital Plan requires that before major telecommunications facilities can be built in the ACT a plan must be drawn up by the National Capital Planning Authority jointly with the ACT Government and the in consultation with telecommunications industry.

That process is now in train. The ACT Minister for Planning, Bill Wood, met senior telecommunications executives a week ago to set the process in motion.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_addtele”

The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, reopened the way for Wayne Berry to return to the Ministry after the next election yesterday, following the tabling of the Pearce report into the Vitab affair.

The report put the bulk of the blame over the Vitab affair on the ACT TAB, and the ACT Government has responded by ordering a Cabinet process for future important decisions by statutory authorities.

Professor Pearce found that the then Sports Minister, Wayne Berry, his advisers and TAB and department officers had all acted in good faith.

He also found that the involvement of former Prime Minister Bob Hawke in VITAB had made ACTTAB feel less need to check out the VITAB principals.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_pearce”

The ACT TAB would be barred from a link with NSW unless it met several conditions, the NSW Minister for Sport, Chris Downy, said yesterday.

“”Any prospect of a link between ACTTAB and NSW is simply not on at this stage,” he said.

The ACT would have to met at least four conditions: to demonstrate that all link with the controversial Vanuatu-based VITAB were severed; controls to ensure ACTTAB did not induce NSW punters away from the NSW TAB; to ensure the interests of surrounding NSW race clubs were protected; and to ensure controls were in place to protect the integrity of the NSW computer system.

The ACT Minister for Sport, David Lamont, said he would met Mr Downy on Tuesday and he was sure the remaining issues could be sorted out and a NSW link put in place.

Mr Downy was responsibly looking after the interests of NSW punters, “”just as I am looking after the interests of ACT punters”.
Continue reading “1994_06_june_nswtab”