Crispin Hull

Canberrans are paying 1.8 cents a litre for the promotion of milk, even though milk marketing is a statutory monopoly in the ACT with no competition.

The annual report of the ACT Milk Authority reveals that $587,834 was spent on promotion in 1992-93.

Of that $109,000 was spent on sponsorship of the Raiders. The authority has a sponsors box at Raiders games where it can invite guests who are crucial to the authority’s marketing and promotion role.

The report, tabled in the Legislative Assembly this week, reveals the success of marketing _ milk consumption rose by 0.55 per cent in the year, about 1.5 per cent less than population growth. Consumption of flavoured milk fell 3.5 per cent.

The authority also spent $19,038 on conferences and meetings, compared to $11,924 the previous year and members’ sitting fees went up from $23,011 to $34,979. Staff wages went up from $191,023 to $226,782.

Overall the authority improved its financial position by $94,000. The price of low-fat milk (which makes up about a third of consumption) went up 10.5 per cent, but ordinary milk stayed at the same price, 95c a litre, as did the cost of raw-milk supplies to the authority at 36.65c a litre.

Canberrans consumed 32,532,477 litres in 1992-93 compared to 32,353,471 litres the previous year. Of that about two million litres was flavoured milk. Consumption of milk from glass bottles fell nearly 30 per cent, but was made up with milk from other containers. Per capita consumption in the ACT is 110 litres, above the national average of 102 litres, probably because of the younger population.

The face of Burley Griffin’s inner Canberra is about to change.

The Territory plan has now passed the Legislative Assembly and awaits gazettal, probably next month.

After that a thousand households in North Canberra could wake up any morning and find a billboard next door or over the road announcing that the three-storey block of units is to replace the existing single residences.

There are notification procedures and appeal rights. But a right to appeal does not mean the appeal will succeed. If the plan for three-storey blocks of units fits the planning guidelines, it will go through.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_nthcan”

Oh what a lovely war it was in the Assembly yesterday.

It began in the morning with Gary Humphries’ Bill to give police the power to take the name and address of anyone, not just motorists, as is now the case.

“”Papers!” demanded the acting Minister for Internal Security, Terry Connolly, in his best German accent.

The theme recurred in Question Time when retired warrior Trevor Kaine (Lib) attacked the Budget’s voluntary separation scheme, saying the government had no idea how many would opt for it. There was no policy and no direction. It was just a pious hope.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_qt16”

The Minister for Sport, Wayne Berry, dismissed yesterday an Opposition attack on the Government’s appointment of Athol Williams as chair of the ACTTAB.

The appointment was gazetted in July.

The Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Tony de Domenico, noted that Mr Williams is president of the Tuggeranong sub-branch of Labor Party.

Mr Berry said Mr Williams has been associated with greyhound racing in the ACT for more than 10 years and had been a member of the former board of the ACTTAB before its reconstitution in July.

Mr Williams said he had been at various times vice-president of the greyhound association, an owner and trainer and steward and had been associated with horse-racing since his youth.

The ACTTAB was decorpratised by the Government earlier this year and brought back to public-service control. The move drew extensive criticism in the industry. Mr Berry said it had also drawn support.

Mr Berry said the board had recommended Mr Williams’s appointment as chair and he had agreed.

The Opposition attacked the Budget as a “”gutless”, “”no-jobs” Budget.

The Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, said the Government had failed to make any of the tough decisions.

Despite cuts to public employment, the Government would spend $56 million more this year than last.

The 2 per cent cut across all departments would not work; it did not work last year when on 14 of 26 programs could not achieve the cuts.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_react”

Australia is to fall silent and still at 11am on November 11th this year, the 75th anniversary of the Armistice at the end of World War I, under a proposal put by the Prime Minister to the states.

The silence would coincide with the entombing of an unknown soldier at the Australian War Memorial.

The director of the Memorial, Brendon Kelson, said yesterday (friday) that the Prime Minister, Paul Keating, had written to the State Premiers calling for a two-minute silence at 11am. He called for their views on whether the silence should be at Eastern Summer time so the whole nation stopped at once coinciding with the entombment, or whether it should be at 11am local time in each state.

Observation of the two-minute silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11 month has fallen away. Its origins go back to an idea by an Australian journalist, Edward George Honey, according to Lest We Forget, a history of the Returned Services League, by Jacqueline Rees.
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Gary Humphries picked his audience well this week when he said that “”Son of Mabo” could threaten titles in Canberra. Canberrans are notoriously property-conscious.

Humphries was jumping on the Goss woomera that said existing leasehold and other less-than-freehold titles could be subject to Aboriginal claims. This theory is being posed by lawyers for the Wik people in Cape York. It is called “”Son of Mabo” because it takes the Mabo case a bit further.

Mabo essentially restricted indigenous claims to areas where no-one else had any title _ what was called Crown land. The judges said that freehold and long leasehold extinguished indigenous title.
Continue reading “1993_08_august_humpsend”

A report into the handling of a redundancy payment in the ACT Chief Minister’s Department revealed no fraud or criminal conduct, the head of the department, Bill Harris, has announced.

The case involved an officer who had allegedly helped arrange a large redundancy payment for a sick workmate. The workmate died for months later and the officer inherited the money.

Mr Harris said last week that the report recommended the officer should be counselled about the need to declare possible conflicts of interest. This had been done. The documents had been examined by the Director of Public Prosecutions who had come to the same conclusion.
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The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, hopes get the Japanese more interested in ACT high-tech, tourism and education products when she visits in October-November, according to ACT Government officials yesterday.

She will lead a mainly private-sector delegation of about 10 people from October 23 to November 5. Projects she hopes to help are the sale of ACT-developed software for teaching English as a second-language; educational and industry exchanges related to the Fujitsu super-computer at ANU; the Anutech SHRIMP which looks at rock strata; and a dozen or so other private-sector projects.

She will also have talks with five major tourism wholesalers with the aim of convincing the Japanese that Sydney is not the capital of Australia, but Canberra is and should be on the tourist map.
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The ACT Opposition has discovered what journalists have known for some years: that the Freedom of Information Act should be renamed the Freedom FROM Information Act.

The Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, said in the Assembly yesterday that a Government with a siege mentality could prevent information being disclosed through using high fees. She did not complain about an upfront flat fee of $20 or $30 to stop frivolous fees. By she did object to fees charged on a per-page or per-hour basis _ the processing fee.

ACT law permits an exemption on public interest grounds or grounds that the applicant cannot afford it.
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