Crispin Hull

journalists refuse to divulge sources, even upon pain of jail, they are not claiming a special privilege for themselves. Rather they are claiming protection for their sources, and in doing so protecting a wider interest of society.

These were the interests being protected by Deborah Cornwall when she refused to divulge sources to the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Last week Justice Abadee gave her a two-month suspended jail term and 90 hours’ voluntary work for doing so.
He also warned that in future he would not be so lenient. In other words, journalists would be sent to jail _ unlike armed robbers and sexual assaulters who sometimes get bonds for first offences.

It was a harmful and dumb threat. Dumb because it will not make any difference to journalists’ conduct and harmful because it might make some people less likely to take journalists into their confidence, fearing that journalists might succumb to threats like those of Justice Abadee.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_column13”

Drop P UE1OLITICIANS are fond of “”package”. Ministers talk of a “”package” of measures and a “”reform package”. Unions talk of a settlement “”package”. The package has become part of political lexicon.

But it a slippery word. It conjures up pleasant images _ a postie on a bicycle delivering something large wrapped in brown paper and string. Inside is a present from Auntie for our birthday. In the days of innocence nothing nasty came out of a package.

Now that politics has taken the word, its meaning has changed. A package is something to be suspicious of. Tangible packages might be IRA bombs and intangible packages can equally blow up in your face.

What is the hallmark of the political “”package”? Like the brown-paper one from Auntie, the whole package must be taken. You cannot say to the postie, “”Sorry I want only some of the package”. Nor can you say to the politician, “”I only want half the package.” That is why politicians use this sort of language: “”Here is something nice. It is called a package. And because it is a package you are going to have to have all of it.”
Continue reading “1993_09_september_column20”

A car accident in the Northern Territory. One driver is from Victoria and is badly injured.

Northern Territory limits actions for damages for pain and suffering and loss of potential income are limited. In Victoria, on the other hand, these things are allowed.

Very artfully, the lawyer sues in Victoria. Question: which law should apply? _ Victoria’s or the Northern Territory’s. Answer _ the Northern Territory’s, according to the High Court. Why is that so? Well, we sort of know, but we are not exactly sure. Some of the judges say it is because the common law provides that the law of the place of the wrong is applied. Other judges said it was because the Constitution provides that each state must give full faith a credit to other states’ law, the Northern Territory being treated as a state for this purpose.

The upshot is that the Victorian court has to apply Northern Territory law.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_column27a”

If the ACT had any steel, it would join the rust-belt states fairly quickly.

As it is most of its economy is based on sheltering and feeding federal public servants, so its public finances are not like that.

None the less, yesterday’s Budget took those finances from excellent to merely good. And the projection, without policy changes, is for them to head to the debt trap.

After making much of the harsh circumstances imposed by the Federal Government, Rosemary Follett ignored them. The $78 million cut by the Commonwealth is met by Ms Follett dipping into reserves and borrowing to meet a deficit of $77 million.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_comment”

The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, attacked yesterday an article in The Canberra Times’s suggesting that $60 million could be cut from the Budget without hurting.

She invited the journalists who wrote it, Jack Waterford and Ian Davis, “”if they had the guts to accept”, to do a guided tour of her department so she could show them that there were no functions and special units that were duplicated or produced little in the way of visible results.

She pointed to the tourism unit which had produced higher visitor numbers and greater income for the ACT. She said the Occupational Health and Safety Unit provided a vital function.

Every effort would be made to give a safe workplace to people in the Territory, she said provoking an Opposition interjection: “”You can’t provide a workplace at all . . . ”.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_ctcrit”

ACT teachers are paid more and have fewer teaching hours than nearly all other states, according to the Auditor-General.

In a report tabled in the Legislative Assembly yesterday the Auditor found also that non-teaching school staff had salaries 15.8 per cent above the Australian average and teacher-student ratios were on the Australian average but below what one would expect in a highly urbanised, consolidated system like the ACT.

Total costs per student exceeded the Australian average by 7.1 per cent.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_educ17”

Newspaper journalists, especially those who do the Letters pages, can tell a letter-writing campaign fairly quickly.

The difference between the spontaneously spurred and vicariously stirred becomes apparent in what is written and how it is written.

If committees of the ACT Legislative Assembly develop a similar nose, the euthanasia committee should cast 88 of its 130 submissions into the rubbish bin.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_euth13”

Botched suicides and assisted suicides are relatively frequent among HIV-AIDS suffers, according to a submission to the ACT Legislative Assembly euthanasia inquiry.

The submission by the AIDS Action Council was one of 130 made public by the select committee on euthanasia yesterday.

The council said, “”In many of these cases the botched attempt has reduced the quality of life abysmally but the options for suicide have also become more limited.”

In some cases HIV-AIDS sufferers had not informed, or felt they could not inform, others of their suicide attempt, so that those finding them have called ambulances when they are unconscious.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_euthan”

The concentration of lead in Canberra’s air is well below the maximum permitted for good health, according to figures issued yesterday.

The National Health and Medical Research Council recommends a maximum lead level over three months’ average of 1.5 micrograms per cubic metre (1.5 units).

Readings taken in the past year at five Canberra sites show Woden to have the worst maximum three month average at 0.97 units. Kambah had 0.80; Belconnen 0.71; Civic 0.56 and Gowrie 0.36.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_foidom”

Three-storey blocks of units are coming to existing residential areas in inner Canberra.

The ACT Planning Authority has issued guidelines for blocks of three-storey units that will be permitted in North Canberra after the gazettal of the Territory Plan next month.

It is not widely known that the plan will permit three-storey residential development in wide areas of Braddon, Dickson, Lyneham, O’Connor and Turner. About 1000 households are affected. Many will face the choice of selling their homes or living next to units instead of in their present single-residence environment.
Continue reading “1993_09_september_fronter”