Crispin Hull

HECTOR Kinloch died last week. Hector was a great teacher because he stirred the conscience of his students. He did not have the intellectual depth of a Manning Clark, nor his literary style. He was not a performer in the P. S. Atiyah style. He did not nag his students like Leslie Zines. Nor did he lecture with the Victorian certainty of John Ritchie. He had a peculiar human style: his human weakness was manifest. And that was his strength.

The troubled ex-gambler suddenly game into the public eye in Canberra when he opposed the casino, just before ACT self-government in 1989. Suddenly he found himself drafted into the Residents’ Rally and elected a Member of the Legislative Assembly. The man who had taught generations of students about the great period of American independence suddenly found himself elected in the nascent Assembly of this tiny polity.
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The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, condemned yesterday an idea floated by the Opposition to abandon Westminster system in the ACT Legislative Assembly.

The Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, said earlier that the people of Canberra did not like the hierarchical system of Ministers and the adversary Westminster system in the Assembly. She proposed that a system of committees replace Ministers and the rigid party structure.

Ms Follett said the democratic principles of responsibility and accountability to the community disappear.
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A leading Canberra auctioneer called yesterday for an open, advertised tender for the position of authorised government auctioneer for the ACT.

The call from Matt Campbell came after the previous authorised auctioneer went into receivership and Department of Administrative Services sources said last week that the department was approaching the replacement process very carefully and expected a contract to be signed for the vehicle auctions in the next few weeks and one for miscellaneous goods shortly thereafter.

Mr Campbell asked yesterday, “”If they are that close, where are the advertisements for the tender?”
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Two buses have gone past my suburban window in the past three minutes. (In different directions.) Both were virtually empty.

What were they doing? Knitting the social fabric of Canberra together. Without them the carless would have little trade, commerce or social intercourse with the rest of Canberra. They might not be able to get to the polling booth on voting day, for example.

It has ever been thus: empty buses all day; packed ones at peak-hour; and a huge government subsidy. How bad or good is it? How efficient, or inefficient? Until this week we could only rely on the evidence of our eyes. Now we are blessed with the report of the “”Steering Committee of National Performance” on “”Government Trading Enterprises Performance Indicators”.
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He said last week that he would be making a ministerial statement yesterday about betterment. Yesterday he said a further announcement would be made in September, but he would take the opportunity to clarify issues after “”inaccurate or malicious” statements in the media.

Betterment is the charge levied against a leaseholder in return for a change of purpose in the lease in recognition of its changed value from the old use to the new. Under present law a remission of up to 50 per cent is available depending on the age of the old lease.

Mr Wood acknowledged that a greater return could be made if when assessing betterment the old value did not include an element for potential redevelopment.
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People needed to be given an incentive to move out of old inner areas where it was socially desirable to have renewal, according to the Australian Institute of Valuers and Land Economists.

For that reason, it said, betterment should be levied at something less than 100 per cent of the change in value as a result of change of land use.

It acknowledged the present system had been eroded because present law changed betterment according to the difference in the “”before value” under the old lease purpose and the “”after value” with a new lease purpose. The market value of the “”before value”, however, contained a component for potential redevelopment, so the difference between the two values had narrowed significantly.
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The Federal Budget was condemned in the ACT House of Assembly yesterday as “”the Betrayal Budget”.

In Question Time and in the Matter of Public Importance the ACT Opposition incessantly referred to the “”Betrayal Budget”.

The Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, said. “”There were half a million people in Australia on training programs for jobs that do not exist. There were only two new jobs in federal Budget: one for John Button and one for Neville Wran.”
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Advertisements aimed at appointing a new authorised government auctioneer in the ACT will appear tomorrow, after the previous one went into liquidation owning more than $1 million.

The Department of Administrative Services said yesterday the advertisements would seek interested parties for auctioneer of vehicles.

Those parties could then provide background on their financial suitability and qualifications as auctioneers under the ACT Auctioneers Act.
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The ACT Government was aware that the principals of an auctioneering company that went into liquidation owing the ACT thousands were seeking auctioneer’s licences but had not objected.

The Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, told the Legislative Assembly yesterday that the ACT Government had not made representations to the court about the suitability of the two men, who were directors of Sale-O, trading as Australian Capital Auctioneers, which was the authorised government auctioneer in the ACT and conducted auctions of federal and ACT government cars, furniture, computers and other items. (The cases have been adjourned until October following other objections.)
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The liquidator of the authorised government auctioneer in the ACT said the company’s $1.1 million debt could not have been run up in ordinary trade, the ACT Magistrates’ Court was told yesterday.

The court was told of a burglary in which documents were stolen making it difficult for the liquidator to find out how much was owed to whom.

Magistrate Peter Dingwall adjourned applications for auctioneers licences by two former directors of the company, pending reports from the ACT Commissioner of Police.
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