Crispin Hull

The ACT Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, announced yesterday that nine departments and agencies keep a total of 312 databases with personal information in the ACT Government _ perhaps Little Sister is more appropriate.

Unlike Big Brother, Little Sister will allow you to peek at the files. To help the peeking, Mr Connolly, and the Federal Privacy Commissioner, Kevin O’Connor, launched yesterday the ACT Government Personal Information Digest.

It is hard to swallow how much information is kept by government on its citizens: from the punishment book to the registrar of bee-keepers; from birth certificates, to death certificates and beyond to wills and probate; from applications for grants by artists to applications for trade licences from artisans; from records of those who have hired the Erindale Centre to those who have had x-rays.
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They are the change spots of Canberra. They have drawn heated debate over the past few years as the population grows from natural causes (because it is a young one) and from political causes (because the Federal bureaucracy, despite what they say, is growing relentlessly). The ACT Government has to provide about 3500 new dwellings a year to cope with this. The growth causes pressure on the bush parts of the Bush Capital and on the centre.

First to the suburban encroachment on three cultural sites. Picture One shows Mount Stromlo Observatory with the nearby hatched area showing proposed extensions to Duffy-Holder. The ACT Government is committed to a 50-50 program. Fifty per cent of development will be in-fill and fifty per cent greenfields. It argues that this is the best use of resources such as schools, shops, health centres and the like because the population in inner areas has fallen. It says it is cheaper to provide electricity, water and sewerage to inner areas.
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The only sensible thing for people to do in the Optus-Telecom election is not to vote. Of course, ideologues may wish to vote on sentiment, like many do in Federal elections. Those who favour public-sector, highly unionised provision of services and dinky-di Australian industry working behind a tariff wall to exclude the rapacious multi-nationals will vote Telecom. Those who believe in vigorous international competition, individualism and service will vote Optus.

Their votes will be quite off target; neither company remotely fits those stereotypes. However, ideological prejudice is as good a basis as any to vote in this ballot. That people will vote that way, however, puts the kybosh on both Keynesian and economic rationalist belief that people will act according to their best interests.

What is more surprising is that the Government and its telecommunications regulatory authority Austel imagine that even the rest of us non-ideologues should take this ballot seriously or that we will follow the course of human behaviour set out in economics books and work out which company will provide us the best deal according to service, cost and benefit.
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The Government is to provide the money over four years for restoration and replacement of Commonwealth assets in the national area of Canberra.

It will be partly funded by introducing parking fees in the parliamentary zone and managed by the National Capital Planning Authority.

The chief executive of the NCPA, Lyndsay Neilson, said last night that work in 1993-94 would include repairs to the major bridges, repairs and improvements to the Captain Cook Memorial Water Jet, reconstruction of the King George V statue in front of Old Parliament House, and restoration of facilities in Commonwealth Gardens and Old Parliament House gardens.
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A model for Aboriginal self-government need not cost any extra and would replace paternalism an improve Aborigines economic position, according to a former Grants Commissioner and Federal Government taxation adviser.

Russell Mattews, who is professor of economics at the Australian National University, has put up a model for Aboriginal self-government, that would not require constitutional changes, saying the present system of high level of government funding was not achieving living standards for Aborigines that other Australians enjoy.

He argues that giving Aborigines responsibility for themselves will mean better living standards with the same level of government support. In the past solutions had been too legalistic and paternalistic.
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ACT residents need have no fear about their residential or commercial leases being claimed under indigenous title, the ACT Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, said yesterday.

He was responding to statements by his Opposition counterpart, Gary Humphries, and the Queensland Premier, Wayne Goss, about the consequences of a claim by the Wik people in Cape York.

The Wik people have asserted that the Queensland Government is in breach of trust under a common law made clear in an English case in 1977 that said governments could be liable for breaches of duty to indigenous people if they were obliged to act on behalf of or in their interests.
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The general-manger of Instant of Furniture, John Louttit, is to move from the position at the end of September.

Mr Louttit came to the job 2 (2 and a half) years ago when Lou Westende got control back of the public company which he had lost earlier. Mr Westende is a Liberal MLA.

Mr Louttit has been president of the Canberra Chamber of Commerce since June 1992. In that capacity he is to go to Japan in a delegation with the Labor Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, in October. The chamber and private industry generally have supported the trip. Liberal Party MLAs have strongly attacked the cost of the trip, $180,000, in the Assembly and elsewhere.
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THE first comparative report on the performance of government trading enterprises published last week is welcome and necessary. It compares the performance state-by-state of such things as urban transport, ports, water, gas and electricity.

Formally called the report on the Monitoring of Government Trading Enterprises, it was prepared by the Steering Committee of National Performance which was set up at the Special Premiers Conference in 1991. The report will become an annual event.

Unlike private enterprise whose performance can be measured through the rigours of the share-market and the threat of going broke, public enterprises can at best on only compare themselves against their own performance in previous years. Before the report, government enterprises could wallow in the glory of, say a 2 per cent, improvement on last year, but that is of small joy to the taxpayers if all it means is that the enterprise has only improved from worse to bad. Now, comparisons can be made across the states on indicators like hours of electricity disconnection, transport boardings per employee, number of employees per household served and so on.
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ONCE again the desires of the fledgling self-governing ACT have come in conflict with national concerns. This time it is the proposal to build houses on the vacant land between the edge of Duffy and Holder and the Cotter Road. The proposal, if it goes ahead, will jeopardise the functioning of Mount Stromlo astronomical observatory because of extra night lights.

Before this is portrayed as a winner-take-all conflict of the dimensions of the Tasmanian-dams cases, some ought to be made clear. The ACT is not absolutely committed to the project. The position of Mount Stromlo as an optical observatory in the middle of a city has been precarious for perhaps 20 years. It’s relocation is inevitable; it is not a question of if but when.
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THE Leader of the Opposition, Kate Carnell, has tapped in to an obvious sense of community dissatisfaction with government in the ACT. She has floated the idea of doing away with the Westminster structure of the ACT Legislative Assembly and replacing it with a collegiate or committee system. Under her idea, rather than having individual Ministers administering portfolios, each portfolio area would be administered by a committee of, say three, MLAs.

There is only one meritorious element in her statements so far about the issue: that she is floating it as an idea rather than as a definite policy position. Mercifully, this means the thing can be quietly forgotten. The episode shows that Ms Carnell is refreshingly inexperienced in the wily ways of politicians. It is usual for them to float ideas by getting someone else to send the balloon up or to hold the kite string, or to allow it to float anonymously as “”an Opposition source”. If everyone says what a wonderful balloon the politician claims it; if the balloon is seen as a fizzer it is forgotten. At least Ms Carnell did not stoop to that sort of gutless hypocrisy. Politicians should not be condemned for floating ideas; nor should Ms Carnell. For too long Australian politics has been straight-jacketed by fear of new ideas. However, that does not mean the idea itself cannot be pulled apart, and pulled apart with some vigour.
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