Crispin Hull

Appeals against residential rates and land tax assessments are now impossible because of costs, according to some Canberra residents.

In the past week many residents have complained about what see as unfairnesses in rates and land tax assessments. Their appeals the ACT Revenue Office have been unsuccessful and they say further appeals are prohibitive because of the cost.

It costs $240 to lodge an appeal with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. That alone would usually be greater than any benefit from a reduced valuation of a residential block. Added to this would be the cost of an independent valuation of $250 to $400 and further costs for the valuer to attend the tribunal.
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Let’s start with a pleasant old couple in an established suburb of Adelaide. They own a five-bedroom house with a huge garden. All the kids have grown up.

It is clearly time to move. Not a great distance, just round the corner to a neat unit with a manageable garden.

In a remote way, it is in the national interest for the them to move. In the new unit, they might call less on social services. They will have a less burdensome life. Moreover, their spacious suburban house will become available to a younger family that would otherwise face the prospect of moving to a new outer suburb. The building of that outer suburb will cost oodles of public money in stretched sewerage pipes and electricity lines and the like. Here followeth the usual litany about the urban sprawl.
Continue reading “1992_07_july_psa”

The vice-president of the ACT Law Society, Robert Clynes, and the ACT Attorney-General, Terry Connolly, at the opening of Law Week yesterday.

The Federal Court rejected yesterday allegations of petrol price fixing by the service-station industry.

The action was brought by the Trade Practices Commission in response to the industry’s “”Prosper from Petrol” campaign among service-station owners in 1990.

The case was a test of the extent to which industry associations can act to promote their industry without falling foul of Trade Practices Act prohibitions against retail-price maintenance and other anti-competitive conduct.
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A Canberra woman has been refused entry to a NSW psychiatric hospital, because there has been no ACT funding and ACT law does not apply to it.

The 73-year-old woman’s daughter said her mother had been committed to the Rozelle Psychiatric Hospital for six months by an ACT magistrate on Monday under the Inebriates Act.

The daughter had sought the order because she could no longer cope with her mother.

She had been taken to Rozelle by ACT police, but refused a six-month committal. After police pleaded, she had been admitted temporarily, but, according to the daughter the hospital might attempt to send her back to the ACT alone by train this morning.
Continue reading “1992/1992_07_july_nut”

The position of a Canberra woman committed to Rozelle Hospital under the Inebriates Act for six months was resolved yesterday, (wedjul29) according to the office of the Minister for Heatlh, Wayne Berry.

Her case was reporter in The Canberra Times on Tuesday. (jul28)

A spokeswoman for Mr Berry said ACT authorities and NSW had liaised to clear up a misunderstanding about the application of ACT law and funding to NSW institutions.

Earlier this week Rozelle Hospital refused to admit the woman under the terms of the order saying there was no funding and the ACT law did not apply in NSW and said she would have to go back to the ACT.
Continue reading “1992_07_july_nut1992_07_july_0”

The Parliamentary triangle is falling apart, according to the National Capital Planning Authority.

But the Minister responsible for it, Ros Kelly, says this is not the case. Mrs Kelly says Old Parliament House would make an excellent portrait Gallery.

The chairman of the NCPA, Joseph Skrzynski, has expressed his concerns in a recent speech to the Canberra Business Council, a copy of which was obtained .

He is concerned about a rapidly increasing population density and the deterioration in the Parliamentary Triangle and the funding for its upkeep.
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Australia is pressing ahead with its defence of a claim by Nauru for between $70 million and $90 million to rehabilitate the Pacific island after phosphate mining.

This is despite last month’s comprehensive rejection of Australia’s position in the International Court of Justice that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the case.

It is easy to jump to the conclusion that Australia was the wicked colonial power that ripped off the innocent native people of Nauru, wrecked their island, destroyed their Pacific way of life and then left. But there are two sides to the story, as the court no doubt will hear.
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The ACT Government has agreed with several conservation groups that Mulligan’s Flat in Gungahlin will be preserved as a nature reserve.

On original plans, much of the area was to be sub-divided for housing.

The Minister for Environment, Land and Planning, Bill Wood, acknowledged yesterday ÿ(tuejul28)@ that a significant amount of revenue would be forgone, but the significance of the site.

A proposal submitted by the Conservation Council of the South-East Region and six other conservation groups said that six square kilometres should be made a nature reserve. Mr Wood said he would take a generous view of those boundaries. He hoped to fix them within weeks.
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Several years ago you could drive around Vernon Circle and southwards on to Commonwealth Avenue Bridge.

As you rounded the corner the Brindabellas formed the horizon like a blue ribbon. In winter, the ribbon was spotted with snow.

Now, alas, that hideous white block of residential units shatters the harmony of the Brindabella horizon. One has to drive past the building to get the full line of the Brindabellas. It is not quite the same; the joy of the vista needs to be experienced on the turn of the corner.
Continue reading “1992_07_july_mullfeat”