Category: Uncategorized

It is a rare day indeed that the Commonwealth does not get its way over a state or territory once it puts its legal and financial mind to it.

So it was out of the ordinary this week for the Commonwealth to submit to South Australia’s efforts to block the national nuclear waste dump proposed near Woomera in that state’s far north. It was so out of the ordinary that you would have to conclude that the Commonwealth was not really trying. There is an election pending, and South Australia has too many marginal seats that might be affected by the Commonwealth forcing the issue on the dump. So why try when you can bow out gracefully on the moral high ground?

Even so, the power of the Commonwealth to acquire land in any of the six states is in such a hiatus that it would be perfectly reasonable for the Commonwealth to put the nuclear waste dump in the ACT. Shock. Horror.

It is worth revisiting last month’s Full Federal Court decision that led to the Commonwealth throwing in the towel.

The judge at first instance found for the Commonwealth, but the Full Court of three judges allowed South Australia’s appeal.

The history goes back to the mid 1980s. The Hawke Government and the states agreed that there should be a single national nuclear waste repository (a better word than “dump” because “dump” indicates throwing out and abandoning, whereas the nuclear repository will be constantly monitored and looked after).
Continue reading “2004_07_july_forum for saturday nuclear waste”

Federal Attorney General Philip Ruddock flexed Commonwealth muscle this week in a worthy cause – uniform defamation laws.

He issued a discussion paper outlining Commonwealth proposals to use the broadcast, corporations and territories powers to pass a nationwide defamation law. Hitherto, the area had largely been seen as one for the states. With a Commonwealth law, the states would be left with only defamation by individuals; all the major media players would be brought within the uniform Commonwealth law.

The madness of the present defamation laws has long been apparent, most markedly in 1973 Justice Russell Fox of the ACT Supreme delivered his judgment in the defamation action brought by Prime Minister John Gorton against the ABC and journalist Maximillian Walsh.

It was over a fleeting comment on a current affairs program suggested that Gorton had ordered a denial to be issued to a story he knew to be true in order to discredit his Defence Minister Malcolm Fraser.

Gorton was no longer Prime Minister by the time the case concluded.

It was standard political stuff that should not have raised an eyebrow in a society that respected freedom of speech. But Australian defamation laws by and large require people to prove the truth of everything they publish at such vast cost in lawyers’ fees that chills even the richest media organisation. That law remains unchanged and its general anti-free-speech approach is likely to remain unchanged for the indefinite future.
Continue reading “2004_03_march_uniform libel laws”

The first reference to court buildings in Canberra was in Walter Burley 1911 plan. His central triangle contained various national buildings including the “Courts of Justice” on the shore of the central basin of the lake.

The High Court first appeared on an official Canberra plan as a named building in 1959 – a bland rectangle on its current site. The permanent Parliament House was next to it on the lake shore. On the other side of Parliament was the National Library – then a library to serve the Parliament rather than one for the whole nation. In that plan, the High Court building was to be one of half a dozen buildings – including national archives and museums. NCDC Chief Architect Roger Johnson called it “a great monumental plaza’’ or National Place.

But that fell in a heap when the politicians decided to become planners.

In 1968 a free vote in Parliament rejected the lakeside site for Parliament and it was notionally moved up to Camp Hill – back towards Capital Hill. The National Place with half a dozen buildings was then out of the question. According to NCDC staff architect and later commissioner, Paul Reid, Ministers in their offices would not have their view of the lake spoiled with buildings. They wanted more landscape and fewer buildings. So all but the High Court and the National Library (by then built) were removed from the plan. In effect, the High Court stood alone on the plans in a wide space. Even when the National Gallery of Australia was moved down the hill to be adjacent to the High Court, the court seemed – because of its isolation — to be too monumental, too grand and out of proportion.
Continue reading “2003_09_september_high_courtthe competition and design”

The English are experts at rigid queues and queuing.

I found myself earlier this week in a long queue at Brisbane Airport. It was so long that it snaked through all the available chrome pole and black tape queue controllers and had formed several more hairpin bends of its own to the very doors of the terminal. Continue reading “2003_09_september_forum for saty australia good queuers”

Is the property bubble about the burst, with a rippling effect across the economy?

Possibly, warns the Reserve Bank.

This week the Reserve held a seminar on what to do about the seemingly uncontrollable boom in property prices. It made the papers public. Continue reading “Property bubble not about to burst”

The repair job by ActewAGL to Canberra’s burnt out infrastructure was little short of miraculous.

ActewAGL coped so well for several reasons.

The homework had already been done. Detailed emergency plans are constantly reviewed. Not just for fire, but other emergencies such as earthquake and explosions and the like. Continue reading “The destruction and restoration of power”

Ross MacDiarmid has occasionally been in the wrong place at the wrong time, through no fault of his own.

He was working as the head of Ansett in Canberra when the airline went under. And January 18 saw him fighting fires on his rural leasehold in Tharwa. He – with family and friends — saved the house, but sheds, stock and fencing went.

But now he seems to be the right person in the right place. He has been the chief executive of newly named Australian Capital Tourism since MARCH 2002 (2002 MUST BE ADDED). The name change from the Canberra Tourism and Events Corporation was announced this month (June) but is yet to be formally approved by the Assembly.

It is not a change for the sake of change or a cosmetic change. The organisation wants to take the emphasis away from “events” – one in particular — and wants to concentrate on more than just Canberra. The words “Australian Capital” will embrace the region and help in marketing here and overseas.

“When I came to the job it was obvious to me that we were preoccupied with one event which was the V8 supercars,’’ he said. “While we were managing that – – and it was managed very well and it was a lot of fun being involved in — it consumed a huge amount of resources for this organisation. . . .

“While were we doing that we had no resources going into destination marketing or promotional activities. When you think about it, $19 million invested in that event over three years attracted a total number of 46,000 visitors to Canberra with some potential marginal publicity value. . . Not a very effective use of resources.”
Continue reading “2003_06_june_ross macdiarmid”

Ventnor has one of the few sand beaches in England. In the shops on Pier Street and High Street you can see postcards of the beach filled with swimmers on a bright sunny day. Reality is different. On the day I was there it was about eight degrees at the end of a non-existent English spring.

Ventnor is on the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. Its streets are engraved into a steep hill overlooking the cold English Channel. The colour of the sea could only be found on a paint colour chart – – an opaque pastel blend of grey and green.

I spent one hour and eight minutes in Ventnor. How can I be so precise? Because it tells me so on Page 40 of one of the most remarkable documents in the history of British cryptography – – the Isle of Wight Bus Guide.

Before that bleak spring day, I used to think that the longest distance between any two points was an ACTION bus route in Canberra. Not so. ACTION’s guide and bus routes are a quick crossword compared to The Times’s cryptic that is the Isle of Wight Bus Guide. The guide is an astonishing 96 pages (each 10cm by 20 cm) for an island a little larger than the city of Canberra (50km by 30km) and a population of just 130,000.
Continue reading “The Isle of Wight by bus”

The first results from the 2001 census were published yesterday. At first blush they confirm some well known trends: incomes are rising; the population is aging; more people are identifying themselves as of Aboriginal descent; Catholicism is the largest religion; more people are living alone; more people are using computers; and Queensland has the highest population growth and Tasmania’s population is declining. Continue reading “2002_06_june_leader17jun census”

Today the new Act Defamation Act comes into force. It is perhaps the most radical reform of defamation law in any Australian jurisdiction since 1788. Continue reading “2002_06_june_new defo”