Uncategorized | Crispin Hull

Behind zero tolerance

Over the past half decade or so, you must have noticed the proliferation of “zero-tolerance” signs at businesses and government services. They quite rightly point out that abusive language; threats of violence; and actual violence will not be tolerated and will result in a cessation of services.

But why the recent proliferation? Are Australians becoming more abusive and aggressive? Are governments and corporations just becoming more protective and concerned about their staff?

Benefits of going underground

Overhead power lines are ugly, dangerous and costly. Yet here we go again. As part of Snowy Hydro 2.0, a 360km overhead powerline called Humelink is proposed to take the electricity from the mountains to the southern tablelands of NSW.

Like most big infrastructure projects – including Snowy Hydro itself – cost blow-outs seem inevitable. Risks and complications are either not imagined or ignored. Worse, it is usually someone else who carries the cost. In the case of overhead powerlines, it is farmers, bushfire victims, and the taxpayer generally.

EVs suggest big tax rethink needed

So, Victoria can no longer demand that owners of electric vehicles take snap shots of their odometers each year and pay a tax according to the kilometres travelled. Two quixotic EV motorists appear to have won a victory for the environment in a High Court fight similar to that in the iconic movie “The Castle”.

But there is a deeper and much more important story here.

Australia’s degraded volksgeist

The German jurist Friedrich Carl von Savigny (1779-1861) introduced the concept of “volksgeist” into legal and political thinking.

The “volksgeist” was the national spirit, or national character. Savigny argued that law and policy could not be seen in the abstract but as the product of people living in society and they are the outcome of a culture of a society – the “volksgeist”.

Saturday’s referendum revealed a lot about Australia’s”volksgeist”, or national character, as did the demonstrations over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You do not have to scratch very deeply to find racism.

Corporations behaving badly

Behaving badly is literally in the DNA of large corporations, if you make the reasonable assumption that a corporation’s DNA is its articles of association.

This is because the articles of association put the maximising of shareholder value as the primary aim of the corporation. So, the directors and managers look after themselves and the shareholders whereas consumers, employees, and the environment can go to hell.

Seselja no help to Liberals

Former ACT Liberal Senator Zed Seselja’s attempted comeback to politics via a NSW Senate vacancy highlights yet again the Liberal Party’s identity conundrum – is it a “broad church” or a conservative party.

Threat to good government

On 7 June, 2022, shortly after the election, I wrote in this space http://www.crispinhull.com.au/2022/06/07/risk-of-going-too-early-with-voice/#more-12486 that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese ran a big risk if he went to the referendum too early because, since the 90 per cent pro-Indigenous vote in 1967, too many underlying myths had built up, namely that, since Mabo, Sorry, and massive government spending, Indigenous people had become privileged with special treatment, and did not deserve any more special treatment.

Ukraine is big deterrent to China

In at least one respect, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has been helpful to western democracies.

This is because the top brass and the political class they advise in nearly all countries usually fight the current war based upon the experience of recent past wars – invariably with poor results.

No rights for territories

Legally and constitutionally, the Federal Parliament has the power to overturn the ACT’s laws which provide that a person caught with illicit drugs within an allowable amount will either be given a $100 fine or be sent to a diversion program.

The question is should it, or should it respect the democratic will of the people of the ACT as expressed in the laws passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly?

A sign of governmental failure

There it appeared on one of the many entrances to Port Douglas’s iconic Four Mile Beach – literally overnight – a shiny new, expensive metal sign extolling the virtues of fishing and advising people how to catch them.

Then there was the real catch. The sign told us that the money for the signage had been provided by the Federal Government. A bit of digging tells us that applications under the grants scheme closed in September 2021 and the grants were made in February 2022, just before the start of the caretaker period before the federal election.

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