The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 17

17 THE AGE, Thursday 11 May 1989 losse i YE State Government trying to weaken FoT. savs author stjfl-iiot dean; freedom oi INFORMATION ffamers inquiry. It is not about tinkering. It is about whether the most significant changes Fol was supposed to produce, and has begun to produce, to some extent, are to be undone. The Supreme Court ruled in February that, under the Govern say ment lniorpretation of even a newspaper carried into the room could be deemed exempt.

Mr Chadwick said that instead of excluding all documents that; came before Cabinet, it would be "better to ask "what does it say', and not 'where does it come frftm' By CHRISTINE RAU The Victorian Government was trying to undercut its accountability to the public by a "wholesale weakening" of the Freedom of Information Act, according to the author and Fol journalist Paul Chadwick. Speaking at the third public hearing of the legal and constitutional committee into Fol, Mr Chadwick said that the Government was using "surreptitious methods of excluding agencies from The methods included internal regulations seeking to exempt eight agencies, and recent laws like the Rural Finance and the State Bank acts, which also exempted those agencies from Fol. "The granting of immunities to any part of Government is an unsound practice because it immediately undercuts one of the objects of Fol: improved accountability," Mr Chadwick, formerly an 'Age' and 'Sun' journalist, said. His book, 'Fol How to use the freedom of information laws', was published in 1985. The Premier, Mr Cain, argued, at a special committee hearing on 19 April, strongly for blanket exemptions on any documents before Cabinet.

Mr Cain said bureaucrats would not debate The Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands, Mrs Setches on Kane's Bridge. Government pays for bridge repair Mr Cain argued last month that ministers would also be con- strained from speaking freely' if Fol could disclose their disagree'--ments with the rest of Mr Chadwick said: "Which -is-more likely to instil public confi-" dence? The fiction that all minis-ters are always happily, unanimous in espousing without reservation the decisions of the' Cabinet? Or a svstem whirfi freely if they knew Fol could prise open the Westminster system's "Cabinet The Gov-ernment has launched a challenge in the High Court against a Supreme Court decision that Cabinet working documents were open to Fol. Mr Chadwick argued that all Cabinet exemptions should be abolished. "It is precisely because Cabinet has become, for practical purposes, the peak body of government that accountability ought to be extracted at this level," he said. "If the argument that Fol has impinged on Westminster traditions is now to be used to justify the weakening of it, then the central reform of the Fol Act will have been reversed.

"This is the heart of the current Mrs Mitchell sought assurances. situation was no clearer. "I'm not satisfied that there is anybody yet who is able to identify to us what By INGRID SVENDSEN Crossing the river at Yarra Bend Park will soon no longer be a voyage, thanks to a grant from the State Government. Since Kane's Bridge was declared unfit for foot traffic last August, locals have either driven 20 minutes by car to reach the other side or have resorted to water transport, making the crossing by boat. the true position is.

The Minister for Conservation, Forests and Lands, Mrs Setches, yesterday gave the Yarra Bend Park Trustees $181,006 to repair the dilapidated bridge across the Yarra River, which bisects the park. The secretary of the Yarra Bend Park Trustees, Mr Terry Lanham, said that with funding assured, the trust would "not waste any time getting things It was hoped that work would start on the bridge in about six weeks, and that it could be reopened at the end of October. Mr Lanham said the trust was delighted that the State Government was paying for the repairs. "Once the bridge is again opened, it will give the public access to both sides of the park through the one and only link," he said. By DAVID PORTER, rural affairs reporter The Victorian Economic Development Corporation, which col-lapsed last year with known debts of $111 million, was still losing $1.25 minion a month, the Victorian Farmers Federation said The federation's president, Mrs Heather! Mitchell, said she believed that the eventual losses of the VEDC would be considerably higher than the $111 million identified by Mr Fergus Ryan in his report to Parliament last December.

Mrs Mitchell yesterday met the state Treasurer, Mr Jolly, the Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Mr Rowe, and the chairman of the Rural Finance Corporation, Mr Ian Morton. Mrs Mitchell said the $1.25 million monthly loss, was "stated by Mr Morton and concurred with by Mr She said the federation called the meeting to gain assurances that reserves of the Rural Finance CorporatiOBWOUld be protected if the losses 'of exceeded funds injected by the State Government, The Government wound up the VEDC and transferred its assets and liabilities to the Rural Finance Cdrporation last October after disclosures of the VEDC's failed investment projects. Mrs Mitchell said there was a concern within the farming community that Mr Jolly had made a commitment to preserving the integrity and financial viability of the corporation while the full losses of the VEDC were still unknown. However, after yesterday's meeting, she said she believed the "It has become very apparent admits that, as in most human." affairs, disagreements occur and-after discussion, one view prevail: or compromise is reached?" The money the Government spent on costly Fol chalienf -belied its arguments that admfrjs tering the act was too expensive -Mr Chadwick said. that the Treasurer doesn know, the chairman of the RFC doesn't know, and the investigations are going on to determine the magni tude of the losses and to quantify them." Mrs Mitchell said Mr Jolly denied that a recent rise in the corporation's lending interest rate had any relevance to the absorp tion of the VEDC.

She said the Treasurer reaffirmed his inten This book reveals how Ozone treaty said to be outdated By CAROLINE MILBURN The damage wrought by chemi tion to "ensure that the viability of the RFC was not under seige However, she said Mr Jolly con firmed that the State Government was preparing "housekeeping legislation" to enable the absorp cals on the ozone layer was out shares anc of control and their planned jou cam own more phase-out should be brought forward to avert a global emergen tion. Mrs Mitchell said Mr Jolly also gave a guarantee that Victorian Equity Trust Units were separate to the responsibility and capital base of the corporation. cy, the deputy director of the Australian Conservation Foun dation warned yesterday. more property than anyoiri Mr Bill Hare, who will deliver a speech to the national halon conference starting today, said the Australian Government Editor did not threaten violence, says counsel should bypass the recommenda else in Australia tions of the Montreal Protocol, an international treaty that aimed at a gradual reduction of ozone-depleting chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons. He said the protocol's objec tive of a 50 per cent cut in CFCs by 1998 was inadequate.

The treaty's stand was even weaker on halons, a chemical used in fighting electrical fires, which is up to 10 times more damaging to the ozone layer than CFCs, he said. The protocol proposed that the use of halons should be fro zen at 1986 levels from 1992. Mr Hare said federal and state policy makers should ban CFCs and halons by 1995. Per capita. halon use in Australia was four- and-a-half times greater than in the United States.

He said that By PETER HUGHES, Adelaide The editor of the Adelaide 'Advertiser had never threatened his paper's literary editor with physical violence, the federal Industrial Relations Commission was toldyesteraayr" Counsel- frj'The AdvertiserV Ms Anne Harrison, made the statement at a hearing in which the Australian Journalists Association is seeking a return to a full weekly salary and five days' work a week for the literary editor, Shirley Stott-Despoja. The AJA's South Australian secretary, Mr Bill Rust, told an earlier hearing that the alleged threat of violence was made during a dispute between the editor. Piers Akerman, and Ms Stott-Despoja last December over the placement of a weekly column she wrote in her own time and for which she was paid separately. He said the newspaper cut Ms Stott-Despoja's salary and hours in March this year on her first day back after extended sick leave, despite assurances by the company's doctors and her own that she was fit for a normal week's work. Ms Harrison told the commissioner, Mr John Cross, yesterday that Mr Rust's submission was inacdurate and misleading.

She said hp allegation of physical violence -was. extraordinary when put. against, the background of a sound working relationship between-, Mr Akerman and-Ms Stott-Dejsppja "in, which both had expressed to the other their mutual admiration for their management and journalist Ms Harrison said that in January this year Ms Stott-Despoja's absence from work changed from sick leave to an absence allegedly caused by work-related stress, and- a workers' compensation action was pending. When Ms Stott-Despoja went back to a medical report indicated that she was fit to do work as a literary editor, her job for three days of the week, and not to carry out her normal duties for the remaining days, Ms Harrison said. She said the AJA's case should not proceed, as it was a workers' compensation matter.

If it proceeded, all allegations would be answered on sworn evidence. Ms Harrison said Mr Akerman had begun defamation proceedings against the AJA over a report of the incident between him and Ms Stott-Despoja. Mr Rust said the issues before the commission were simple when stripped of the obfuscation presented by Ms Harrison. The AJA stood by everything had told the commission, and would defend the defamation matter, which was not relevant to the proceedings and which raised other issues. The hearing was adjourned indefinitely after private talks tetween the parties failed to reach a settlement.

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