PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES,PUBLIC SERVANTS AND DUE PROCESS

Abstract: The parliamentary system of government in its Australian form has a number of unresolved problems, notwithstanding its many virtues. One such problem is that of the role of public servants when called before parliamentary committees as witnesses. The current guidelines are mainly advice to public servants as to how they should avoid or defer questions which neither the minister nor the departmental secretary has authorised them to answer. Of course, this is useful and proper within its limits. However, it fails to address many of the dilemmas and career-threatening choices which can face public servants who find themselves being questioned in an aggressive, hostile manner by members of a parliamentary committee. Unfair treatment of witnesses is not a trivial matter and there are more than isolated instances. This article deals with an episode involving the Joint Parliamentary Committee of Public Accounts in 1982. The case is now some years in the past, but it is still worth examining for what it teaches about gaps in our constitutional conventions. At the end of the article we suggest action in four areas. Intensive training and retraining is needed, first in the upper ranks of the public service, and secondly for chairpersons and members of parliamentary committees. Thirdly there is a need for MAB-MIAC to revisit yet again their guidelines on accountability and to instigate a review of the government's guidelines for public servants appearing as witnesses. Both sets of guidelines are anachronisms. Finally, we suggest that, in any future review of government policy in this area, consideration be given to the amendment of relevant legislation to bring due process and the protection of witnesses more closely into line with the rights available to persons appearing before a court.     

Estimation of body exposure to explosion

An ordnance-disposal expert was killed while disposing of a cache of explosives. The likely position of the body was reconstructed by modeling the explosion as an omnidirectional emission of particles from a model of the explosion site and noting the distribution of particles on a model of a human. The applications and limitations of this method in reconstructing the events and correlation with the injuries noted at autopsy are discussed.     

The Asian Rejection?: International Refugee Law in Asia*

The majority of Asian states have not signed onto the major international refugee law instruments which promote refugee recognition and protection. Yet, second to Africa, the Asian region has had the highest number of refugees since the Second World War. Three explanations are usually offered to explain this puzzle —“good neighbourliness”, “economic costs” and “social disruption”. In this article I argue that each is flawed in important ways and then develop an alternative by explaining how limited Asian involvement in the drafting of international refugee law has led Asian states to reject Eurocentric refugee recognition practices.     

Australian Antecedents of the Third Way

New Labour theorists have been prone to identify American New Progressivism as the proximate source of 'third way' ideas. In this article we argue that, if the focus is on the governing practice rather than on the naming of a governing orientation, a case can be made for seeing Australian Labor in government from 1983 to 1996 as a progenitor of third way thinking and as a specific source of New Labour policy development in a number of areas. Taking Stuart White's account of the main dimensions of third way programmatic realignment as our guide, we discuss the success of the Hawke/Keating Labor governments in reducing the direct provider role of state, developing new forms of collective provision, reforming the tax system, making social policy more employment-friendly and creating the institutions of an asset-based egalitarianism. We conclude by pointing out that, whilst there are many common themes in Australian Labor practice and New Labor rhetoric, and some evidence of specific policy transfer from one to the other, a plausible case can also be made for seeing many of the policy initiatives of the Hawke/Keating era as a reworking of an older Australian Labor tradition of regulatory state activism.     

A new visibly-excited fluorescent component in latent fingerprint residue induced by gaseous electrical discharge

A technique that exposes fingerprint residue to a gaseous electrical discharge in nitrogen followed by treatment with ammonium hydrogen carbonate vapors to produce fluorescence is investigated. Particular attention is made to fluorescence observed via laser illumination at 514 nm. Insight into the nature of the fluorescent components is achieved through the use of thin-layer chromatography (TLC) of fingerprint residue. Results reported indicate the fluorescence observed is from previously non-fluorescent fractions of the fingerprint residue, and TLC results point towards lipid derivatives as a possible source of the fluorescence.     

The detection and enhancement of latent fingermarks using infrared chemical imaging

The use of a new technique, Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) chemical imaging, has been demonstrated for the enhancement of latent fingermarks on a number of surfaces. Images of untreated fingermarks on glass backgrounds with excellent ridge detail were acquired using infrared chemical imaging. High quality fingermarks on glass backgrounds were also developed using ethyl cyanoacrylate (super glue) fuming and subsequent infrared chemical imaging. This new method allows the collection of images from backgrounds that traditionally pose problems for current fingermark detection methods. The background may, for example, be highly colored, have a complex pattern, or possess other pattern or image characteristics that make it difficult to separate fingermark ridges using traditional optical or luminescent visualization. One background that has proven to be a challenging surface for the development of latent fingermarks is the Australian polymer banknote. To demonstrate the power and applicability of infrared chemical imaging, fingermarks fumed with ethyl cyanoacrylate were successfully imaged from Australian polymer banknotes.