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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 8 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2490 ..

Mrs Carnell: But what is it going to achieve?

MR BERRY: Mrs Carnell bleats across the chamber, "What will that achieve?". What it will achieve is something that you have never attempted to do. We will get the wholehearted support of the Assembly. Every member, I suspect, will come out and there will be an official vote of the elected representatives of the people of the Australian Capital Territory basically telling John Howard, "Either live here or give it away". That is the simple message. Mrs Carnell laughs. She does not take that seriously. Indeed, I note that she does not take many of the motions of this Assembly very seriously; but it is about time she took this one seriously. John Howard needs to be told.

MR SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.

MR MOORE (11.09): Mr Speaker, I have looked at the motion with interest. I have read it. I have had discussions with the Chief Minister, Mr Humphries and others. It seems to me that this is a very sensible motion, Mr Speaker, and I think it is appropriate that we condemn this sort of action by the Prime Minister. As Mr Berry put it, we, the representatives of the people of Canberra, should be appalled by this decision and the impact that it has on Canberra, because it certainly does demonstrate a contempt for the ACT by the Prime Minister, a contempt that has been reiterated by him and a contempt that has been shown by other members of his Cabinet.

Indeed, during the time when we were not sitting, I drew to the public's attention an example of the Minister for Finance showing the same sort of contempt in a different way. The Minister for Finance talked about judging a city by the size of its roundabouts. He also said that he believed that people in the ACT were never involved in schools' fundraising. I know for a fact, Mr Speaker, that every member here either has been involved in fundraising or has been the recipient of requests for fundraising. I know that because I have gone around with chocolates on a number of occasions, and so have other people, asking our parliamentary colleagues to throw in. I must admit that I have bought Maltesers from Bill Wood's office. That was for a school. They were nice, too, I must say, Mr Wood.

So, Mr Speaker, it was not just that he did not understand Canberra; this same contempt for Canberra is shown by other members of the Federal Cabinet. Somebody else drew out an election ploy used by Mr Kemp, I think, on this same matter. No wonder! The Prime Minister has set the tone. This is the Prime Minister who stood up before the Australian people and said, "We want to govern for all Australians". I think what he meant was "all Australians except the people of Canberra, except those who cannot manage in this way and that way", and he has a series of other exceptions.

Although I find the motion that Mr Wood has moved to be a reasonable motion, it seems to me from my discussions with the Liberal Party and the Greens that it would be far more effective if it contained the same sentiments but we got a unanimous motion from this Assembly.

Mr Berry: All they are criticising is the decision, not John Howard.

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