Page 482 - Week 04 - Wednesday, 28 June 1989
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Premiers Conference means financial strangulation for the ACT and cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
There are several ways in which we can break out of this Commonwealth stranglehold. One is to immediately prepare a reference to the Commonwealth Grants Commission for special assistance for the ACT, just as the Northern Territory did, as a claimant State. This could be done immediately.
Other matters could be raised with the utmost urgency with the Commonwealth. Firstly, there are the sales by the Commonwealth without recompense to the Territory of up to $100m of ACT assets. These assets include the Belconnen Mall, the fruit markets at Fyshwick and Belconnen, the Allambee nursing home, and the Canberra Commercial Development Authority.
Secondly, there is the major issue of who is responsible for the removal of asbestos from the homes of Canberra citizens. In an agreement imposed on the ACT, the Territory budget must bear the enormous cost of $27m over the next two years, with the Commonwealth contributing only $11m. This is nothing short of grotesque when it was the Commonwealth's negligence which created this enormous burden by leaving this Territory unprotected from the scourge of asbestos long after other States, including New South Wales, had banned the material.
Thirdly, there is the issue of the renovation of several of our major public buildings. The Royal Canberra Hospital and the Melba flats are two examples. Other examples are the publicly owned flats and houses in the ACT. The Commonwealth has allowed these buildings to fall into pitiful disrepair, requiring huge capital costs to renovate them. This is simply neglect for which the people of the ACT should not have to bear the cost.
Fourthly, there is the issue of public transport in this city where the Commonwealth has been completely responsible for the dispersed Y plan and the low-density urban environment but the people of the ACT are being required to pay the full cost of an extremely expensive transport system. Also, there is the question our ACTION bus fleet having been allowed to deteriorate, without capital addition, to the point where this Government faces enormous costs of upgrading the fleet to operational effectiveness.
However, the overriding issue is the vital need to establish a firm contractual basis with the Commonwealth which takes into account all the above issues and more, so that the Commonwealth Government cannot treat us like children as it did at the Premiers Conference and will be forced to honour its agreements, as it was forced to do with the memorandum of understanding in respect of financial arrangements between the Commonwealth and a self-governing Northern Territory in 1978. Even though this agreement was negotiated with the Fraser Government and has been the subject of trenchant criticism by the Minister for
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