Page 1814 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 19 August 1992
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All those small businesses that have folded in recent months and in the last couple of years would dispute that proposition. There is every evidence that there is a recession in Canberra. It just took a little longer to get here, but it is here all right. Anybody who says that there is no recession in Canberra simply does not understand the situation. He obviously has never been here, or he would know that that is true. Of course, the old sore that is always produced about Canberra is that there is security of employment because everybody works for the public sector. It is about time they realised that the public sector is no longer in the majority. Just over 50 per cent of people are employed by the private sector.
Mr Connolly: And even more, with $300m worth of works that were announced last night.
MR KAINE: That will be fantastic. It will increase the percentage by 0.0000001 repeating; instead of 51 per cent of people being employed by the private sector, it will be 51.0000001. But that is an improvement. You have to give credit where credit is due; it is a good thing.
The point is, Madam Speaker, that this reflects an attitude about Canberra, when what they are really talking about is the big house on the hill over there and the people who inhabit it. Most of them do not inhabit any other part of Canberra, except when they need a quick feed somewhere and they take a Commonwealth car, dash out to a restaurant, have a meal and go back again. They really would not know what the situation is here. It is to their advantage, back in their electorates, to beat up on us in Canberra and make us the scapegoat for all of the ills of the country.
While I sympathise with the people of Coburg and elsewhere, the people that I represent are here in the ACT. I do not think that they deserve to be told that they have no unemployment, that they have no recession and that their jobs are secure. A lot of people can clearly demonstrate that none of those things is true. This is a media headline and, of course, we know that headlines do not always reflect the story; they do not even do that in our own local newspaper sometimes. Journalists and the editorial staff of newspapers, whether in Canberra or anywhere else, have a responsibility, surely, to report the facts, and not to present some biased analysis of the situation. All I am asking is that when the editor of the Melbourne Age - and newspapers like it all around Australia - next publishes an article of this kind he get it right and say that the rally rebukes the Federal Parliament or the Feds or something.
I wrote a letter to the editor of the Age on this matter and I pointed out to him that for the Government over the road we elected only three members. The city of Melbourne has elected 18 of them. If he wanted to criticise the Feds for this, his headline would more appropriately have been "Rally rebukes Melbourne for centre closure". That would have been just as ridiculous, but it would have been closer to the truth than to say that they rebuke Canberra for it. I think it is a matter of some concern, Madam Speaker. I thought that I should raise it and let the members in this Assembly express their opinions as well. I will be interested in hearing them, since Mr Berry and Mr Connolly were inclined to pooh-pooh the idea in the first place.
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