Page 1825 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 19 August 1992
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When we respond to "Canberra bashing" attacks we should do more than merely defend our city and speak up for it.
We should also speak up for the role of public servants and the public service, in general, in contributing, sometimes in ways beyond measure, to the society we create today and leave for our children tomorrow.
It is a shame that Mr Kaine and his Liberal Party colleagues cannot, apparently, support Canberra in that way. Nevertheless, at least Mr Kaine has made some attempt to protect the people of Canberra from being blamed for the decisions of the Federal Government, despite what his motives may be.
It is all right to argue with those who attack Canberra from the outside, but what about those within Canberra who find it useful to attack areas within the ACT? As a resident of Tuggeranong, I do not appreciate hearing continual attacks on Tuggeranong - "It is too far out to bother with"; "It is the struggle town of Canberra"; and so on. None of this is true; but, more importantly, comments such as this do not reflect an appropriate attitude towards the 70,000 to 80,000 people who live there. Mr Humphries, in a recent article in the Valley View newspaper, suggested that the people of Tuggeranong were economically worse off than the rest of Canberra. He even went so far as to name particular suburbs. This does little to endear him to the residents of the valley, and neither does it assist in the rest of Canberra's attitude towards us. His comments were unnecessary and offensive.
I will continue to defend the population of Canberra as a representative of the population, and I will continue to fight against those short-sighted policies of some of our politicians, of whatever persuasion. I trust that Mr Kaine and his colleagues will join me in that fight.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.47): Mr Deputy Speaker, I intend to respond to Ms Ellis's untrue comments a little later on. I will do so under my right to make a personal explanation at the end of this debate. I want to get onto the topic, a topic that has rather eluded most of the speakers on that side of the house so far in this debate. This is a serious topic. It has a serious point to it and it presented an opportunity which unfortunately those opposite have let slip through their grasp.
There has been, as Mr Berry briefly alluded to, a sustained attack on the city of Canberra and on the people of Canberra by politicians of all hues in the Federal Parliament. Here is a motion moved by a member of a party represented in the Federal Parliament which invited support from another party represented also in the Federal Parliament to indicate that the ACT politicians and, in turn, the people of the ACT are united in rejecting the sort of action which is taken by those Federal politicians. The only way we have a chance of being able to stop that kind of attack on the people of Canberra is by indicating that we unanimously take the same view about this matter. A united view on these kinds of attacks has not emerged from this debate. Rather, it has been taken by those opposite, in particular, as an opportunity to launch into a mud-slinging attack about other issues, particularly about Fightback.
Mr Berry: You should lay all the cards on the table.
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