Page 2735 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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tabloids or on television. The Liberal Party, as I have said, Madam Speaker, has called upon the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal to publish a corrected version of Mr Carleton's story, and in doing so to censure Mr Carleton and the 60 Minutes program for their standards.
Not only the Liberal Party is concerned about what is going on. I am not going to quote from the Canberra Times, but its editorial today perhaps hit the nail on the head. From time to time, when people are jealous or anxious, or when they feel depressed or repressed, they tend to pick someone or something as a scapegoat - to kick the cat, so to speak. I think it is about time that journalists and other people in this community realised that we, as Canberrans, are sick and tired of having Canberra picked as that cat to kick. When journalists write stories about Canberra they have to realise that they are writing stories about 300,000-odd people, not just the 300-odd people who happen to be Federal parliamentarians, only four of whom happen to live in Canberra. People have to realise, if they are angry about what is happening up there on the hill - whether it be a Liberal government or a Labor government does not really matter - that they ought to vent their spleen and their anger on the people who make those decisions, not on the Canberra community.
It is not a sin to have good planning and proper planning for our citizens. It is not a sin to have lower unemployment than other places in the country - that is adult unemployment, of course; we all realise that our youth unemployment, at 56 per cent, is the highest in the country. Those are some of the facts that Mr Carleton ought to read about before he dares to stand up and make fun of the people of Canberra, as I believe he did. A lot of people in our community have been hit by the recession that we had to have. Many of them knock on our doors, the doors of the whole 17 of us, every day of the week. It is a fact that 8.3 per cent of our community is out of work in this Territory; that somewhere near 56 per cent of those between the ages of 15 and 19 are out of work.
There is hardship. On Sunday afternoon, Madam Speaker, I had the pleasure of opening the mouth and foot painting exhibition. I say "mouth and foot" because I did have to practise and not say "foot in mouth", which from time to time many of us have been guilty of. I happily opened the mouth and foot painting exhibition on behalf of the Smith Family. Mr Morris from the Smith Family will tell you that they expect that they will need to help double the number of people this year in this community at Christmas time that they did last year. If Mr Carleton wants to find out exactly all about the ACT, let him spend some time in Canberra, with all of us here. I dare say he would not. He would not last long after what he said on Sunday night.
Ms Ellis: He would not get over the border.
MR DE DOMENICO: That is right. Let him try to look at the facts. Let him try to look at reality and not try just to make a cheap shot at the people of Canberra. In order to enhance his story who does he bring up? Professor Blainey, for heaven's sake. He is not what you would call a lover of the Canberra community - or anything else that he disagrees with, by the way. Who cares what Professor Blainey thinks anyway? Certainly not the 300,000 people that he chose to denigrate on the show on Sunday night. So, Madam Speaker, when people try to talk about Canberra, let them report the facts.
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