Page 2740 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
exasperation with this kind of treatment of the Canberra community. I think that is exactly what we are seeing. I think the best way people could show such a response is by simply not watching the program. As I say, the most surprising thing is that so many people put themselves through this torture on a Sunday night. It is amazing. I did not, and I would not.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (3.32): I do not intend to speak for very long, because probably everybody on the floor of the house wants to say something on this subject. I will be brief, but I do want to make some remarks about Mr Richmond's column.
Ms Follett: Mr?
MR KAINE: I am no more wrong in my facts when I refer to him as "Mr Richmond" than he was. Perhaps it was Mr Redfern; I am not sure. We should not fall into the trap that he set for us, I think. The whole thrust of what this gentleman had to say was based on the premise that we would become defensive, and to some degree this community has become defensive. Why should we? If conditions here are better than they are elsewhere in Australia, and if that is because of good management in this Territory, why should we apologise for it? Why should we bow to Mr Richmond or Mr Redfern or whatever his name is and grovel and cringe because we have things better than somebody else?
For heaven's sake, if somebody says that New Zealand has the best climate in the world, what are they going to do - grovel and say, "No, not us, our climate is as bad as yours"? How patently absurd! Why would we become defensive and try to defend ourselves against the things that he said? I think we should stand up and say, "Yes, in some respects Canberra is better off than other places", define where they are and say that we are proud of that because we have made it so.
To the extent that he or anybody else misrepresents, whether deliberately or inadvertently, we have a right and a responsibility to say, "No, you have your facts wrong". I think that the Chief Minister has already done that, and others will as well. All that demonstrates is that this particular journalist has to be the bottom of the pile of journalists because he has no regard for the facts. He does not care about fact. If he did, he simply could not have asserted some of the things that he said when he was talking about unemployment in the ACT. Either he did not know the facts or he did not care about the facts. Whatever the reason, he misrepresented and said that we are so much better off than everybody else. I do not think that our 8,000 or 10,000 unemployed people would agree. They are no better off than the unemployed in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne or anywhere else. To assert that we are better off simply because in some respects we have managed our affairs better is a misrepresentation of the facts.
I do not think I need to say any more. I will just summarise. This gentleman, clearly, is careless of the facts or does not care about them. If that is true, why should we care what he says? It is patently obvious to everybody that he was distorting. Even the most biased anti-Canberra person in Perth or Brisbane or Melbourne would have recognised it for what it was - a total distortion and misrepresentation of the truth. Therefore, we should not worry about it. I come back to the other point: If by good management we are better off than others in Australia, if by our own good management that is the case, we should be proud of it, and we should not be cringing and we should not be apologising. I simply say to Mr Richmond, Mr Redfern or Mr Carleton, or whatever his name is: Go and bug somebody else; we have more to do with our time.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .