Page 2741 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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MR LAMONT (3.35): Madam Speaker, I take some pleasure in being able to address the matter of public importance, not only because it allows me to get stuck into my favourite journalist - hopefully it will do some good - but also because it allows me to comment on the issues raised by the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Minister. I feel quite proud to have lived in Canberra now for 22 years. I came here for quite specific reasons. I came here for work and I came here for the lifestyle that the ACT was developing. I have enjoyed those 22 years.
By good management on the part of the people who were responsible and are responsible now for managing the Territory, we do have a city which we can rightfully feel proud of. We can rightfully feel proud of it for the civic amenity which we as citizens of the ACT enjoy. We should rightfully feel proud of the ACT or Canberra because it is the seat of government. This is where people like Carleton and a number of others tend to trip themselves up. They regard the seat of government, the house on the hill, or some policy areas within the Federal bureaucracy as the whole of the ACT, when in fact it is not.
In terms of the industry in the ACT, his most serious misnomer as far as I am concerned was on the question of where employment is in the ACT. His comments were along the line that 50 per cent of the people are employed by the public service and the other 50 per cent work for it. That is sheer nonsense. In fact, the thriving private sector which has been developing over the last several decades in the ACT in some areas is reliant upon Canberra as the seat of government, but we also have people operating businesses in Queanbeyan who rely upon Canberra as the seat of government. I do not see him attacking the people living in Queanbeyan, as an example, because they are there conducting private businesses which may provide information technology or other services to the Federal Government, or the fact that there are embassies in the ACT. There is a very large private sector work force involved in lobbying exercises, trade and associated activities because we have in the ACT the foreign missions and diplomatic residences of countries from all around the world with whom we trade.
There is one thing that Mr Carleton and his ilk, because he is not alone, really need to be taken to task over. I am not being defensive; I believe that I should be offensive in sticking up for what the ACT is. I refer to the attitude exhibited by Carleton and his ilk. It is not, I believe, endorsed by the majority of Australians. The interesting thing to note, Madam Speaker, is that recently the National Capital Planning Authority commissioned a survey around Australia and the overwhelming majority of Australians were proud of their national capital and believed that it should be a place that they can be proud of. That takes two partners in the ACT. It takes this legislature, the ACT Legislative Assembly, in terms of what we can do as far as local government is concerned, and the Federal Government as far as the national seat of government is concerned.
Carleton and his ilk are getting to the technique that was used in Nazi Germany during the Jew baiting. People have said to me, "That is a little bit stiff; you do not really draw a parallel between what Carleton did and what the Nazis did in Germany", but I do. It was through the type of attitude that existed in Germany during the 1930s that the Nazis were able to have the impact that they had. Here we have a nationally televised program watched by 22 per cent of the
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