Page 2744 - Week 11 - Tuesday, 20 October 1992
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The main issue to be addressed is: How do we, as a community, counter this negativity? We cannot do it by force. The only result of that will be a reaction against the people of the ACT. If Canberra wants to improve its image all Canberrans must actively and aggressively promote the facts of our existence here to all Australians. As a member of the Tourism Committee, I have taken a lot of time to ensure that I meet and am known to tourism officials and operators in the south-east region of New South Wales. If I do not make that fundamental personal contact it will be too easy for our own region to cast me and the Tourism Committee in the mould that Mr Carleton would like to see perpetuated.
Canberra is one of the most homogeneous cities in Australia in terms of its mix of people with affluence and disadvantage. It may be a geographical reality that a few private business people and foreign embassies occupy Mugga Way, but that is not the picture being painted. We as a community must therefore put it in terms that others understand. Not everyone in Sydney is a business person living in a harbourside mansion, and Mr Carleton would be ridiculed for portraying all Sydneysiders in that way. Nor do all Melbournians live in Toorak or all Perth business people live in mansions in Dalkeith or Peppermint Grove and sail multimillion-dollar yachts.
Mr Carleton is also perpetuating another urban myth with his biased view of Canberra - that it is Canberra's fault that Australia has experienced a recession. The rest of Australia trusted Canberra to do something, and when Canberra did not stop the recession we ourselves became the target. The impression I get is that Canberra will not be let off the hook until the Government gets us out of the recession. What is further not recognised or accepted by the type of argument put forward by Mr Carleton is that Federal politicians mostly arrive in Canberra, travel to Parliament House, conduct the business necessary as a member of Federal Parliament and then leave.
Many public servants, too, have come from other places, albeit that most eventually settle here. Mr Carleton is also strangely silent on the role of Federal public servants who do live in the so-called real world in advising the heads of their departments of happenings in this other Australia. We heard nothing of our local Legislative Assembly. Most people outside Canberra probably do not realise, and Sunday's 60 Minutes would not have enlightened them, that the ACT in fact raises taxes, pays its own way and is no more dependent on the Federal Government than any other State or Territory, except in that it is the biggest company in town. The ACT has faced a harsh transition to self-government, much harsher than the transition to self-government made by the Northern Territory.
Madam Speaker, ACT residents are sick of the same old trite phrases and the same old myths being perpetuated. I congratulate those who have stood up and stated their opposition to this simplistic and unreal picture that has been hauled out on too many occasions from the oldies but goldies file of story-lines. Perhaps if Mr Carleton had presented his story a few months ago it would have had more credence in the greater viewing public's eyes, but in that time Canberra has made at least 30,000 friends. The overall view of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial dedication and march was that Canberra did have a soul and that its residents were helpful, friendly and prepared to go out of their way to help make the weekend a success. I do not believe that the people who came to see that side of Canberra will believe Mr Carleton's myopic, self-serving view.
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