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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 13 Hansard (4 December) . . Page.. 4389 ..

MR MOORE: My question is to the Chief Minister and refers to an article in the Australian this morning. I do not know whether the Chief Minister is aware of it. It was written by a prominent Liberal member, former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. I need to take a little bit of time to give you the sense of the article. He said, amongst other things:

I have been appalled at the steady and continuing growth of Canberra.

Later he said:

... it is a spoilt community ... it is isolated and unaware of much of what is happening throughout Australia. There is a great substance to that criticism.

... ... ...

There are three or four main communities in Canberra and the mingling between them is not all that great.

He identifies these communities as the military, politicians, public servants and journalists and goes on:

We now have second and third-generation public servants in Canberra ... what else is there for the son or daughter of public servants to do?

He concludes by saying:

With a much lesser Canberra, we could be much better governed.

Chief Minister, is Malcolm Fraser just voicing a widespread view of Liberals around Australia which is best summarised by his own famous words "life was not meant to be easy"? Perhaps it is different in rural Warrnambool. More importantly, Chief Minister, what are you going to do about this article that appeared in the Australian?

MR SPEAKER: You can answer the second part of that question. The first part is hypothetical.

MRS CARNELL: It was hypothetical; but I would love to answer it, Mr Speaker, because I was horrified when I read it, as I am sure everybody in this place was horrified. It showed that Malcolm Fraser does an awful lot of what a lot of politicians do, and that is get in a cab or a big white car at the airport and go to the hill. They would not have a clue what happens in this city. Quite honestly, there is no excuse for that sort of behaviour. I actually raised it this morning with the Prime Minister, and he also expressed his concern at those sorts of statements. Mr Speaker, there is no excuse for somebody in Malcolm Fraser's position to make those comments.

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