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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 3 Hansard (9 April) . . Page.. 798 ..

MRS LITTLEWOOD (continuing):

Mr Speaker, those comments say volumes. The passing of the Andrews Bill was a sad day for democracy and a slap in the face for the people of Canberra.

What else does big brother on the hill have for us? The Prime Minister has decided that he will not live in the Lodge; the Lodge will not be his official residence. What does that say to the people of Canberra and the rest of Australia? I wonder how the people of America would view Bill Clinton not residing in the White House but moving to Little Rock? I wonder whether Mr Howard realises the impact it has had on four- and five-star hotels operating in Canberra. Their occupancy rate for 1996 was down by 6 per cent, while elsewhere in Australia these rates rose by 10.5 per cent. Current ABS surveys show that 125 jobs have been lost in that area. While 125 jobs may not be important to those on the hill, I can assure you, Mr Speaker, that they were very important to those who held them and to the Canberra economy. Thank heavens, the two- and three-star establishments are so far holding firm. But why have the occupancy rates of the four- and five-star places, where business people and senior management stay in Canberra when doing business, dropped off? I suggest that it is because the Prime Minister is not residing here. I know that that is the view of some of the hotel managers. If Federal politicians can gain votes in their own electorates only by kicking Canberra, then I suggest that they should be working harder within their electorates and getting off our backs.

I conclude my comments by reminding my Federal colleagues, my Liberal colleagues on the hill, in a very loud voice, that while Liberal seats in this Assembly may well be expendable and while seats for Liberals in the House of Representatives may be expendable, the ACT's Liberal Senate seat is far from expendable. The Federal Liberal Party would do well to remember that and get off our backs.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (4.03): Mr Speaker, I regard this as a matter of some considerable public importance. A couple of points clearly emerge from what Mrs Littlewood has had to say. The first of those is that the disregard the Commonwealth Parliament has had for the ACT is fairly endemic; and, secondly, the approach is not limited to any one particular party in the Federal Parliament but seems to be typical of a number of parties, certainly of both major parties. I think it is clear from what the ACT Government has had to say about these issues in recent days - some of those issues have been discussed in this place today - that it is not afraid to raise issues in an aggressive - - -

Mr Berry: You are more interested in confrontation with them than you are in getting solutions, though.

MR HUMPHRIES: I think we see what the real agenda is here from the Labor Party's point of view. It seems to be about competition in these areas on political levels rather than fighting for what is best for the Territory. Clearly, Mr Berry does not give us any credit for the exercises in which we have taken the Federal Government to task. I want to make something very clear about this debate. This debate is about the Federal Parliament's paternalistic approach to the ACT. It is not about which party has treated the ACT worst - the Liberal Party or the Labor Party. What Mrs Littlewood had to say

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