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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 144 ..

On the same day, the day before the last ACT election, as one would expect, the Chief Minister also revealed that Canberra had been successful. The Chief Minister put out a press release of her own on that date, which was picked up by all the local media and led the news here in Canberra as the story of the day, announcing that Canberra, through the good offices of the Chief Minister and the Chief Minister's Department, had attracted this most significant event to Canberra. CTEC also welcomed the decision on the same day with their own press release.

There is a similarity between these press releases - that of the Prime Minister, that of the Chief Minister and that of CTEC - all of them commenting on the very positive implications for Canberra of that decision in terms of exposure and acceptance of Canberra as the national capital, and national and international exposure of the ACT as a good place in which to hold meetings and conventions. CTEC said:

It went on in the same vein as Mrs Carnell, the Chief Minister, did in her release. There was a slight rider to the Prime Minister's nomination of Canberra as the host city for CHOGM 2001. It was subject to some additional studies in relation to the adequacy of convention facilities and accommodation for the purposes of hosting CHOGM. That work was done. The Chief Minister's Department and the Convention Centre combined to present further advice and evidence to the Prime Minister's Department and presumably to the Prime Minister. Subsequently the Prime Minister confirmed that his pre-ACT-election announcement that CHOGM would be held in Canberra was to be confirmed, and he confirmed that some three or four months later. That then raises the question of why he felt the need to make the early announcement, the announcement on 19 February, simply to reconfirm it a few months later.

One has to assume that there was some endeavour by Mr Howard to assist his Liberal colleagues here in Canberra in the election that they were fighting for seats in this place. It is perhaps unfortunate that such a significant decision was made in that environment. The pre-announcement of the decision was based almost certainly on the fact that an election was to be held the day after the Prime Minister felt the need to make the early announcement.

I will not go to that point again, other than to say that recognition of the fact that the announcement was made the day before the last ACT election causes me to feel some sympathy for Senator Margaret Reid, who copped a bit of a shellacking in an article in the Canberra Times from Crispin Hull following on from letters from Malcolm Mackerras in particular suggesting that the whole reason for the Prime Minister's decision to announce that CHOGM would be held in the ACT was to advantage Senator Margaret Reid's electoral position. Had both Crispin Hull and Malcolm Mackerras followed the paper trail back to the original decision, they would have refined their opinion and concluded that it had nothing to do with Senator Margaret Reid's political fortunes but rather more to do with the political fortunes of the ACT Government.

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