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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 145 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

I think Senator Margaret Reid has probably been asked to bear rather more of the brunt of the opprobrium of the Prime Minister's change of heart than perhaps was justified.

That is some of the historical context. For present purposes, that was all undone, so the Prime Minister's motivation, which we will never truly understand, is perhaps now not so relevant, though I think it is something one must keep in mind when one has regard to the damage that the Prime Minister has now done to the ACT. We have to accept that all those positive things that were said by the Chief Minister, by the Prime Minister and by CTEC and echoed by the business community and every Canberran about the positive impacts of the decision to hold CHOGM here have been reversed. The positive impacts for the ACT and region have been reversed and are now negatives. To the extent that we could look at the CHOGM decision in the words, for instance, of CTEC as providing us with untold advantage in terms of international and national exposure, the decision of the Prime Minister, after a year or so of reflection, that Canberra was not up to the job has a reverse impact.

The international community and every organisation around Australia that might have looked upon Canberra as a place in which to hold meetings or conventions have now been told by the Prime Minister of the nation that Canberra is not up to the job; that we do not have the facilities; that we do not have the infrastructure. By dismissing Canberra as a place in which to live, by scorning it as a place worthy of his residence, he belittles us as the national capital.

We suffer this very significant negative impact as a result of the Prime Minister's decision. He held us up as a model to the world. He subsequently revised that opinion in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of the rest of Australia, and we will now suffer and are suffering the negative consequences of that change of heart. He has besignalled to the rest of the world the message that Canberra is not a place where he, the Prime Minister of Australia, is prepared to hold a significant international meeting. He is not even prepared to live here.

What are the subliminal messages that would be sent? Do we not have the infrastructure? Perhaps our airport is not up to standard and planes cannot land here. Perhaps the roads are no good. Perhaps security is a bit iffy. Perhaps we do not have good-quality hotels. Perhaps we do not have a convention centre that can handle a large meeting. What is the message and what is the extent of the damage that the Prime Minister has done to us through his machinations in relation to the holding of CHOGM here?

A group of Canberra business organisations did get together - with assistance, I would acknowledge, from the Chief Minister and the Chief Minister's Department - to prepare a submission to the Prime Minister and to the Commonwealth in which they set out in quite some detail the background to this whole sorry saga. In that very significant paper they set out the impact of the turnaround on the Australian capital region.

The direct economic impact of the change is that it will deny the ACT community up to $10m in direct delegates' expenditure. Some organisations in Canberra such as the National Convention Centre and the Park Royal had blanked out the entire period of the proposed conference. A deposit had been paid to hold all the rooms at the Park Royal

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