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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 1 Hansard (16 February) . . Page.. 219 ..

MR SMYTH (Minister for Urban Services) (5.30), in reply: Whatever our views on 999-year leases, we are not being allowed an opportunity to debate them in this place. You have to agree that it is our future; it is our leasehold system; it is our debate. It should be our decision. Today Federal Labor has taken that away from us.

It being 5.30 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted and was extended.

MR SMYTH: Mr Stanhope spent most of today arguing that others should be publicly castigated for their blatant disregard for the people of the ACT. This is just another fine example. I would expect some bipartisan support if he is really committed to sticking up for Canberra. Today the Federal Labor Party and the Democrats took away our rights to determine our future.

What has happened today is undemocratic and a clear indication that Federal Labor does not care about Canberra or about allowing its people to make their own decisions. You have to ask why local Labor is afraid for that decision to be made here in this place. Win, lose or draw, it is a decision that should be made here in this place. The ACT must be allowed to determine its own future. That is a basic right that should be respected, and it is one that the Assembly has fought for in the past. The classic example of course is euthanasia. I would have thought that the local Labor Party would fight for that right again and again, but apparently not on this issue.

In the Senate this afternoon Labor and the Democrats voted against the Liberal Government's move to give Canberrans the right to debate and decide on the municipal issue of extending leases to 999 years. I believe that the defeat of the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Amendment Bill 1997 is a blow to the Territory. It is an issue that should be decided by the very people who will have those leases - Canberrans. It should be Canberrans outside the Parliamentary Triangle, those of us who live in this city, who decide on what affects us in our daily lives. We have self-government. They should let us govern.

I call on the Labor Leader, Jon Stanhope, to be consistent in the move he made this morning in castigating somebody else he saw as putting Canberra down and join the Government in condemning the actions of the Federal Labor Party and the Democrats in refusing to allow the ACT to determine its own fate over 999-year leases.

Like the ACT Government, like all of us on this side, Opposition Leader Jon Stanhope was also elected to represent Canberrans on local issues that affect them. Whatever our views on the 999-year leases, we must surely agree that, together, it is for those of us in this place to decide our future on issues like this, not for those on the hill.

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