Page 1767 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 8 May 2013
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which three ministers were killed actually created some impetus for Canberra as the national capital to be developed, because what was happening was that the ministers were having to fly all over the country in order to keep up with their federal public service agencies which were spread between Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne. And apparently that crash, with those three ministers perishing, as well as the other seven people on the flight, actually, as I say, drove that debate.
Fortunately, air safety has improved considerably since 1940, but at a time when we are mindful of costs and of greenhouse emissions because of flying around the country all the time, I think in some ways that argument comes back in an interesting kind of way as we contemplate the question of whether agencies should be in Canberra or whether they should be in other places.
Of course, some agencies will necessarily always be outside Canberra. There will be strong geographic reasons for particular locations. One thinks of the issues around Northern Australia particularly and the geographic specificity of some particular tasks that public servants undertake.
In my mind, it is important that any kind of discussion about where an agency should be situated is not framed in the context of some sort of Canberra bashing exercise, some sense that Canberra gets it too good or that we want to appeal to marginal electorates somewhere else in the country, which is far too often how a debate about the federal public service is framed, but, rather, decisions to locate agencies are taken in a very strategic way that is focused very much on the merits of whether or not an agency should be in Canberra. And as I have outlined in my earlier comments, I think that those strategic decisions will often point to agencies being centrally located in a city where government is organised to take place. We, of course, see a similar approach in capital cities all around the world, and one can rattle them off and name the fact that governments do tend to concentrate in one place because of the obvious benefits that that brings about.
So I will not be supporting Mr Hanson’s amendment as it is framed. I think that that amendment particularly plays into the way the discussion has taken place this afternoon where it has become quite a stoush between the Labor and Liberal parties about their respective attitudes to the federal public service and the numbers at various times that their governments have or have not supported. What I would rather do is focus on the original motion put forward by Dr Bourke, which does specifically, I believe, address this question of strategically where the public service should be located, in light of reported comments made by the leader of the federal opposition earlier this week. As I said, those comments do concern me.
I think that we should focus today on the principle that all members of this chamber can agree to, and that is the focus of the amendments which I have circulated. I obviously will have to move them a little later, given that Mr Hanson’s amendment is now on the table. And I will be seeking leave to do that once we have voted on Mr Hanson’s amendment.
But the endeavour in my amendments is to focus on the principle that this Assembly affirms its support for the commonwealth government making a commitment to the
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