According to the Canberra Times
ACT Labor and Greens MLAs have used their numbers in the Legislative Assembly to pass a motion condemning former opposition leader Zed Seselja for ‘‘betraying’’ the voters of Lanyon Valley.
Apparently his betrayal is because the ACT Liberal party has pre-selected Seselja as the party’s number 1 candidate for the Senate.
The pre-selection is a story in itself. Senator Gary Humphries was caught by surprise by Seselja’s nomination (that suggests a good deal of complacency) and a good number of members of the ACT Liberal Party were ineligible to vote because they hadn’t attended a party meeting for more than six months. These are the rules and Seselja has been properly pre-selected. In my view it is time for Humphries to retire in any case – Seselja should be a quality addition to Tony Abbott’s team. He is a step to the right compared with Humphries and has more of a libertarian instinct.
As for the Labor and Greens motion – this shows the irrelevance of the ACT Legislative Assembly. They are jealous that Zed Seselja is likely to move to the Senate. He is not walking away from his constituency – he is giving them more effective representation in a place where it matters.
Remember Meredith Hunter? The then Greens MLA who wanted an extra $50,000 salary for having to manage “three other Greens MLAs”. Well the people of the ACT decided to turf Ms Hunter out of a job, and cut the greens down to one seat. So much for that example of hubris.
I’ve argued before that the residential areas of Canberra should be transferred to NSW. The ACT government would then become a simple local council. There would be two fewer senators and hence four fewer Members of the House of Representatives* – the reduction spread over the electorates around Australia. Canberra residents would vote in their local council election, be part of a NSW state seat and a NSW federal seat. The parliamentary area 0f Canberra and sufficient forests would remain Commonwealth to ensure the Constitutional requirements are met. In short, no one would live in Canberra. That most expensive of jails, the Alexander Maconochie Centre, would be become Canberra Jail and run like a proper jail at much lower cost.
* Section 24 of the Constitution provides that there are twice as many HoR seats as Senate seats.
Politics in a very small teacup. I miss the Sun-Ripened Warm Tomato Party. And the Party! Party! Party! Party.
I was in Queanbeyan when the first ACT election was held. We had great fun watching what was going on over the border. It hasn’t materially improved.
Yes congrats to Zed. He is a great talent and will make a far better Federal representative of the Tuggeranong Valley than the incumbent Senator. He will no doubt be a senior minister in years to come.
I disagree that the ACT should be absorbed into NSW.
Rather, it should be turned into the green utopia that many wish us to become.
I feel all the pieces of legislation that the greens feel mandatory should be enacted on the ACT residents and they, by example, can lead the way.
We could start by disconnecting the ACT from the power grid, they can demonstrate the effectiveness of green power.
What better way to further this country than by leading by example.
Samuel J, Canberra MLA salaries were initally very low by APS standards, but times change
Canberra voted against self-government because they expected to be hammered in the hip-pocket. I am sure you would be opposed to that. Establishing a separate fiscus for the ACT in the 1980s revealed the nature of the gravy train.
I am disappointed that you oppose federalism.
• A divided government is a weak government.
• One great feature of the federal system is that we can try different policies in different states and see what works and what doesn’t.
• The laws of each state can more closely reflect local public opinion
• People vote more often for different policy packages, rather than occasionally for a few up and down choices.
• The will of the people is constantly tested and re-measured in a federal system: elections at one level or another every year contested on local and national issues.
The more states and territories the better, as long as they all pay their way.
After 15 years of Maggie Thatcher, good and hard, British Labor reconsidered devolution because a federal state slows the impassioned majority down.
Zed is a good guy and I was a bit bemused by the complaints his opponents put up. He was asked on Sky News if he had notified his supporters early so they could attend meetings and vote for the pre-selection. But the implication of that is that Gary Humphries’ supporters didn’t bother and/or were too lazy or complacent to turn up. That tells me they just weren’t hungry enough or motivated enough.
I assume those that voted for the motion have no ambitions in a federal direction?
Jim Rose – on the contrary, I am a strong supporter of federalism (especially if it is decentralised and competitive). My proposal to absorb Canberra residents into NSW is in that direction. At present they just vote for two levels of government: Federal and the ACT. Under the alternative, they would have a local council + state government + federal government. Isn’t that federalism (granted that Australia’s version is highly centralised)?
thanks, is NSW an optimally sized state?
Be careful what you wish for Paul (ok satire, yes).
Canberra does have plenty of wind. All you need are wind turbines arranged in a circle around the pavlova on the hill. And as for biogas, I leave that to the imagination.
You forgot the 10m walls on all sides & the direct flights from Christmas Island to allow the voters to have direct exposure to the product they are getting the organised criminals to source.
the no self-government parties won nearly half the seats in 1988 assembly.
they could have blocked self-government by refusing to elect a chief minister. Only when the chief minister was elected did the ACT become self-governing.
Why are the cancerous green slime getting involved in Liberal Party Politics. Aren’t they better off finding quality candidates for their party like the former soviet agent, Appalling Rhiannon.
Remind me again why the ACT actually needs its own parliament?
I can’t think of any good reasons except for student politicians having a wank fest at the expense of tax payers.
Jim – NSW is not an optimal sized State. But neither is California cf Rhode Island.
Bruce, the plan would see the city powered mostly by solar, wind and biomass produced with vast solar and wind farms dotted around the region to take Canberra’s mix of renewables from less than 10 per cent today to more than 90 per cent by 2020.
did not know that canberra was big enough to hide that many wind mills and solar farms and build them that fast enough in windly places. what happens in Winter, at night time and when the wind does not blow?
canbera planning laws would be the main barrier to this plan along with the middle-class NIMBYs. the noise from the wind farms and their ugly size makes them very hard to locate NIMBY-free.
as for the hip-picket effects, another great big new tax….
Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/act-labors-bid-for-90pc-clean-energy-20120918-264yo.html#ixzz2MBTiDpIZ
Billy the Kidder, the same reasons we have states.
The CCC™ was aware of the challenge three weeks before it happened.
While Humphries is a decent guy, he’s had his time. Zed had better bloody well perform.
I think there is an outside chance that the Libs can capture the Federal seat of Canberra.
In the ACT seat of Brindabella, where Zed ran, the Libs out polled the ALP 29.5k to 22.5k and the Greens got 5k. Most of the other minor parties were more Liberal minded than Green or ALP. In the half of the state seat of Molongolo that is in Federal seat of Canberra the Libs polled about 46% of the vote, easily outpolling the ALP but not the ALP and Greens. Once again the minor parties are liberally minded so I reckon the Federal seat needs to swing another 2-5k votes and the Libs win. Is there a secret campaign issue that will get rusted on public servants to vote Liberal? As I explained to the CCC – there is one very real issue that the Libs could get to backfire against the ALP to win some rusted on public servants who would otherwise almost certainly vote Labor.
Depending on the the local campaign in Canberra the seat could be up for grabs. The one thing the ALP have going for them is the very real cuts to the APS Abbott is rightly promising – he should go further. But Andrew Leigh has been talking about Abbotts plan to massively slash the APS – and I dream, wishing – if only it were true!
Namadgi National Park covers 46% of the ACT. no wind farms in national parks!
There is absolutely no way on this earth that is going to happen.
WTF? He’s under scrutiny for reminding people in his organisation to vote? In a nation where every vote from council elections on up is compulsory???
Agreed – if it gets even 15% of the idiots off the roads it will be a blessing. The traffic of late has been f*cking horrendous.
Seselja is a much better alternative than Humphries. He will be a good addition to the Coalition Senate team.
Shrinking the ACT and destroying its current government model is a noble cause and should always be applauded. But the way you discuss leaves too much to chance and may require unusual interpretation of the constitution.
Simplify – 100 square miles is about 1/3 of current Canberra. So make the ACT basically the old North and South Canberra suburbs and any extension east and west to ensure it meets the size. Return all the rest to NSW.
Start a compulsory acquisition programme (remember all property is leasehold) and a (say) 25 year program to remove all residential property.
Abolish Whitlam’s foolishness in giving ACT residents Senate representation in Federal parliament. Another incentive to move to NSW or wherever if you care to vote for such. Too small for a single seat, it can be attached to a state seat for the HoR vote and Senate if you are more generous than me.
The ACT returns to the direct management of the Minister for Territories or (like every other territory) has an Administrator appointed to run it. Gary Humphries will be free and as an ex Chief Minister of the ACT would have requisite experience.
samuel j, the greening of Canberra with 90% renewables in 10 years time can be a fine example of laboratory federalism:
thereafter people can say remember what happened in canberra!
Jim – yes this was behind my previous Modest Savings Proposal!
So some citizens have greater voting rights than others?
Dismissive – as for the 100 square miles – surely the Commonwealth could reach an agreement to transfer some state parks to the Commonwealth in exchange for residential areas in the ACT? The state parks would become national parks and NSW would pick up new ratepayers and taxpayers (albeit receiving salaries in the main from the Commonwealth). Surely section 125 doesn’t mandate that the area be contiguous?
125 Seat of Government
The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the
Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to
or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to
the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be
distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney.
Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square
miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be
granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefor.
The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meet at the seat of
Government.
No, the senate represents the States not the people.
You didn’t get the federation thing? States federated and get senators. Territories not so much. New states not so much. Its great to be a founder.
And even more simply. Tasmania and NSW both elect 12 senators, do you consider they have the same voting rights?
Further;
NT Pop. 232,400 – 2 senators
NSW Pop. 7.25 million – 12 senators
Tas Pop. 512,100 – 12 senators
Do some have greater voting rights?
Sam J
There is some land they can use up in Jervis Bay isn’t there?
I hear you SamuelJ but why give the ACT National Parks? They are lousy at managing them and they cost far more to manage than those in States.
If you are really set on it, make the ACT Parliament house and the environs and a corridor to a national parks ( Monaro Highway?) if you prefer but it’s an ugly look. You can always outsource park management to NSW.
Dismissive, the whole point of the Senate is to make the States have equal representation and the Territories have equal representation. This is because the bigger states could use their weight in numbers to force through unfair legislation against smaller states. Eliminating that choice for a territory gives them no choice, compared to an unequal but fairer choice with the Senate. The House covers the inequality of the population in states and territories.
The next thing that will happen to the ACT is the formation of a third lower house seat. Fraser and Canberra are the two most populous seats in Australia and more than twice as big as the NT seats and close to double the size of the Tasmanian seats. A third electorate would make the ACT electorates about the same size as many QLD seats.
Hopefully the seats will be Fraser based on Belconnen and Gughalin which will be safe ALP. Canberra based on the Northern and Southern suburbs around Lake Burley Griffin and a part of the Woden Valley or Weston Creek area will also be safe ALP. But a third electorate based around Tuggeranong, most of Woden and or Weston Creek is likely to be a marginal Liberal electorate.
And the name of this third ACT electorate? I nominate Howard as the seat name just to explode all the heads of the ACT Left Wing public service morons. After all Howard gave us the National Museum, the Flag walk along the lake, the new precinct around old Parliament House, the National Portrait Gallery. In fact Howard did a lot for the Canberra.
John Comnenus, surely Howard deserves better than having an electorate which is full of public servants!
I thought it was to retain the Federal character of the nation.
How could NSW and QLD actually extract something unfair out of SA for example if we were unicameral?
Taxes must be uniform.
Complaints can go to the Interstate Commission and High Court.
Legal orders made in one state have validity elsewhere.
etc.
I understand the Constitutional matters with taxation (even then the Constitution is ignored) but for other bills, power in number could still be used unduly.
Andrew
I think you are re-interpreting the constitution and adding the term territories out of context. The only territories that get senators are ACT and NT not the others. It is not required by the constitution it is a choice made without referenda by parliament, initially the Whitlam government.
While it is a “nice” thing to do, it is frankly inappropriate. The Senate is the State house not the States and territories house. If the NT people wants senators, they should apply for Statehood and negotiate a deal for their Senate numbers. Similarly if Western NSW wanted to breakaway and become a new state it would need to (frankly do a whole lot of things I am going to ignore here) negotiate a deal on senators with the federation.
It is not a right for australian citizens/voters to have senate representation. State residents have the right.
Wouldn’t they just re-create Namadgi?
Dismissive is right about the Senate. Residents of the District of Columbia don’t get a vote for the US Senate and only a delegate in the House of Reps.
section 8 of the US constitution state
it must have been a model for the ACT!
Samuel J, there is an attempt to use section 8 to give DC congressmen.
the House Bill failed in the Senate because of an amendment to remove the authority of the District of Columbia to prohibit or unduly burden the ability of its residents to possess guns in their homes, on their property, or at their places of business
David Eastman litigated the constitutional status of the capital territory courts and of the territory itself in Re Governor, Goulburn Correctional Centre and Director of Public Prosecutions (ACT); Ex parte Eastman High Court of Australia, 2 September 1999 (1999) 165 ALR 171.
The court held that the source of legislative power for the ACT Supreme Court was s.122 and rejected the applicant’s argument that laws for the government of the ACT are made under s.52(i) (which confers exclusive power on the Commonwealth Parliament to make laws with respect to the seat of government).
The Court also held that the ACT and the seat of government are not co-extensive and federal
Parliament must rely on s.122 for the power to make laws for the government of the ACT, including a law establishing the ACT Supreme Court as a court of general jurisdiction in the ACT.
The Court referred for 35 years of law holding that there is now a Territory, the Australian Capital Territory, within which the seat of government has been located, although its limits have not been precisely determined by the Parliament and territory laws apply to the ACT, but not the seat of government itself.
See http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/HCA/1999/44.html
The bigger issue we have is that the state protection built into the senate no longer works well, if it ever did. Partly this is due to it becoming a party house, more it is due to the arrangemt of our states, each dominated by their primary city.
States need to move back to appointing their own senators.
The big cities need to be hived off into city-states. These could be given 2 senators each.
What is “The CCC™” ? Thanks.
I think the Zed moves were sneaky, done over holiday season, just too smart. It will not worry me if they have a larger meeting of members and vote to vote again.
Remember Zed only fell into his job before the 08 election when the then leader Bill Stefaniak quickly vanished to grab an ACT Govt legal appointment. Nice move by Stanhope that.
Zed has never impressed me as standing for much – in recent years the Libs were gifted the hospital numbers altering scandal by GreenLabor but what punches were landed ?
We are madly over-governed for a city of 300K.
You mentioned Meredith Hunter who we voted out but you could have added that GreenLabor found lucky her another job on the public purse at the University of Canberra
http://www.canberra.edu.au/monitor/2013/feb/04-hunter
For sure the ACT Govt plans to keep tilting at idealistic Green Power targets will see more of our money wasted while our electricity supplies maintain the essential foundation of NSW coal fired stations.
Just in last few days an issue has blown up about water pricing where The Independent Competition and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) has proposed the water charges come down –
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-26/act-draft-water-costs/4540414
which I am sure is causing angst in the plentiful ranks of ACTEW our Govt owned utility.
There is certainly good reason to reconsider the constitutional position of the ACT. Jim Rose’s points are valid (and one can see already how some ACT experiments – such as the ‘human rights compliant’ jail – indicate what will not work). There are many different ways to permit experimentation short of what we have now.
The ALP/Greens coalition is good at spending and forward committing vast sums of money. Eg,the arboretum, and now the Minister for Sport wants (in addition to Bruce Stadium and Manuka oval) a roofed stadium closer to the city centre. An LNP government must very firmly tell the ACT voters that this will cost them. Decentralizing the APS might cause the ACT government to think harder about its budget as its revenue base reduces, and weaken the APS’s power to make trouble if ACT’s high quality of life is put at threat.
The Canberra Cat(allaxy) Collective.
A group of ACT residing (and one Queanbeyan) Cats who meet most Friday evenings for beverages in various watering holes around the City.
ACT Liberals prepare for political rematch
From The Dumb.
Maybe is Humphreys wasn’t a lazy, half arsed left wing Senator, he wouldn’t have been given the arse?
That is basically what should be done – at the Federal, State and Local levels.
It would actually create a lot of positive changes.
Come on Riverina, you’ve got a flag anyway…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_River_Flag
Senator Charles Hardy
“I attack the whole system of government. The country is being butchered by the overfed city; and we of the Riverina must bring such a state of events to an end. The government is rotten; it is led by extremists and we must stand shoulder to shoulder for a decent government.”
Come on Sinc. Liberty quote the Senator!
John C., I read an Antony Green analysis about redistributions a while back (sorry, can’t find it) which explained why the ACT won’t be getting a third seat anytime soon.
It is not about raw numbers of people in a seat – it has to do with the formula for number of seats per State, which is why Tasmania has such small numbers per seat, for example. Tassie is guaranteed a minimum of 5 HoR seats irrespective of population.
With population trends and a fixed number of seats to go round, what will happen is that Queensland will get more seats, as will WA. NSW will lose a few. The ACT will just miss out on gaining an extra seat even though population is rising, because it is rising less quickly than Qld and WA.
It’s a pity, because with 3 seats there is a good chance that 2 would go to the Coalition.
As for the delusional greenie politics than infest this place, the gap between reality and dreaming has never been a problem here. A previous policy claimed that all household waste would be abolished by 2010 (!), and the slogan “No Waste by 2010″ was painted in big letters on the garbage trucks. It was quite surreal to see them still driving around doing exactly the same route every week, complete with slogan, in 2011. Finally and unusually, someone in government felt a normal human emotion (embarrassment) and had the slogan painted over. Hilarious.
Nobody really believes that we will be on 90% renewable energy by 2020, although our figures are boosted a bit by Snowy Hydro electricity. But aspirational, unachievable targets to keep the Green voters in a happy daze of fantasy are part and parcel of the political culture.
‘A previous policy claimed that all household waste would be abolished by 2010′
I worked as a consultant in the ACT Public Service for a little while in the ‘oughties, and can confirm that this sort of dreaming was the modus operandi for ACT Labor. A policy would be launched – urban planning, disability employment, economic migration whatever – with a glossy strategic plan (with drinks and canapes) but with no structure whatever in place to actually implement or manage it, let alone evaluate it.
I could never work out whether this approach was pure political cynicism, whether motives were sincere but the ACT bureaucracy lacked the managerial and administrative implementation skills or whether some people, at least, actually believed in it as a sort of voodoo, what anthroplogists used to call ‘sympathetic magic’. Probably it was a combinbation of all three.
Anyway, it was good for caterers, graphic designers and printers and the Indian migrants lured to the ACT by a hyped but poorly though-out and unsupported economic migration scheme have mostly found jobs as taxi drivers.
FFS, what a fucking joke. How on earth was this worthy objective to be achieved?
By banning consumption of any type of good or service that produced waste?
In a normal world, anyone advocating such arrant idiocy would have been consigned to a lunatic asylum. Instead, here in Zombie Parrotville, they end up in the ZP gubberment or public service, it seems.
Dick Heads.
Des – I am still working as a consultant with the ACT govt, and your synopsis puts it brilliantly. The point that “the ACT bureaucracy lacked the managerial and administrative implementation skills” is the most concerning because it can’t be easily remedied. It might help were the Cth to enact a statute that applied all NSW law the ACT, except in so far as an ACT law-making body made a law that was specifically approved by both houses of the Cth parliament. That would slow them down and open up ACT administration to NSW talent (and vice versa). It would also underpin a move to integrate Canberra and Queanbeyan.
Your idea to transfer residential areas of the ACT to Canberra is on the money. In its current state the ACT is a gerrymander
‘The point that “the ACT bureaucracy lacked the managerial and administrative implementation skills” is the most concerning because it can’t be easily remedied’
I was gobsmacked by the ACT Public Service, laziness and absenteeism is one thing, but these people were also totally unprofessional, even by the not particularly exacting standards of the Commonwealth APS. No one could think, no one could write! Policy papers, briefs, submissions, plans, guidelines not only had ongoing errors in spelling and grammar but were also chronically illogical and often unreadable, with key facts, issues and arguments ommited or forgotten. Progress was achieve only through a painful and often fruitless process of correction and resubmission. Deadlines were never met. The ACT kept ticking over because there were enough basic skills to manage ongoing corporate functions but new and better policies and programmes for the ratepayers? Forget it!!
These people were middle managers, EL1 equivalents, these days they would be earning $100,000 pa. I wanted to believe at first that it was the fault of the Stanhope government with its links with the public sector unions but it finally dawned on me that it was a long term systemic cultural issue which, as Rafiki points out, is going to be dificult to fix.