Firstly, congrats to Albo for an excellent meeting with US President Trump. AUKUS is on track, and he signed a critical minerals deal worth $8 billion for Australia that, more importantly, helps break a Chinese monopoly on minerals crucial to technological advancement. Trump may have been cordial to Albo, but he seems to have a mental block when it comes to Ukraine and poor President Zelenskyy whenever he talks to his mate Putin. I note the UK has a few Tomahawk missiles, so I’d suggest Keir Starmer do something useful and supply some to Ukraine so Russian installations in Moscow and beyond can be targeted if Trump won’t provide them.
There have recently been a few articles suggesting that the ACT, burdened by its large government debt, is insolvent and unable to get back on track. There are now calls for the Territory to revert to being a council, with the federal government resuming responsibility for policing, courts, education, health, and other core state functions, while the ACT Assembly focuses solely on rates, roads, and rubbish.
This may be a popular move, and I’d be interested in feedback from readers of this column.
A 1978 poll on the views of ACT residents regarding the Territory’s governance found that 63.8 per cent supported keeping the status quo, with the federal government handling all responsibilities, 30.5 per cent favoured establishing a council, and just 5.7 per cent supported full state-style government.
I didn’t vote in the poll, as I was working as a solicitor in Muswellbrook at the time, but I would have opted for local government — a council. Interestingly, we did have an advisory council to advise the federal Minister for Territories, which later became an elected House of Assembly that served the same purpose but had no real powers.
It was a good training ground for our first two Chief Ministers, Rosemary Follett and the late Trevor Kaine. However, I’m not sure the federal government would agree to any change, as the whole rationale for self-government was to make the ACT responsible for looking after itself — and, in turn, save the federal government money. I note that Brussels, in Belgium, became a provincial-style government only to encounter similar financial problems to the ACT, and it has since reverted to being a council.
The $10 billion debt is, however, Mr Barr’s fault. His former boss, Jon Stanhope, regularly writes about it. The ACT was debt-free to begin with, but by 1995 had accumulated a debt of $250 million, which was quickly rectified by the Carnell Liberal government. By the time the Stanhope government won the election in November 2001, the ACT was debt-free again. Indeed, when Jon left in 2011, we had a surplus (according to him) of about $700 million. After that, it was all downhill.
The ACT should not have such a large debt. Good financial management can fix it, so it’s unlikely the federal government will take the Territory back — we’ll probably just have to sort it out ourselves. Still, it’s interesting that the issue is being raised; in the US, Washington DC is run by a council (District of Columbia).
What do you think?
