Senator IAN MACDONALD (Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) (12:16 PM) —I must say I expected the sort of response I had from Senator Lundy and Senator Mackay, who have never, ever spoken positively in favour of the Australian Capital Territory. They approach it from a political basis: because there is a Liberal government in the ACT, everything the ACT does is wrong. They are negative and carping on the ACT. Senator Lundy shows her interest in the ACT by leaving the chamber when the debate is on. But I am disappointed that Senator Woodley and the Democrats have not understood the impact of the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Amendment Bill 1999 perhaps as much as they might have, and I appreciate that Senator Woodley is not the regular spokesman for this area.

But, Senator Woodley and members of the chamber, can I indicate to you that this is not about changing the lease system in Canberra today from a 99-year lease to a 999-year lease. What this federal legislation is about is empowering the ACT assembly, a self-governing body, to make a decision, should it want to. As a result of this legislation passing, not one lease will change in Canberra—not one—because that is not what this legislation is about. This legislation simply says we have enough trust and faith and confidence in the ACT government and the ACT assembly—not the government, the ACT assembly—and the people of Canberra to make a decision. If this legislation is passed, it is then for the proper authority—the government of the Australian Capital Territory—to make the decision. I correct myself again: it is not up to the government of the ACT; it is up to the parliament of the Australian Capital Territory, which of course is comprised of members of very many parties.

So this legislation is simply enabling legislation. Not one lease will change as a result of this bill being passed. This parliament set up the ACT assembly to be representative of the people of the Australian Capital Territory. This parliament had confidence in the people of Canberra to have their own self-governing territory, and what this bill does is further that confidence and say, `If you want to do something with the lease times in your territory, then you have the ability to do that. We, Big Brother in the house on the hill, will not stop you from doing that.'

If you are concerned about the national capital aspects of the Australian Capital Territory, then you should understand that this bill does not permit any change in the leases in the national capital parts of the Australian Capital Territory. I just clarify that by saying that, under the arrangement for land management in the Australian Capital Territory, the Commonwealth parliament has responsibility for what is called national land. Without being prescriptive on this, it is generally the land in the parliamentary triangle. So the land in the parliamentary triangle remains the responsibility of this parliament. Leases within the parliamentary triangle on national land will not change; they will remain 99-year leases. Nothing in this bill will interfere with any of the land that this federal parliament controls because it is national land for national capital purposes. What this bill does is give the self-governing assembly of the Australian Capital Territory the right to determine their own future insofar as land management is concerned.

I mentioned I was not surprised at Senator Lundy's and Senator Mackay's approach, because it is entirely political. But I wonder how they answer the question of why they do not have confidence in the ACT Legislative Assembly to make its own rules and make its own legislation. Why is it, senators in the Labor Party, that you believe that the electors of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, Western Australia and even the Northern Territory should have the right to run their own internal affairs, but when it comes to the people of the Australian Capital Territory, Canberrans—the people whom Senator Lundy claims to represent—you have no confidence in them and their ability to make decisions? Of course, the decision by the Australian Labor Party to oppose this is completely inconsistent with its previous policy, which was shared by all other parties in parliament, to advance self-government in the ACT.

Self-government was a long sought after goal by the people of the ACT, and so it should be. They have as much right to be able to elect a state type government giving state type services as any other Australians. But the Labor Party now seem to be saying, `We do not believe that the people of Canberra should have that right; we want to treat the people of Canberra as second-class citizens. Other Australians can have the right to elect their state parliaments, but the people in Canberra cannot.' This is a complete turnaround of the long held ALP policy that supports self-government for the ACT. The Labor Party are saying, `We do not believe the people of Canberra; we do not believe the duly elected parliament of the people of Canberra has the right to make these decisions.' They are following, of course, the old socialist dogma. I thought this went out of favour many years ago. Even the Eastern European countries have now given away the socialist dogma, but you see it in Senator Lundy and Senator Mackay. It is the old socialist dogma that the central government knows best—that Big Brother knows best. They say, `Do not let the duly elected representatives of the people of Canberra dealing with state type land management issues have a say because we, sitting in the big house on the hill, know best—the central government should rule.' That is the old socialist dogma. It has never been removed from the ALP platform—although they try to hide it—and, of course, with the former Prime Ministers Keating and Hawke one could never quite see where it came in. But the ALP hang by that old socialist dogma, and that is, I think, coming out in the approach of a couple of their people to this particular bill. So that is what the bill is all about.

The Labor Party opposition illustrates a paternal distrust of the ability of ACT assembly members to deliberate on these types of decisions for themselves. Everywhere else in Australia it is state and territory governments that deal with land management issues. Sure, because there is a national capital element in Canberra, the federal government should hold some responsibility, and it does and it will—even after this bill has been passed. We will retain control of national capital land and the 99-year lease there will not—let me repeat, not—change. What this bill does is give the ACT government, the duly elected members of that parliament, the right to deliberate on what is to be their land management system. This parliament's opposition will send all the wrong messages to business and commerce in the ACT. In other places in Australia—in the states and in the Northern Territory—businesses can invest with the confidence that they can get freehold title to land or, as I think Senator Woodley quite rightly points out, to 999-year leases which, although they are called leases, are akin to a freehold tenure. Everywhere else in Australia businesses wanting to invest can do that, but they cannot do that in Canberra. Senator Lundy says that business like that is not relevant. Senator Lundy's background is hardly in business. She was a Builders' Labourers Federation union executive, I understand.

Senator Mackay —Wrong union!

Senator IAN MACDONALD —Okay, it was the wrong union. That does not matter. She was a union executive—hardly a friend of business! She was in the building trades, and you know what the reputation of the union representing the building trades has been over decades. So she was hardly a friend of business. One would doubt Senator Lundy's capacity or Senator Mackay's capacity to be able to speak for the business community. But I tell you who does speak for the business community: the ACT Division of the Property Council of Australia, the Canberra Property Owners Association and other business groups in Canberra. They are the people who came along to the Senate committee and supported this. They wanted their parliament to have the right to deal with this. If you look carefully through the report of the committee investigating this, you will see that the business groups in Canberra supported this proposal. That is what business said in support of it. The people in the ACT are entitled not to be classed as second-class citizens but to be able to enjoy the same rights to land as any other Australian can. I should add, and perhaps I should have done this at the beginning, that I do have an interest in this matter—not that it makes much difference to me. My wife is in charge of a company that has a unit in Canberra and I should declare that, I suppose. The people of Canberra who have made this place their home will never have the right to enjoy the same property rights as every other Australian. Furthermore, and I continue to emphasise this, people in Canberra will be treated as second rate. Their parliament will not be able to deal with this matter because the Labor Party does not have confidence in the people of Canberra and their ability to elect representatives to a parliament.

There was some mention made by opposition speakers of some problems with transition. I must say that I could not quite grasp the point. The suggestion was that it was up to ACT land-holders to decide what they wanted to do, should the ACT government decide to extend it, and that that was a matter for the ACT government. I correct myself again. It is not the ACT government; it is the ACT parliament, which is made up of all parties and in which no one party—certainly not the Liberal Party—has a majority. So it is up to the ACT parliament to decide and, if the ACT parliament should decide to do it, it would then be up to land-holders to decide whether they wanted to convert from 99-year leases to 999-year leases. I could not understand that argument at all.

I want to use a couple of minutes of the limited time I have available to again refute the negative, carping attitudes of the Labor Party, particularly of their representative in this chamber, about Canberra. I have to tell the chamber, the parliament and the people of Australia that, as far as convention centres go, Canberra is as good as you will get anywhere. It has first-class convention facilities. It has first-class hotels. It has first-class venues. The difficulty with CHOGM was not quality; it was quantity. There will never be any conferences held in Australia in the future that will be as big as CHOGM. The facilities in Canberra are absolutely first-class. While I would like to tell the people of Australia that they should hold conventions in my electorate—because there are a lot of good places where I come from up in North Queensland—I have to say that there are absolutely first-class facilities in Canberra, facilities which you would never get the Labor senator for the Australian Capital Territory promoting or praising.

CHOGM could not be held here, contrary to the Prime Minister's wishes. He has made it quite clear that he wanted CHOGM here, particularly at the time of our centenary of Federation. The mere facts are these: 3,800 rooms were required, but Canberra accommodation indicated around 2,260 were available. We required 55 five-star suites for heads of government—and those of us in this business will know the reason for that—but only 24 were available. At Durban there were around 20,000 square metres of contiguous convention space. In Canberra, there are 4,732 square metres of usable space available.

I could go on with the factual reasons why this could not happen. It is a great regret to the Prime Minister. It is a great regret to me. It is a great regret to most Australians, who would like to see this international conference in their national capital. But the logistics simply were not there. I repeat: never again will a conference of this size be required in Australia. Anyone wanting to have a conference can look around Australia, but they should be aware that Canberra has the facilities to cater more than adequately for all other conferences that will ever be required in Australia. I promote that as the minister responsible for the national capital. I wish that at least the Labor Party representatives of this region would join in with a bit of positive support for the national capital and for the people whom they claim to represent.

In response to Senator Lundy's goal of continual, negative, carping denigration of the Australian Capital Territory, I point out that this government has a major commitment to the Australian Capital Territory as our national capital. Any number of programs we are involved in are dedicated to that goal. One of the major goals of the National Capital Authority, which reports to me, is to promote the Australian Capital Territory as the national capital for all Australians. We do that in many ways.

Just the other day I was pleased to be part of a launch with the ACT Chief Minister. She has done more for Canberra, more for tourism, more for business and more for employment in this territory than any previous ACT government on record and, I venture to say, any federal government on record. Kate Carnell has been a fantastic salesman for this area. With her I was pleased the other day to launch the 200,001 students to the ACT in the centenary year program. That is just a little program, but it is indicative of what we are doing. As our centrepiece for the centenary of Federation, $151 million is being spent on the National Museum in our national capital.

Senator Patterson —Which Labor never did.

Senator IAN MACDONALD —Which the Labor Party talked about for 13 years and promised to do every time an election came around and they needed to get votes in the ACT. But they never did one thing for it. Our government initiated the Canberra Region Ministerial Forum, which I chair, which brings together the ACT government and ACT business to look at ways of promoting Canberra, not of denigrating Canberra, as the Labor Party representatives do. I am pleased to announce that the Prime Minister will be speaking at the focus on business project in Canberra in the very near future as part of his ongoing commitment to Canberra and the ACT. Of course, he spends a substantial amount of his time in Canberra as Prime Minister, as one would expect him to do.

As part of our focus on the national capital for our centenary of Federation, we will be contributing money to the national Centre for Christianity and Culture, which will become another icon establishment appropriately placed in the national capital. It will join the High Court, the National Science and Technology Centre, the National Gallery and all of the national icon buildings here in Canberra. We contribute to that and will continue to do so.

I could go on for a long time saying what this government has done for Canberra, but the clock has beaten me. Could I return to this bill and emphasise that it is all about enabling the Australian Capital Territory parliament to have the right to determine this issue. It is not about changing the leases today by federal government fiat. It is about letting the ACT government have the right to make these decisions, the same as every other state and territory in Australia. It is about saying to the ACT people, `We believe in self-government. We believe that you are able to make decisions for yourselves. We believe you are able to elect representatives to your parliament who can make these decisions. We have that confidence in you.' Regrettably, the Australian Labor Party does not.