Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in strong support of the member for Fenner's motion today, and I thank him for bringing this motion to the parliament. I want to acknowledge his long-term advocacy on the issue of territory rights. I also want to acknowledge the long-term advocacy of my other ACT Labor colleagues, the member for Bean, who will speak on this motion, and Senator Katy Gallagher. The other representative of the ACT, of course, is Senator Zed Seselja, and he voted against territory rights.

This is such a simple issue. Why should people who live in territories not have the same rights as everyone else in this country? It seems very clear that our territory parliament should be able to debate issues in the same way our states do. But the Andrews bill of 1997 restricts the rights of the residents of the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory. The fact is that the ACT did not even want self-government. In the 1978 plebiscite, almost 64 per cent of residents rejected proposals for a legislative body or a council body, opting instead to continue under the administration of the federal parliament. But, nonetheless, self-government was forced upon the residents of Canberra in 1988 by this parliament. I in no way want to say that that was not a great thing, because we now have a very mature government that has 32 years of decision-making that aligns with our citizens and represents our community in Canberra.

I am so proud to be a resident of Canberra and of the things that our ACT government has done. We are the first Australian jurisdiction to have 100 per cent renewable energy. We have a net-zero-by-2045 target. We have the second cleanest air of any capital city in the world after Wellington and we were the first jurisdiction to have equal marriage, which then the Abbott government took away before the coalition caught up five years later under Malcolm Turnbull's leadership.

Mr Tim Wilson interjecting—

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