E&OE TRANSCRIPT
RADIO INTERVIEW
2CC BREAKFAST WITH STEPHEN CENATIEMPO
TUESDAY, 9 AUGUST 2022 

SUBJECTS: Joint Standing Committee on National Capital and External Territories; National Institutions; Canberra; Circular Economy; Food Waste; Territory Rights; Arts Policy

STEPHEN CENATIEMPO, HOST: Joining us at this time to talk Federal politics is somebody who's just been appointed to a new role. It’s the Federal member for Canberra, Alicia Payne. Alicia, Congratulations!

ALICIA PAYNE MP, MEMBER FOR CANBERRA: Oh, thank you very much, Stephen, good morning.

CENATIEMPO: So, tell us about this new role. You're the chair of the committee, basically a committee that's going to oversee the National Capital Authority.

PAYNE: That's correct. And also, external territories. So, it's a committee that's got responsibility for looking into, potentially, any of the issues that are under the responsibility of the National Capital Authority, or also matters relating to the external territories.

CENATIEMPO: But when it comes to Norfolk Island, you'll be sending Dave Smith to do it, won’t you?

PAYNE: Yes, well, Dave's been very engaged there as their local member, but the committee can sort of look into issues that, well it depends what inquiries the committee agrees to approve. Or I think the Minister can also ask us to look into particular inquiries, but yes, Norfolk Island is part of that.

CENATIEMPO: Maybe the first thing you should look into is why the hell a politician based in Canberra represents Norfolk Island but anyway. Yeah. Anyway, one of those great anomalies. I guess the difficulty with this particular - well firstly, let me ask you a more technical question. What can this committee do that Senate estimates can't already do?

PAYNE: Right. So, this is a Joint Standing Committee. So, it has both Senate and House members and exists sort of alongside the Senate estimates process. So, there's the Senate estimates committee that has responsibilities that cover all areas, but this is a committee that goes on alongside those processes, outside of those processes. So, we'll be doing inquiries throughout the term, whereas Senate estimates is only you know, on particular, fortnights as assigned. So, we'll be able to call inquiries, and also yes, we actually call inquiries. So, whereas Senate estimates is very much a Senate process, this is about looking into issues, either that the committee decides, or the Minister decides and going into those issues for, you know, often weeks or months or whatever is decided, but a longer period.

CENATIEMPO: How do you separate your responsibilities here? Because obviously, your primary responsibility, and as with every Member of Parliament, is to your constituents, and you are the member for Canberra. We tend to find whenever there's criticism of anything the National Capital Authority does, it tends to come from a very vocal minority of Canberrans, that seem to ignore the national significance that everything the National Capital Authority does, relates to. So, for instance, the War Memorial, most of the criticism came from people here in Canberra, where it almost ignored the fact that it represents all of Australia, not just people in the, you know, the close vicinity, so to speak.

PAYNE: Well, that's really why it's such an honor to represent the electorate of Canberra, and then now to be the chair of this committee, because you do bring together those two perspectives. Canberra, as you know, our wonderful city and Bush Capital that we love, but a capital city that belongs to all Australians. And I think what Canberrans want to see, and certainly what I want to see, is, you know, building the national affection for our capital.

We want people to know about all the great things we have here, to want to visit here, to stop the Canberra bashing. I mean, that's a, that's a really ambitious thing that will probably never happen. But, you know, building up people's interest and love for our capital. And I see that very much as my role as the Member for Canberra, to do as much towards that as I can. But this committee, being Chair of this committee, will give me more of an opportunity to do that, looking into those issues that have to do with the Parliamentary Triangle and the national character of our city. So, one thing in particular I'm really passionate about are our national institutions. So yes, the War Memorial, the National Gallery, the Museum, the National Library, etc. And, you know, looking at, are they properly resourced, and are they being supported to really attract people to our city, and to tell our stories and our history as well as they can.

CENATIEMPO: I've always said that the bubble sits over Parliament House, not over all of Canberra, but anyway –

PAYNE: Well said.

CENATIEMPO: Hang on, you're probably talking to me from inside the bubble at the moment aren’t you - oh no. Now, yesterday, an announcement was made by Tanya Plibersek that you're going to build a $13 million food waste and healthy soil, or it's part of the food waste and healthy soils fund, this composting facility. I'm against this and probably not for the reasons you think. Now when I got – have you got one of those FOGO bins yet?

PAYNE: I don't, no.

CENATIEMPO: Okay, I've got one and it's great, I thought how good’s this? So, I can sit it on my kitchen bench and put my food waste in there. But you get these biodegradable bags that disintegrate before you get a chance to take it out to the bin.

PAYNE: Well, this is a great announcement, Steven, that's a collaboration between the federal government and the ACT government. And it really shows, you know, when you've got two Labor governments that really care about the circular economy, which is, you know, supporting Australians to reduce, reuse, recycle, repair – sorry, I've got an unhappy constituent here – but so we went out yesterday to see the facility at Hume and it was really interesting to learn more about how the recycling process works here in Canberra, and how important that is.

On the FOGO bins, Minister Steel talked extensively about that and how this new facility will make that whole process a lot more efficient and address some of the issues that people had with the early trials of that. Including I think there's been some issues with odour and things like that as well. And this facility will mean that we can manage that a lot better. And I think you know, really, it's a great thing that we're going to have an ACT wide approach to managing food waste, because it is a huge contributor to landfill. And you know, many people are excellent at doing their compost, but others aren't, and it becomes, you know, problematic. So, this is a really good thing to get that waste out of landfill across the board.

CENATIEMPO: Well as a resident of the electorate of Canberra all I want is bags that don't biodegrade so quickly.

PAYNE: I'll pass it on to Minister Steel

CENATIEMPO: Thank you. Now the territory rights bill has passed the lower house, it'll go before the Senate at some stage down the track. Now you and I obviously disagree on this, we've had this discussion before. But one of the concerns I have about this is that the focus seems to be on euthanasia legislation, when what this is going to do is take away all oversight that the Federal government has on the ACT. Apart from Queensland, every other state – well and Tasmania operates on the same ridiculous electoral system we do – but there's at least an upper house or a bigger group of people that make the decisions, rightly or wrongly. This is going to be 25 people get to make every decision without even the oversight of the Federal Parliament now.

PAYNE: Well, our bill doesn't actually do that, Stephen, our bill actually does relate to euthanasia laws that exist federally at the moment. So, while we have made the debate very much about territory rights, and I believe it is, it simply removes the Andrews legislation, so called Andrews legislation, from 1997 that prevents the territories from legislating specifically on euthanasia. So, there is a broader issue there about territories rights. But that's in the Constitution that the Federal Parliament can step in to overturn our laws or prevent us from making laws. But the only part where that exists at the moment, is this Andrews legislation, which the private member's bill that myself and Luke Gosling introduced is to remove that legislation.

CENATIEMPO: So, if the ACT government was to legislate to legalize euthanasia, the Federal Parliament could still overturn that. But this bill will actually prevent, or stop the ban on them passing the law in the first place, is that a good description of it?

PAYNE: That's correct, it would in order to overturn a law or prevent us making more. So, when this Andrews legislation was introduced in 1997, to in response to the Northern Territory, doing exactly that, legislating for voluntary assisted dying, and so it stepped in to prevent them having that legislation and that carried over to the ACT as well as another territory. So, the Federal Parliament can do that within its constitutional responsibility. But I think what we saw in the House, you know, this bill passed that passed the House last week with 99 people supporting 37 opposed. So, I think that indicates there is a strong support for territories making their own decisions on this matter. So, I think certainly this Parliament wouldn't do that. And I think, you know, the debate has changed. So, I think future Parliament's would be more reluctant to make such a law as that Andrews legislation.

CENATIEMPO: Yeah, well, I guess time will tell. One of the people that voted against it, I believe is Tony Burke, which leads me to my next point. Tell us about these arts town halls that are taking place, and there's one happening in Canberra.

PAYNE: Ah, yes. So yesterday we had our Canberra town hall with Tony Burke, which I went along to which – Labor's consulting on our cultural policy, which will be a national cultural policy all about the place of art and creative industries in Australian life and in our economy. And so, Tony is really passionate, genuinely passionate about the arts. And it's really so good to hear him speak about these issues, like yesterday at the town hall, and just really refreshing to have a Minister that really gets it and really cares about this. Both in terms of the intrinsic value of art to our life, you know, telling our stories, expressing thing, really important. But also, as we saw in the pandemic, you know, artists have a huge impact on our economy and that whole sector, and valuing that in terms of the economic contribution is important as well.

But people can make a submission if they are an artist, or in the creative industry, or even just people who are really passionate about the topic. If you go to the federal arts website, you can make a submission before August 22. And so, Tony was really asking for people's ideas to contribute to this policy. So, I think it's a really exciting thing and another thing that the Labor government is getting onto very quickly,

CENATIEMPO: Alicia, appreciate your time. We'll catch up again in a fortnight’s time.

PANYE: Thanks very much, Stephen.

CENATIEMPO: Alicia Payne, Federal Member for Canberra and now chair of that committee the standing committee, which will oversee the NCA and external territories.