TRANSCRIPT:

Look, we were hoping yesterday to put to bed once and for all, all this nonsense that was coming out of Queensland, Steven Miles the premier having a ridiculous spray at the state of Canberra and its lack of, its lack of warmth towards him. Well today, Leisel Jones "lethal Liesel" they used to call her when she was swimming, because she was very good. I will say this, I'll preface my comments by saying she is a very good swimmer, and won a lot of gold medals and we all stood up and applauded her and said how wonderful she is. She decided to jump on the bandwagon today. And she said some stuff about Canberra, which I have to say was, it was not very pleasant, and it wasn't very nice. And I know she was doing it on a commercial radio station where obviously they need to chase ratings unlike us here at the ABC, where we never chase ratings and nobody cares what we say or what we do. It's one of the cushy things about working for the ABC. Liesel Jones said, and I quote, "in the middle of winter, Canberra is the most awful place to be. It's a terrible place to train and prepare for anything, because it's the coldest place you'll ever go. It's not terribly inspiring. And every time you go there, they put you in the worst accommodation. The residence was once great, but it's now a bit of a hell hole" says Liesel Jones. Alicia Payne can you believe it? What is wrong with these people?

Good afternoon.

Should we be outraged?

Well, I'm very disappointed in the Premier's comments and those from Liesel because first of all, this is our home and our community and I don't think anyone should say things like that about a place that others call home. But it's worse still, for a premier to be talking about our nation's capital because this is something that all Australians should be proud of and see ourselves reflected in so I really wish that we could move on from this because it is the only place in Australia that a politician can get away with having a go at and you know even more so score political points for and I think it's, you know, it's wrong.

Is there some sort of an unwritten law that polly's shouldn't diss on each other's cities or on each other state or territory? There should be. Yeah, well, I honestly can't think of any other place that anyone would ever say something like that about the city.

Maybe Perth, certainly Adelaide but other than that, other than Adelaide, what other cities would people diss on all the time,

But this is something you know, growing up in Canberra, it's annoyed me my whole life. And then as a member of parliament, I see the attitude that these types of comments feed though and how this actually influences the way that people think about our city and are able to dismiss our community and its needs. But, also not taking seriously the nation's capital and the significance that that should have. I'm really proud that our government, the Albanese Labor government sees this differently. And that, you know, we can see that, that the Prime Minister has chosen to live here with the Public Service and the diplomatic corps, that we have invested heavily in things like our national institutions, which again belong to all Australians. And I, as the chair of the National Capital and external territories committee have just been working on an inquiry into fostering the significance of the nation's capital where we have heard from wonderful, passionate Canberrans from sport, from the national institutions, from business, from community groups about how we better promote all the things our great city has to offer and how we strengthen that significance even more. And when there are comments like this. It just undermines all of that work and just feeds into this narrative that makes it harder for anyone to actually make our city even better.

Do you think Alicia Payne and by the way, I didn't introduce Alicia Payne properly. Of course she's the Labor member here, one of the Labor members, the Member for Canberra in the ACT. Do you think Alicia Payne we're an easy target because we're the home of federal politics? Or do you think people genuinely, like Steven Miles and Liesel Jones, do you think they genuinely hate Canberra?

I think it's the former I think we are exactly that an easy target as the centre of government and it feeds into, you know, it aligns with the arguments about bashing on the public service as well, even though they have such an important role in our democracy and providing services all around the country. I think that often when people make these comments, they obviously haven't spent a lot of time here or they haven't, you know, done lots of the things that we have to offer they might have only come here and you know, done work or not got out and about among all the great things that the people that live here enjoy and I think often people who haven't spent much time here say things like that, but most who do, they love it here.

He apparently, you probably know this because you're well connected in political circles but apparently mister Jones, the Premier has a nickname "giggles". Have you heard this?

Yeah, I've seen that today but I'm not sure what it's about.

Well, I from what I read is they call him giggles because when he gets nervous he giggles a lot. And there was, I think when he was talking about Canberra, maybe he knew that he was about to be on the receiving end of an Alicia Payne barrage, because he started giggling because he knew what he was about to say was about to get him into hot water. But I mean, we can joke about it. And we can laugh and say, Oh, here we go again. But it does have a knock on effect, doesn't it? Because if enough people hear people saying Canberra is a hellhole, it's cold and horrible. Why would anyone go there? If a premier Steven Miles is saying I hate going to the place, people are gonna go, oh, well, if Steven Miles hates going there, why would I want to go there? I'll go to Sydney instead? Or I'll go to Broken Hill or something.

Yeah, exactly and that's why this is more than just sort of an annoyance for Canberrans. It does feed into a narrative and a broad attitude that prevents our city from being seen as the wonderful place it is both, you know, nationally, but internationally too like, you know, everyone knows when you've talked to people from overseas that often they don't know we're the capital. I think, you know, we want our capital to be somewhere that's on every itinerary for people who want to visit Australia. And I want it to be somewhere that every Australian wants to come and visit and see all that we have to offer.

Do you think we do enough to market our city to the rest of Australia and to the rest of the world? Well, this is something that my inquiry has just been looking into and we have been hearing from people about how perhaps we could do a bit more of that and better sort of align things so that people can, you know, work out what sorts of experiences they want to have while they're here or what particular neighbourhoods they might want to visit or certainly bring together our national institutions to you know, in a coordinated way promote them, and the fact that they do tell our stories and our history and, you know, have some of the most amazing art and so many things that people can come and see here in Canberra.

On the text line Pete from Fadden and says Good day, Ross. I reckon Steven Miles should be looking after his own backyard instead of slagging off Canberra. God knows Queensland needs looking after. As for, he said weasel Jones. I'm sure that's a spelling error. Weasel Jones, she can go and jump in the lake, preferably on a cold winter morning says, I think that was what a big complaint was, it would greatly hope if the media including ABC reporters did not refer to Canberra instead of federal parliament, so people and people often say that. Someone else said "we travelled to Queensland in January and I spoke to many Queenslanders who spoke very negatively about our lovely home city." And I'm sure off the back of the comments by Steven Miles. And Liesel Jones that would be even more people now having a good old laugh. And just on the decision with the AIS, Texas says and this was a decision made by the federal politicians not Canberra polly's. Have you tried to contact Steven Miles? I mean, do you feel it, do you think it would be necessary, do you? I mean, would it be good to just contact him and say, Steven, look, I appreciate what you're saying but how about I mean, don't open this can of worms, bucko because we can start bringing up Joh Bjelke-Petersen and moonlight state and stuff like that.

Yeah, I do. I do think and that's why I thought it was worth calling out this morning. It's I think, I think we do need need to call it out. It's not a joke. It has serious implications for all of these things. And just on the AIS, you know, I am really pleased that it is remaining here. That's something that I and my other Labor colleagues advocated, Canberra Labor colleagues advocated for and the recommendation for it to stay here came out of an independent review that our government commissioned, and we accepted that recommendation for it to stay here based on an independent review. So it's, yeah, it's not something about politicians making a decision based on anything other than an independent review. So I think it's a very good decision.

Yeah,

Yeah, yeah. Three to four on ABC Canberra drive. You're with Ross Solly. My guest is the Member for Canberra, Alicia Payne. Just on another matter, Alicia Payne. Where are we at regarding our possible two new senators?

Yeah, so this is another area where I suppose our city misses out. Obviously for our population. It could be argued we could have some more representation in the Parliament, and the Joint Standing Committee on electoral matters reported on this last year and recommended an increase in the senators. So that reports with the special Minister of State Don Farrell at the moment and he's consulting on that and looking into whether that can be implemented. You know, my view is obviously that it would be very good for us to have more senators. It is a sort of a complex issue as it needs to balance across the whole country and other numbers of representatives but it's something that I hope we see happen we need to get our skates on don't we because I saw reports today that apparently there's a sneaky memo going around the place talking about an early election maybe this year. You're just telling me maybe November this year it could be an election.

hahaha I did not say that.

Actually she didn't say it, I just made that up.

You can't do that.

If the Australian is listening I just made that part up. But are we still hopeful that by the next election we could have two new senators or is that a pipe dream?

I think that would be difficult but I honestly don't know whether that's possible or not as I said the Minister is consulting and he wants to work with you know everyone across the parliament to come to the best outcome there. But I don't know about the timeframes around that but I think that would probably be unlikely.

Well I mean at the earliest well not the earliest but at the latest election has to be next year, doesn't it? So that's gonna be really hard. A final text here, to let you go on this Alicia Payne, Mark in Bonner says, "at least Canberra and broader ACT region is relatively safe and clean. Despite those who don't mow their own verge. Try Washington DC where we are warned to not go down to the corner store at night, as you will be mugged" says Mark in Bonner. Not sure if we should be comparing our crime rate with Washington DC. Or wherever I'm sure even safer than Brisbane, Alicia Payne, thank you so much for coming.

Thanks for having me Ross.