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Gary Humphries, ‘A City of Carpetbaggers’ Canberra’s Political Development

Gary Humphries, ‘A City of Carpetbaggers’ Canberra’s Political Development

Despite being the home of the central institution of Australian democracy, Canberra was long denied its own democratic rights. Initially envisaged as a seasonal town where people would only come when Parliament sat, even once it became a fully-fledged city and national showpiece, federal governments were keen to control it so they could fashion that showpiece how they pleased. It was only in the 1980s, under the greater imperative of cost efficiencies for the federal budget, that the ACT gained its own legislature, and ever since it has maintained a distinct political culture quite unlike the rest of the country.

In this week’s episode of the Afternoon Light podcast, Robert Menzies Institute CEO Georgina Downer talks to Gary Humphries AO about the ACT’s political history.

Gary Humphries AO was ACT Chief Minister in 2000-01 and Liberal Senator for the ACT 2003-13. He was President of the ANU Students’ Association in 1982, an institution to which he has returned as a PhD candidate writing a thesis on the history of ACT Self-Government 1988-2001. He was Deputy President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, chair of the Anzac Centenary Public Fund Board and national chairman of RSPCA Australia.