‘Failed experiment’ and ‘oasis for bikies’, should the nation’s capital be relocated?

Canberra is an experiment that failed. It has betrayed the Australian way of life. Perhaps it’s time to shut Canberra down and rebuild our national capital, writes Des Houghton.

Canberra is a failed experiment, writes columnist Des Houghton.

What a horror show our national capital has become.

It was the only state or territory where a majority voted Yes in the Voice to Parliament referendum. The ACT Yes vote proved once again that the Canberra bubble really does exist.

It is the ultimate public service town whose bureaucrats have great influence on the political agenda. Yet it is out of step with mainstream Australia. Now the ACT’s Labor-Greens territory government has put out the welcome mat for drug users by decriminalising ice, heroin, cocaine, and other hard drugs.

And soft consorting laws means Canberra has become an “oasis” for bikie gangs, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph reported. I fear the Comanchero chemists may turn our national capital into a city like Chicago, Cincinnati, or Washington DC in the US where violent, drug-ravaged zombies roam the streets and clog hospital emergency departments.

The Mexican cartels who trade in heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine manufactured in Colombia will no doubt welcome what a Labor minister described as the “progressive approach”.

We should have seen it coming.

Australian Parliament House illuminated at twilight.

In 2019, the ACT became the first state in Australia to legalise cannabis for personal use. The Australian reported efforts to decriminalise drugs in the ACT came about in an unconventional way. “The ACT Health Minister has boasted about how Canberra’s Labor-Greens government was able to ‘quietly’ but quickly ­decriminalise illicit drugs, including cocaine, MDMA and ice, ­laying out her strategy to a group of left-wing activists from across the country,” it said.

“Speaking to a room-full of ­activists at Labor’s national conference, ACT Health Minister ­Rachel Stephen-Smith explained how her government was able to “quickly” implement its policy to decriminalise certain drugs after clinching its sixth election win in 2020.”

­The national daily reported Stephen-Smith telling the conference: “We took it to the election ­quietly. But we could point to our platform and say ‘it’s in there’, so that after the election we were able to work on it quickly.

“It was done through a private member’s Bill, which means it could be done much more quickly.

“If the government had tried to do it, I tell you what it would have taken two years to develop the legislation … and we would have had to deal with all this risk aversion and complexity.”

How can police contain the illicit drug trade when our own governments appear to condone it?

Did the delusional, pro-woke zealots who run the ACT notice the reports in NewsCorp papers last year that Australian outlaw motorcycle gangs are making $8 million a day from cocaine and ice? “Bikie gangs are now working hand-in-glove with the mafia, Asian drug lords and South American cartels as they move from hired muscle to multibillion-dollar distribution networks,” the reports said. Now the “progressive” ACT government wants to do more harm.

It seeks to offer euthanasia to teenagers from the age of 14. Heaven help us. It’s a grim world where a child not old enough to drink in a pub can lawfully direct an adult to kill them.

Here we should join some dots. Smoking pot triggers depression that can lead to suicidal thoughts. Smoking, snorting or injecting ice can fry your brain leaving you with a lifetime of depression, anxiety, paranoia and a predilection for violence, says the Alcohol and Drug Foundation. I guess assisted suicide is the next “progressive” step?

4 year old Kai from Lutruwita/Tasmania at the Museum of Australian Democracy at Old Parliament House polling centre.

The ACT Government is loud and proud in declaring its support for euthanasia on its Justice and Community Safety Directorate website. It thanks the Albanese government for making it possible.

“The Federal Parliament passed the Restoring Territory Rights Act 2022 in December 2022 to restore the democratic rights of the ACT and the NT. This means the ACT can now introduce voluntary assisted dying laws and processes,” it says.

“Voluntary assisted dying is a safe and effective medical process that gives an eligible person the option to end their suffering by choosing how and when they die. “A voluntary assisted dying bill is expected to be introduced into the ACT Legislative Assembly in the second half of 2023.’’

I regret to say Queensland seems to be heading down the ACT path.

The Premier is controlled by the hard Left of her party and I have no doubt that Health Minister Shannon Fentiman will soon decriminalise hard drugs and extend voluntary-assisted dying to children.

Alarm bells sound when I hear the term “progressive” used. It is used a lot in Canberra, and it is creeping into the lexicon in Queensland.

It’s a word often used by Fentiman and her unpopular leader Annastacia Palaszczuk. I winced a few years back when Palaszczuk added a few more women to her Cabinet and declared she had the most progressive government in Australia. She was wrong. The ACT beats Queensland hands down.

Canberra is an experiment that failed. It has betrayed the Australian way of life. Perhaps it’s time to shut Canberra down and rebuild our national capital at Armidale, halfway between Brisbane and Sydney, where it should have gone in the first place.

The old Canberra could then be handed back to the Indigenous tribes to celebrate the ACT’s Yes vote – but not before the appropriate Welcome to Country and smoking ceremonies to rid the town of the evil spirit of the white invaders.