Anthony Albanese needs to call in the administrators and sack the glorified local council that is the ACT government.
The Labor-Greens coalition, which has run Canberra for almost 22 years, is out of control and behaving like a regime that can do what it wants with impunity.
It has ignored police advice to not decriminalise hard drugs, banned gas from homes, imposed a rent cap, forced pet owners to keep their cats locked up 24 hours a day, installed speed cameras on 40km/h roads in the city centre and claims 100 per cent renewable usage despite drawing the bulk of its energy from the National Electricity Market.
ACT Chief Minister and Treasurer Andrew Barr – who slugs Canberra homeowners with massive quarterly rates bills while offering free registration to those who can afford zero-emissions vehicles – on Tuesdayannounced a $442m deficit in a budget underpinned by a “wellbeing framework”.
In recent weeks, the Labor-Greens government has forced the Catholic-owned Calvary Health Care to hand over its hospital despite operating one of the nation’s most dysfunctional public health systems.
On Thursday, the ACT government will release its community consultation report on an assisted-suicide framework to guide what is expected to be Australia’s most radical euthanasia laws.
ACT Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne, who is leading the framework, told The Australian that she was considering allowing teenagers as young as 14 to access voluntary assisted-suicide if they were terminally ill.
Cheyne has rejected a requirement in other local jurisdictions that euthanasia services can be accessed only by people with an “arbitrary” expected death timeline of between six to 12 months.
“What we have heard loud and clear is that a timeframe to death that has been applied in Victoria, and in all of the ensuing states of being 12 or six months, and that being the prognosis to death, has been problematic,” Cheyne said.
“There are some people who do receive a terminally ill diagnosis, but it may be several years until they are given a prognosis that they have less than 12 months or less than six months to live.”
The ACT was granted the right to pursue voluntary assisted dying only after the Albanese government joined with the Greens and crossbenchers in the parliament last year to overturn a ban on Territory governments legalising euthanasia.
It is imperative that federal Labor keep a close watch on where the ACT government lands later this year.
Canberra has become a left-wing paradise under a Labor-Greens government that shirks its primary responsibilities: balancing the books and delivering better health, education, transport and waste services. Backed by current and former public servants, the Labor-Greens coalition will be confident of another term at next year’s ACT election.
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