Self government for the Australian Capital Territory

Abstract

"There are local interests peculiar to every town, -whether great or small, and common to all its inhabitants: every town, therefore, without distinction of size, ought to have its municipal council." "Your Excellencies are about to perform an act of deep significance to Australia, for we may all be confident that the city you are about to name will be prepared with due activity for its great future as the Seat of Government, where Australia will be mistress in her own home, and there will be no room for complaint of provincial influences in the pursuit of national aims." These statements, the one made by John Stuart Mill in his Considerations on Representative Government, the other by Sir Edmund Barton, Australia*s first Prime Minister, in a message to Lord and Lady Denman on the occasion of the naming of Australia's federal capital admirably present the two basic considerations to be studied by anyone seeking to evaluate the administrative system of the Australian Capital Territory. It is my aim to show, in this thesis, that these requirements are not altogether conflicting ones; that the establishment of some form of local representative government for the Territory is not only in the interest of the local populace but is also reconcilable with, and, to some extent, identifiable with the national interest.