While the Hawke cabinet was busy addressing Australia's economic woes in the late 1980s, ministers also had to decide about new office blocks in Canberra and whether public servants needed a new 40-place childcare centre.
The time federal cabinet spent on relatively trivial matters concerning the national capital may well have influenced its decision on July 7, 1988 to make the ACT look after itself.
The matter of self-government had been knocking around for some years, with almost two in three Canberrans voting in a 1978 referendum to reject the notion.
In 1986 the Hawke government put legislation to parliament, but it was blocked in the Senate.
But by 1988, then territories minister Gary Punch told cabinet the ACT was ready to assume responsibility for its own affairs.
Cabinet papers for 1988-89, released by the National Archives of Australia, show Mr Punch argued the need to "clearly and unambiguously" separate municipal and territory matters from national responsibilities.
Such a decision "treats ACT citizens fairly and equitably compared to their fellow Australians" and was the only responsible course of action, he told the cabinet.
He anticipated opposition from a "referendum first" group but believed the Canberra community generally just wanted the governance issue resolved.
The Hawke cabinet decided to set up a new ACT Legislative Assembly and four-member executive but to keep federal control of courts, police services, legal practitioners, companies and securities and some criminal laws.
Ultimately, federal parliament agreed to self-government by December 1988 and the first assembly elections were held in March 1989.
Share
