“Excuse me if I appear to be a tad obsessed about the level of debt with which Andrew and Shane have burdened us. Debt of $7.7 billion when it hits in a couple of years will, I am guessing, be equivalent to close to 125 per cent of the ACT’s operating budget,” writes columnist JON STANHOPE.

BEFORE moving to Canberra in 1969 to study law at the ANU, I lived at Wolumla, a hamlet south of Bega, with a population at the time of 96.

I love Wolumla and retain very happy memories of my life there. I attended Bega High School. In school holidays, from Year 9 to Year 12, I worked for local dairy farmers – Jim McCoy, Johnny Cochrane, Bill Cochrane and Col Blacka. The work was often tough, the days were long and my bosses were sometimes hard, but always fair.

Each of those men had an impact on my life. In those days, farming was a fairly solitary business with long hours working alone – for instance, on a tractor ploughing, mowing or raking or if on a dairy farm milking, shucking corn, feeding calves and sometimes pigs.

However, there were also long days of work done in company with others, for example loading, carting and stacking hay or fencing. In my experience the other was invariably the farmer or his sons and sometimes a second labourer from Wolumla or Candelo or on loan from a neighbouring farm.

Working with these honest, tough, hardworking and uncomplicated men had, as I said, a lasting impression. They lived by a code. A code which was once quintessentially Australian: a fair day’s pay demands a fair day’s work; be strong in the face of adversity; bear your share of the burden of an onerous, unpleasant or demanding task; don’t judge those less fortunate or who may have erred and hold out a hand to those in need. 

The conversation on these days ranged from good-hearted banter, gossip, homespun philosophy, the weather, football and the price of milk.

One subject which was never broached was politics, other than to affirm, if the conversation did accidentally stray on to the subject, that all politicians were by definition untrustworthy, liars, lazy, two-faced, self-serving bludgers. 

This self-evident truth was apparently established, so far as the residents of Wolumla were concerned, sometime after January, 1888, following a whirlwind campaign visit to the far south coast by the then premier of NSW, Sir Henry Parkes. 

Sir Henry visited all of the townships from Eden to Bega including my home town Wolumla. His principal campaign message, as interpreted by the residents of Wolumla, was that if they put their trust in him he would connect the south coast to the ever expanding NSW rail network. 

Implicit in Sir Henry’s pitch was not only was the railway coming but with it would come unheralded business opportunities, economic growth and rivers of gold. 

In response to Sir Henry’s overtures the ambitious and entrepreneurial owner of the Wolumla Hotel, a very pleasant establishment, promptly renamed the hotel the “Wolumla Railway Junction Hotel” and so it was known for decades.

It was only after it became clear, in the 1920s, that the Monaro rail link would not be extended beyond Bombala, more than 100 kilometres away, that the publican of the Wolumla Railway Junction Hotel, who had surely copped an endless pizzling about the puzzling name of his modest hotel, painted over the words “Railway Junction” and the pub reverted to the name by which it is known today, the Wolumla Hotel. And a lovely little pub it is and worth a visit.

The relevance of this meandering trip down memory lane and the reason that the Wolumla Railway Junction Hotel chugged into my mind is, of course, the recent announcement by ACT Labor and the Greens, in the face of the $7.7 billion of debt which they have racked up over 10 years, that they will not, for the time being, proceed with stage two of the tram, from Civic to Woden, but will nevertheless build a tram station at Woden in anticipation of the eventual construction of the tram line from Civic.

Excuse me if I appear to be a tad obsessed about the level of debt with which Andrew and Shane have burdened us. Debt of $7.7 billion when it hits in a couple of years will, I am guessing, be equivalent to close to 125 per cent of the ACT’s operating budget. I am also expecting that that level of debt will possibly be in the order of twice as high as the average across all states and the NT. 

The reason for that is because for years before the arrival of the coronavirus, Labor and the Greens had been spending like there was no tomorrow and had racked up a level of debt and a run of deficits that were at best reckless and clearly unsustainable. 

It is a major concern that the government clearly does not have a plan for dealing with the financial crisis that it has created.

My message, as I am sure you have twigged, is if you are the owner of a pub or a café or other establishment at Woden, hold off changing its name to incorporate the words “Tram Junction”, because it is highly likely that the tram won’t arrive at Woden in your lifetime. Just ask the residents of Wolumla.