Canberra caned as NSW asks 'What the bloody hell are you?'

SYDNEY - Australia's capital has an long-time and unfortunate reputation for being dull. Percy Deane, secretary to the Prime Minister's department in 1928, said: "The best view of Canberra is from the back of a departing train."

In his 2000 book Down Under, Bill Bryson recounted watching the capital's promotional tourist video, Canberra - It's Got It All!, and renamed it Canberra - Why Wait for Death?

Canberrans think differently, of course. They find the home of Parliament, the National Gallery and National Museum a charming place, free from the hassles of big city life.

They are also fiercely protective, if their reaction to a blast from New South Wales Premier Maurice Iemma is anything to go by.

Iemma stepped up to the rostrum after the Australian Capital Territory Government launched a "Live in Canberra" campaign to persuade Sydneysiders to shift cities.

The campaign, while not denigrating, targeted outlying Sydney suburbs suffering high unemployment and promoted Canberra as "free of long commuting times and air pollution."

Iemma's response in a column in the Daily Telegraph newspaper was slightly more severe.

"Canberra is sterile, soulless and manicured - still six suburbs in search of city," he said.

"And when you take out the monuments, what you have left is a well-heeled but otherwise ordinary regional centre - a clean, pleasant, liveable country town."

Championing Sydney's harbour, its "magnificent beaches" and buzzing inner city, Iemma said he didn't want to be too harsh on Canberra.

"After all, it is our national capital, home of our great national institutions. It belongs to every Australian ... We should all take pride in it."

But, he said in one last dig, "it's easy to make cheap jokes about Canberra - the frigid winters, the mass of politicians, the unusual conglomeration of businesses in Fyshwick, the dizzying roundabouts and so on".

Predictably, there was outrage in Canberra. Journalist Cameron Ross said in the Canberra Times: "Iemma's criticisms have been judged and dismissed for what they are: ill-informed, stereotypical and gratuitous."

Nothing in the A$300,000 ($360,000) campaign could be said to be provocative or threatening to NSW, Ross said.

"Iemma's comments illustrate the blind spot many Australians have about Canberra, due to ignorance as much as bloodymindedness.

"While Canberra could have grown to be a high-rise metropolis, its planners mapped it out to be different.

"High-rise developments were to be restricted, hills and mountains kept free of development, and a single city centre eschewed in favour of decentralised townships which would enable people to live near work and spare the city from entanglement by roads."

It didn't work out perfectly and Canberra does have traffic problems, but nothing like those in Sydney.

Letter writers to the Canberra Times fired shots at Iemma.

"It is well known that Canberra people are better educated and more culturally aware than those of other state capitals," wrote Magda Sitsky.

"Mr Iemma, your remarks about Canberra reek of ignorance. People who choose to move here might very well be improving their cultural, as well as their environmental, lifestyle."

However, it appears Iemma's comments have given the ACT campaign a huge boost, with numerous inquiries from Sydney about shifting to Canberra.

- NZPA