LIBERALS' LEFTIE PULLS UP STUMPS

Australia's longest-serving woman leader wants to help other women
enter politics, writes Stephanie Peatling.

THERE are just two subjects which Kate Carnell feels safe with when
she encounters the Prime Minister. Though it's hard to imagine that
cricket and financial management would make for an extended exchange
between the former Liberal leader of the ACT and John Howard.

The longest-serving woman leader of any State or Territory says she
and the national leader "actually get along quite well" - at least
since Carnell announced she would resign from politics.

"We both [believe] you should have policies that encourage
initiative," Carnell says. "It's just once we get on the social
issues that we drift apart somewhat."

And it's not only the Prime Minister who finds her too radical. "Bob
Carr often says he gets cross with me for being to the Left of him on
most social issues - which I am.

"There's always been a group of people in the party who think I've
taken it too far to the Left. I don't think it's the Left at all.
It's very much just the middle ground ... and rightly so because
that's where most Australians are. The political parties are supposed
to reflect the electorate ..."

And the well-educated, mainly professional ACT voters have largely
supported her championing causes such as voluntary euthanasia, heroin
injecting rooms and abortion reform.

Drug law reform is the former pharmacist's passion and she regards
the failure to introduce heroin trials as her greatest disappointment
as Chief Minister.

"It will happen, but it's just not going to happen while I'm here,"
she says. "I believe people have died because we didn't get that up.
Similarly with injecting rooms. People die every day because we won't
take a compassionate view and I don't see how anyone can see that as
... socially acceptable."

Not hard to see why she talks cricket with the Prime Minister.

"A fair chunk of the PM's policies are ... good but they're not good
enough ... At least we kept the debate moving in a positive
direction."

Carnell leaves the ACT Legislative Assembly today. She is stepping
down rather than face a no-confidence motion after the ACT
Auditor-General found her Government had unlawfully taken out a $9.7
million overnight loan to balance the books on a blow-out to the cost
of refurbishing Bruce Stadium, the home of the Canberra Raiders and
the ACT Brumbies and the host of some Olympic football matches.

Public anger at the spiralling cost of the stadium upgrade followed
the long-running community resentment of her role in the 1997
implosion of the old Canberra Hospital which saw a 12-year-old girl
killed by flying debris.

Though a coronial inquest cleared her of responsibility, Carnell's
department was strongly criticised for choosing to promote the
implosion as a public event. Carnell recalls it as "a horrible time"
but does not elaborate.

Carnell's decision to leave has sparked a flurry of local media
interest in the future of the woman credited with having turned
around Canberra's economy since becoming Chief Minister in 1995, just
four years after joining the Liberal Party and two after becoming
Opposition leader.

Having taken over an economy depressed by Federal Government
downsizing, Carnell leaves the ACT with the lowest unemployment in
the country and a rate of economic growth outstripping the national
average. Her strategy turned the city into an epicentre of economic
activity for surrounding areas, promoting it as a low-cost,
high-skill base from which to operate.

"At least statistically and in terms of fire in the belly, it is a
significantly better place than it was before," she says. "You can't
help but feel a little chuffed. I'm not saying ... that was me on my
own but I know that me and my staff had a big input."

After a round of farewell parties Carnell will begin work as a
national sales and marketing consultant for TransACT, a company
building and managing a broadband network across Canberra.

She will remain a member of the Liberal Party, where she hopes to
mentor other women considering political life and to break down a
preselection system that grills women about child-care arrangements
before they are considered.

"When you look at other women who have taken on the leadership they
often came into it when there was a perception that there were huge
hassles or there was no real capacity of winning the election,"
Carnell says.

"It's a no-lose scenario, so give them a go. But, of course, once we
won the '95 election we'd done something many thought was not
possible. From then on, I suppose, there was a level of acceptance
that we'd proven ourselves."