Last week in affluent, well-educated, politely spoken, avowedly Labor and impeccably PC Canberra, someone wrote something in a small throwaway newspaper that Canberrans read rather thoughtfully.

It appeared in the ‘City News’, a weekly edited by former Canberra Times veteran Ian Meikle and the article was penned by former Labor chief minister Jon Stanhope, the only chief minister, he tells readers, to have a government with a majority in the ACT’s toy town Legislative Assembly.