Self government had brought insecurity, uncertainty and bureaucrats, he told the ACT parliament, delivering his maiden speech. Since self government, not one kilometre of rural gravel roads had been sealed, the Tharwa bridge had been ignored until having to be closed for seven years for rebuilding, Smith's Road bridge had been "set up to wash away", the Angle and Point Hut crossings had never been raised, the 50-year-old water supply had been left to fail, and the school had been closed.

Bushfires were possibly a greater threat to Canberra than terrorism, Mr Jeffery said, recalling a lifelong involvement in fire fighting, and memories back as far as the 1939 bushfires.

Under self government, fire management had been moved from an independent bushfire council to bureaucrats, and rapid responses had gone "out the window", resulting in the disaster of 2003.

"Those lightning strikes should have and could have been brought under control within 24 hours of ignition," he said. "...Now, it's many times worse than in 2003 and you know what, people at the top don't care ...

"It is time for an ACT government to take a deep breath, open its eyes, look a bit outside the concrete bunker in Civic and recognise that there is an important rural part to the ACT."

Mr Jeffery, 81, replaces the Liberals Brendan Smyth, who left suddenly after being appointed as Canberra's Commissioner for International Engagement.

In his maiden speech, he recalled a childhood in the shadow of the second world war, never able to forget the "frightening sad look" in his mother's eyes as she listened to the declaration of war on the radio in the Tharwa shop where he was raised.

Tharwa had "worked its guts out" on the war effort, then celebrated in the revival afterwards.

"We were a rural community in the '50s experiencing great seasons of pasture growth, wool prices of over a pound a pound, farmers and graziers putting their returns into improving their land, an influx of great new Australians bursting to get at it."

But then came the "mass ugly resumption of ACT freehold", Mr Jeffery said, recalling the owner of the Cuppacumbalong property, Peter Snow, "coming to me with the letter in his hands that informed him that he had 'fourteen days to treat'. An ex soldier, a friend and mentor with tears in his eyes. It was the beginning of the end of respect for our rural community."

With only 30-day agistment leases, there was no incentive for landholders to improve their properties and the result was "weeds and other expensive environmental problems".

Under the federal government, Tharwa had been able to get things done, but then had come "a generation of educated politicians and bureaucrats out of touch of the real world of those decades". Mr Jeffery now has just over 10 weeks to bring some rural reality to ACT politics.