The statesmanlike promise of the ACT Liberals to introduce a third species of wheelie bin (exclusively for plant waste) if elected on October 20 has reminded some Canberrans of one of the most memorable photographs ever taken of local politicians in political action.
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In the olden days of 1992, Canberra didn't have big bins (some other Australian places were blessed with them) but with the Assembly elections the ever-progressive Liberals promised to introduce them if elected.
On almost the eve of the elections, the ACT Liberals staged a canny stunt, irresistible to the media. The Liberals' substantial Bill ''Big Bill'' Stefaniak got into a bin (to play the role of a bin's heavy load) while the Liberals' petite, elfin Tony De Domenico, Liberal spokesperson on urban services, (playing the role of a slightly built suburban bin owner) pushed the Stefaniak-laden bin to and fro to show how easy it would be to push the bins to the kerb.
This paper's ever-dignified photographer, Graham Tidy, captured this undignified image for the front page of the February 7, 1992, edition. Days later De Domenico was re-elected but Stefaniak wasn't.
Revisiting The Canberra Times of February 1992 one finds Canberrans, fearful of any change to anything, (thank goodness those days are behind us!) fighting big bins because they'll rip the very fabric of Canberra as we know it.
''I wonder,'' a Cook reader wrote to this paper's editor after the stunt, ''if the advocates of big bins have a first-hand experience of them? I have, and they tend to smell, have maggots and look unsightly when, as happens with about one in six of them, they're not brought in straight away. This city actively encourages attractive streetscapes. Big bins do not fit in this picture.''
