Former prime ministers Paul Keating and Malcolm Fraser have been called ''old fossils'' and ''hypocrites'' after the pair were involved in Canberra-bashing yesterday.Mr Keating said the Senate was an accident waiting to happen as a result of lower quotas to secure a seat and Canberra was a ''great mistake''.
''The capital should never have been there. It should have been in Melbourne or Sydney,'' Mr Keating said at the launch of historian John Hirst's book Building a Free Australia: Places of Democracy.
''The proper place for ... the Australian parliament house should have been on Garden Island in Sydney Harbour.''
He was joined at the launch by Mr Fraser, who turned the first sod to start construction of Parliament House, which opened in 1988 and cost more than $1billion.
''I'm not particularly proud of that. My government made the decision to go ahead and build the thing,'' Mr Fraser told the audience at Melbourne's Athenaeum Library.
''It's probably the most extravagant building ever built in Australia. It's grand beyond belief.''
''And I'm not sure that's what a parliament house is meant to be.''
Former ACT Chief Minister Gary Humphries who is now a Liberal senator said the pair was ''reliving the battles of the past''.
''They're a couple of old fossils if you ask me,'' Senator Humphries said.
''They're also hypocrites on both these issues they've raised.
''Keating complains about the low quotas in the Senate, but he was minister in the government that approved the increase in the size of the Senate from 60 to 72 which lowered the quota. Fraser complains about the building that he signed off on as prime minister.''
Parliament House was a treasure and magnificent building, Walter Burley Griffin Society Canberra chapter chairman Brett Odgers said.
''Given that so many components of Griffin's original plan for our national capital have been lost or wrecked, it was a relief to many of us who admire Griffin's plan that the Parliament House was able to revive many of these elements,'' he said.
''By emphasising the land axis and the great triangle and the broad avenues of the triangle and the visitors around the central national area, the new Parliament House succeeded in reviving the beauty of the original plan for Canberra.''
Mr Odgers was ''puzzled'' by Mr Fraser's views and said Canberra was a well sited capital where Australians came to commemorate and celebrate national identity and national events.
''This issue was settled 110 years ago and it's hardly up for discussion again,'' he said. Hirst's book , published by the Australian Heritage Council, traces the development of democracy by focusing on places and buildings of the 19th century.
with AAP