The son of the ACT's first federal politician has implored the Australian Electoral Commission to name the territory's new electorate after his late father instead of war historian Charles Bean.
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In a hearing in front of the AEC's augmented redistribution committee, David Nott said that he only knew his father Lewis Nott for the first 20 years of his life, "but what years they've been".
Dr Nott said that his father should be recognised for the work he did in campaigning for the ACT to be represented at a federal level.
"What he's done for Canberra, is ceaseless work," Dr Nott said. "He pushed [for the ACT to have a seat in the federal parliament] very heavily through the whole time he lived in Canberra."
Lewis Nott was the ACT's first member in the House of Representatives, elected in 1949 as an independent, he served for just one term before being ousted by Labor's Jim Fraser in 1951. Before being elected to parliament he was medical superintendent of Canberra Hospital, for 13 years across two stints at the helm.
Alexander Paine also told the committee that the name Nott should be chosen for the new electorate to recognise a man he considered to be one of the "founding fathers" of the Canberra community.
Former electoral commissioner Brian Cox told the hearing that although he was well versed in the legacy of Charles Bean as a former War Memorial volunteer and former director general of the National Archives of Australia, he believed that Lewis Nott had the most significant local contribution of the names considered by the committee.
Monday's hearing was one of the final steps in the process of redistributing federal electoral boundaries in the ACT, with new boundaries to be finalised to accommodate the introduction of a third House of Representatives seat.
As well as the seats of Canberra and Fenner, the AEC has proposed a new electorate of Bean, to be named after official World War I correspondent Charles Bean, who played a pivotal role in the founding of the War Memorial.
The choice of the name Bean has been controversial, with many objections to the name focusing on comments that he made during World War I about John Monash's Jewish heritage.
The name Bean was chosen by the committee from a shortlist that also included Nott, and Cullen, for Indigenous activist Ngingali Cullen, for her work on National Sorry Day.
War Memorial director Brendan Nelson appeared before the committee to defend the choice of Bean for the electorate, laying out the achievements of Bean and the changes in his views on John Monash over time. Charles Bean's granddaughter Anne Carroll, and his biographer Peter Rees were among those who encouraged the committee to continue with the decision to name the electorate Bean.
The committee also heard that the electorate should prioritise naming the new electorate after a woman, with Professor Kim Rubenstein from the Australian National University's College of Law said that women have long been excluded from the political process and the opportunity to recognise a woman should be taken.
The final determination will be announced on July 13.
