Past political foes clash over future of poles

Two old political foes - former chief ministers Jon Stanhope and Gary Humphries - have clashed over the future of the SIEV X Memorial in Weston Park.

Mr Stanhope has accused Senator Humphries of lacking empathy by not supporting the memorial.

''The Gary Humphries' of the world just show no compassion and no humanity. No heart,'' he said.

Senator Humphries urged Mr Stanhope to play the issue, not the man.

''No matter what I say, I seem to have this magical ability to press a button and Jon goes absolutely feral,'' he said.

The clash of the now Liberal Senator Humphries and recently retired Labor chief minister Stanhope has been sparked by revelations the ACT Government supports in principle the memorial to drowned asylum-seekers remaining in the park until at least 2033.

Senator Humphries says the SIEV X Memorial should never have been erected because it was to make a short-term political point about the Howard government's immigration policies that would probably be forgotten in 10 years' time.

He said it was like putting up a memorial to the tradesmen who died installing pink batts in the Federal Government's failed insulation scheme to score political points.

Senator Humphries said there were other avenues to object to government policy such as ''petitions or protests, not with something that will be there in 100 years from now''.

''In my view, the SIEV X Memorial was erected in some haste and with a short-term political objective in mind rather than with a sense of Canberra being the home of long-term commemorations of important events in Australia's history,'' he said.

''There's no certainty in a decade's time or even two decade's time people will even remember the SIEVX incident.''

But Mr Stanhope said he regarded the drowning of the 353 mainly Iraqi refugees enroute to Christmas Island in 2001 deserving of being remembered in a permanent memorial in the park.

He said the refugees might have been in international waters when the SIEV X sank but they ''had been trying to get to Australia and wanted to be Australians'' and ''in their hearts and minds they were Australians and we should accept that''.

''This was - and I will always believe this - was Australia's greatest, most significant and saddest peacetime maritime disaster.'' Mr Stanhope said opponents of the memorial were driven by ideology to the point where the drowned victims were regarded as ''non-humans''.

''I still cannot walk past the memorial without feeling strong emotion to the point of tears, walking past those beautiful poles which in most instances are a memorial to a mother and a child,'' he said.

Senator Humphries said as a general rule memorials should have support between different levels of government but he would not call for the SIEV X Memorial to be removed.

''I'm saying it should have never been put there. I pass no comment on whether it should be removed,'' he said.

Mr Stanhope said the memorial ''has enormous support. It should be regarded as a permanent memorial.''