Page 95 - Week 02 - Wednesday, 24 May 1989
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I want Paul Whalan to know that I see him as a combination of Governor Mario Cuomo of New York - who, if only he had stood, could have been President of the United States - and Mr Lange of New Zealand.
I see Norm Jensen as the General George Catlett Marshall of this house - a great soldier with a great tradition. I thought hard about Michael Moore. I thought of young senators who made great contributions to American history, but finally, having dismissed John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy because there are problems related to them, I settled on Senator Daniel Moynihan of New York, a man with a very great sense of social justice, commitment, understanding of the poor, understanding of rural, environmental problems and so forth.
Now I come to our own leader, Bernard Collaery, and I thought very hard about this. I do see touches of the Gough Whitlam about him, but of course that is not necessarily appropriate for our party, you understand. So I have no hesitation in thinking of him in terms of his intelligence and grace, his courage, his wit, his sense of commitment to justice, his good legal mind, his ability to cope with some very difficult and sometimes obstreperous colleagues. I name him as one of the people I most admire in American political history, and that is Adlai Stevenson. I hope Bernard and I will have talks about that extraordinary man.
As Rosemary is not here, I hope that her colleagues will pass on to her that I do not think of her as the Margaret Thatcher of this house. I am sure she would not want to be thought of in that connection. I do rather more think of her as Benazir Bhutto, or dare I say the Caroline Chisholm of the ACT Legislative Assembly.
I have omitted many. Finally, I come to myself and I do ask friends, despite my advanced age and the initials "R.R"., not to refer to me as the Ronald Reagan of this house. If it is not too arrogant, I humbly accept the middle name, Jefferson.
I especially welcomed in the Chief Minister's excellent comments the note that the Government's economic policies will have one objective, the creation of a choice of meaningful jobs for all Canberrans. The Rally absolutely endorses that. Let us together underline the word "meaningful", not merely jobs for jobs' sake, not make-work jobs, not jobs inappropriate for the nature of the national capital, but jobs this city and this nation can be proud of.
The Rally particularly welcomes the Chief Minister's commitment to the tourist industry, to which we too are committed. The Rally would very much like to be involved with those initiatives. I certainly would be personally. Specifically, I hope that members of our Assembly will
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