Page 602 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 July 1989
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of opposition to that - ganging up of hundreds of people outside this building, somehow to impress upon us that we are in the wrong in seeking to guarantee the civil rights of elderly people and others who want to ride on our public transport system.
But what has the Government done about that? If it is its belief that there are sufficient powers in the hands of the police now to guarantee that elderly women and others can travel on our bus system, why has it not invoked them? Why does it just sit there and say we do not need this power for which we are now asking because the police have the powers already. I suggest that it get on to the commissioner for the ACT and get him to have a look at the bus terminal in Woden and find that there is a problem and do something about it. It should not just sit there and say that it has the powers. That is not good enough. Its members talk about civil liberties and the protection of people's rights. It should get out there and fix it. It should not tell us that it has enough powers. If it believes so, it has the solution in its own hands. It should tell the Australian Federal Police what it wants done and make sure that it does it.
So, Mr Speaker, there are certainly some matters of relevance emerging from the Fitzgerald inquiry. I would have thought that there were other matters of far more immediate importance and urgency for us in the ACT than to review this report which we have not even seen yet. We have seen only this very sketchy report in the local media, and I would have thought that we would have been getting on to deal with our own immediate problems - for example, the question of whether people can travel on our bus system in safety.
MR COLLAERY, by leave: Mr Speaker, the Chief Minister has put before us a self-congratulatory document that indicates that, among the Chief Ministers or Premiers of this country, she alone, apparently, is able to debate this massive Fitzgerald report or at least raise the issue on the day after it is released. The Chief Minister surely did not prepare this speech of hers. The atmosphere of it suggests a level of undergraduacy which is extraordinary. Her acolytes, Mr Speaker, should realise that these issues have to be read and debated before we move into self- congratulation.
In particular, Mr Speaker, the issues confronting society at the moment stem very much from the crimes of the powerful. Corruption is a crime coming from power over the weak, especially the poor. This Chief Minister should, as a Labor Chief Minister, have recognised the suffering, the bitterness, the inequities and the absolute disgrace of those years in Queensland to hard-working people and honest policemen. Honest people everywhere should really join and express sympathy to all those who suffered in Queensland - and some died - during the corrupt years.
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