Page 693 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 5 July 1989
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daughter. Indeed, there were friends of all parties present there, and he could not possibly suggest - and as the Deputy Chief Minister jumped on the band wagon as well - that I would demean those people in their protest.
I said in my speech that the gathering was a very welcome event. Mr Speaker, we get continually, as my colleague Mr Moore said last night, the absolute contradiction of fact and truth from some of the Labor members opposite me - at least two of them. Nothing has been said which demeans the right to peaceful protest, and that was an historic first gathering here. There is a man sitting in the chamber here with a sticker on saying "My son was murdered". Clearly we are dealing with - - -
Mrs Grassby: Another rent-a-crowd?
MR COLLAERY: Clearly we are dealing with an issue that deeply affects some members of the community. We do not want to emotionalise the debate. My message to Mr Whalan, who never ceases to attack the Rally because he is terrified of it, is that the Rally probably will lose votes out of this, because we come out of the civil liberties area, as you well know, and I have spent the best part of the last section of my legal career working in civil rights and human rights areas. That is why I am not as wealthy as some of the other people in this chamber.
The fact is, Mr Speaker, that the Rally may well lose votes out of it. We know how to bite the bullet and deal with an issue against which the Labor Party will get some form of populist sentiment and really knock us down in all of its inner clique areas of civil liberties and justice, in which the Rally is strong. We just hope that people in those areas see us as a genuine group. We are genuinely interested in exploring the drafting of this Bill from Mr Stefaniak.
I will concede on the floor of this house that my handwritten amendments done on the floor of this house during debate include a word which widens the concept of loitering. That is a simple drafting issue that was picked up and pointed out to me almost immediately by another lawyer in this chamber. I am not so arrogant or proud as to deny the Deputy Chief Minister's suggestion that one of the words - one of many - that I put in relation to this Bill in the chamber is not appropriate.
If the Rally had the numbers in this chamber and had the same attitude as the Labor Party, that error might have got through in the way that the Labor Party is used to ramming its things through in the other house. A screening committee of the type proposed in this motion would obviate errors of that kind. I thank the Deputy Chief Minister for clearly illustrating to the house the need for the select committee that has been proposed.
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