Page 773 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 July 1989
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MR COLLAERY: Let me assure my friend Mr Kaine and the house that I have spent many years in far more exacting circumstances where one needs to be very careful of what one says, and I am very careful, I assure the house. I do take precautions before I make statements in this house. The matter concerning Mr Hedley was fully researched. It is fully researched as to title dealings and caveats on title. It is a small town, and those of us in this town know that we can prepare reasoned concerns that are understood by the community. The Rally, of course, supports the view that the proceedings of this house should not be used to run unsubstantiated allegations when there is a possibility that those allegations can be attended to in another place.
Clearly, there has been vast inaction by the Federal ALP on those issues, and it is only with great compassion for those affected and it is only with great frustration that the Rally starts to niggle away at this problem. We will niggle away at it, and it will go. I absolutely assure the house that, before I leave this place, there will be established in this Territory an independent corruption inquiry system that will ensure those great values that the early public servants, the inheritors of this country, set up.
My father went to school in Goulburn and used to spend his weekends in Canberra. When I was going through his letters, letters written in an air force base in the United Kingdom during the war, letters to his family, friends, his wife, I read in one of the letters a statement he made about Canberra, the garden city. That letter dated 1942 from an air base somewhere is a very eloquent testament to the values that ordinary people have in terms of this city. It is a great letter. It guides me in much of what I say about Canberra. I also found amongst his books a book called Russia Unveiled. I found another book of his. I had it here in the chamber the other day but I did not think one should be so personal, so I did not say it. I have learnt so much about him from his pencil linings in those books. In the Russia Unveiled book, he speaks and he says - - -
MR SPEAKER: Order, Mr Collaery! Please stay close to the point.
MR COLLAERY: The issue before the house is whether Canberra deserves an assembly which will be forthright and fearless in raising matters of ministerial and public service impropriety. That is the motion, because the Rally has not yet come to that conclusion. The Rally waits to hear the response from those opposite us, but that is the motion they put. They put in the word "impropriety". If you look at the Hansard, you will see that the question asked of the Chief Minister was simply that she give us an assurance about a matter in relation to one of her ministerial colleagues. We got a response about a loan. The question was whether the discharge of that loan being
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