Page 1039 - Week 06 - Thursday, 27 July 1989
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Show me a righteous ruler and I will show you a happy people: show me a wicked ruler and I will show you a miserable people.
Verse 4:
When the King is concerned with justice the nation will be strong: but when he is only concerned with money he will ruin his country.
Verse 8:
People with no regard for others can throw whole cities into turmoil: those who are wise keep things calm.
Verse 16:
When evil men are in power crime increases: but the righteous will live to see the downfall of such men.
Verse 18 - and I quote from the King James version for the beauty of its prose:
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
My friends and colleagues in this Assembly, and I consider all of you my friends, we have been together now for 11 weeks only. We have been involved in historic matters, great precedents, great beginnings. I believe in the good faith of all those present. I do not have a conspiracy about anybody. I believe that we all love our city, we all have every intent to cause it to flourish in mind and body - mon corps et mon coeur. But after 11 weeks, what is it now that we are in danger of doing? Eleven weeks we have been here.
May I especially address my remarks to our Chief Minister, Rosemary Follett, who knows I personally admire her. I hope she realises that. I am not trying to single her out, except that when one deals with the ship of state one deals with the captain. Does she wish this first ever Legislative Assembly of the ACT, the first ever Australian Government headed by a woman - and I am not a tokenist - to be remembered by the imposition of a casino? This is the first ever chance for the voice of the people to be heard, not 24 per cent of the people, the ALP vote; not 14 per cent of the people, the Liberal Party vote - 38 per cent together - but all of the people. Are they to be heard?
The danger is that the state itself becomes the chief addicted gambler. If we see a Follett casino in place - and, Rosemary, may God forbid that we see that in place - as your $2m tax on X-rated videos locks you into the ponces of pornography, so you and your government are in danger of being locked in to a hotel chain, the casino, a gambling industry.
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