Page 1249 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 23 August 1989
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I called on members to move to a higher area of game playing.
I suppose I am particularly worried about what has been said because it seems to me to lower the tone of this Assembly. I take Mr Kaine's point absolutely, that we are at an historic time and we should play this game very seriously indeed. I recognise there are game elements to it. We should not slang each other across the Assembly. I object to it. I do not wish to see it. I do not wish to see comments made, and I have fallen into this myself once or twice, merely to be antagonistic or aggressive. I object to them. I do not wish to see it done. I think here we have a case where we are taking a stand on this matter. We are asking that this no longer be done. So I will be supporting Mr Jensen in this matter.
I do hope, though, that the outcome of what we are now doing is to help us all - and I speak personally, certainly - not to indulge in this kind of talk and behaviour. I recognise the excellence of some of the remarks the Chief Minister just made and I would feel sympathetic to some of those. At the same time I think we have got to draw a line now and we have got to take a hard look at this motion and see to what degree we should pass it or agree to it in order to prevent further things going on.
I would think, though, that there are ways in which Mr Whalan, who is an excellent performer - may we say an excellent games player - in this Assembly could now resolve this matter, and I would call on him certainly to apologise in this matter, as indeed I would want to apologise for any perhaps unnecessary things I may ever have said.
MR COLLAERY (3.41): Mr Speaker, last Sunday the ABC radio carried a very clear olive branch to Mr Whalan from the Residents Rally and from me in particular. The ABC's broadcast on Sunday morning, an appropriate morning, contained an acceptance by me that I had erred in joining issue with this man in this Assembly and that that probably reflected a bad poll result I received in terms of personal image on one part of the score.
The very strong determination of the Rally was to come to this sitting and to ensure that we were not bringing this Assembly back into that style and mode of conduct. So I join with my colleague Mr Kaine in expressing personal regret that we are unable to put the proper standards into place in this Assembly.
It is with some satisfaction that I point out to the Assembly that it probably was not me causing this behaviour in the first place from this Minister. Clearly, he has now taken on Mr Jensen as part of what appears to be a planned and concerted drive by Mr Whalan, Ros Kelly and Senator McMullan to move into personal belittling of and attacks on
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