Page 1348 - Week 05 - Thursday, 26 April 1990
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transition, I want to let him know that for me that was the beginning of a transition to where I find myself now on the crossbench. There was a realisation for me that there was a lot more to politics than that sort of game and it was necessary for me to realise the importance of getting on with the job. For that I thank him. I would also like to add my own good wishes to Paul and to state here that I have learnt the value and the strength of the character of this man as I have got to know him better, and I am delighted now to have the opportunity to wish him well and to say that I will, along with others, miss him in this Assembly.
MR COLLAERY (Deputy Chief Minister), by leave: Mr Speaker, what was not stated either by Mr Whalan or by others on his behalf was that he served five Federal Ministers through a transitional phase of this Territory's history. In so doing - and I now speak as a leader of a community group - for many of us in the community Paul Whalan loomed large on the political landscape. He looked after affairs while we had that long series of partly absentee Ministers for the Territory - those Federal Ministers who came and went, often without establishing or even purchasing their own home in this Territory. I believe that Paul Whalan's name left that landmark impact at the time as the regent of government in the Territory, often as the custodian of issues. A lot of those issues were issues that the community groups did not agree with.
When we reached election day, 4 March, the Canberra Times carried Geoff Pryor's famous cartoon which showed Mr Holding, the then incumbent, leaning across the desk at the last moment, going "sign, sign, sign, scratch, scratch, scratch". The Canberra Times editorialised it and said, "If ever we needed self-government, the last decisions on the eve of self-government prove it". There was a variety of decisions, some we are still living with and some we did not know about at the time. One, of course, affected me personally.
The situation of being a ministerial adviser to a Federal landlord government and being a local citizen must not have been easy for Paul Whalan. It must have been a very difficult task at times to be a regent in your own city and answerable to a Federal overlord. I imagine that took a great many skills. Certainly, on one occasion when I went up to see an incumbent Minister about an issue with, I think, Sir John Gorton and some other residents, Paul was there.
That brings me to another issue. The onset of self-government was not made easy by those years of what we perceived to be the closed shop. One of the great surprises that has come out of the debate today has been the acknowledgement by the key players in the major parties of how self-government was negotiated. I am not going to be so flippant as to say "across a carrot cake", but certainly one can gauge some idea of the suspicions - and,
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