Page 2257 - Week 08 - Thursday, 7 June 1990
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Mr Stevenson: Which one was it? Read it out, please.
MR COLLAERY: Certainly, Mr Speaker. In quoting a speech made by me at page 2791, he made some comments but did not read out the words where I said:
Nevertheless, there are widely spread segments of the community which are genuinely, even passionately, distressed about this industry which of itself contains little merit to require preservation or protection.
He did not read that out. That was an acknowledgement that we were speaking for a segment, because we are in government, Mr Speaker, as everyone knows, for all the people of the ACT. Their voice is through us, whether or not we are going to vote finally on their arguments. It is quite appropriate for some of us to articulate their arguments in this house and not necessarily adopt their views. Certainly in Hansard, in the second last paragraph on page 2794, I indicated that I was prepared to vote on the particular Bill before the house but other events, including a donation, stopped me from doing so.
Mr Stevenson made a number of personal attacks based on incomplete arguments that would not stand up in a credible forum. The first allegation against the Chief Minister is his lack of integrity. I do not believe anyone else in this house supports that argument. Indeed, we have heard generous comments from at least one member of the Labor Opposition on radio, on the Pru Goward show, no more than a fortnight ago, acknowledging - and, I thought, properly - that there was no suggestion of a lack of integrity in Mr Kaine.
Mr Connolly: That is when I thought he would do the right thing over Mr Duby.
MR COLLAERY: When Mr Connolly alluded to the fact that the Chief Minister had not called for Mr Duby's resignation he said quite specifically, "We are not alleging a lack of integrity on behalf of the Chief Minister". Clearly, X-rated issues are being used to exemplify an argument that does not have any basis in terms of community concern about this Chief Minister.
Trevor Kaine and I have been working as colleagues, with the other Alliance partners, for a number of months now. Certainly, I can say and I can assure the house that we have a man of complete integrity running this Territory. Here is a man, for example, who went to work after his father was injured; he worked for three years as a worker. He wielded an axe and he chopped wood. He well understands the other side of life. He went to a state school in Victoria. I forget the number of it - they used to number them in those days. He served his country. As everyone in this Assembly acknowledges, he plays a very straight bat.
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