Page 3218 - Week 11 - Thursday, 13 September 1990
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Yesterday we brought three important Bills into this house, but the most important of them all was the Human Rights Bill - the Bill of rights of the people of Canberra. We had a right to have this Bill. The Leader of the Residents Rally is forever on his feet, out in the public here, talking about human rights. We really know what he is all about now. We really know what the Leader of the Residents Rally is all about. He is all talk and no action - all puff and wind. That is exactly what he is, Mr Speaker. The people outside will know exactly - - -
Mr Kaine: This is the best speech you have made so far, Ellnor. I am enjoying this.
MRS GRASSBY: I am sure you are, because I am criticising the man who is sitting beside you because he is all puff and wind, and you know it, Chief Minister. He is all puff and wind. I will not say what my colleague wanted me to say, because the Speaker would make me withdraw it and it would be a rude word; but that too, Mr Connolly. He is all that and wind too.
I will not say that about the Chief Minister. I have not ever heard the Chief Minister on his feet pronouncing about getting a Human Rights Bill and doing all this. At least the Chief Minister is honest about it. He would just do it, but not go on with all the puff and wind Mr Collaery and the Residents Rally have gone on about. He sits there with a great smile on his face, Mr Speaker; but the people outside will know him for what he is. They will know that he is just a lot of nonsense. He has a use-by date, and we will not see him back in this house after the next election; but that will not matter because he will have stopped us from bringing a very important Bill into this house - a Bill that gives rights to the people of Canberra, the aged, the sick, the ethnic communities that he is always on his feet speaking about.
He reminds me of that sign you see at the dry cleaners: "We take all care, but no responsibility". Mr Collaery is all care, but no responsibility, because he really does not care about the people here in Canberra. If he did care, he would have let this Bill come into the house. He would have at least sent it to some senior legal adviser to find out whether we could do it. If he believed we were breaking the rules of this house, he would have at least done that. Or if he felt, as he said, that the Bill was all rubbish, he would have at least then sat down with our leader and said, "Look, you know, you are doing the right thing. We need a Human Rights Bill in this house, because I have gone on and on about it, and I am going to sit down and do something about it with you". But, no.
I think Mr Collaery is jealous that our leader and her very few staff, who have done a wonderful job on this Bill, were able to bring a Bill into this house and he, in all the time he was in opposition, could do nothing. Never did I see Mr Collaery bring a Bill into this house when he was in
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