Page 2172 - Week 07 - Thursday, 6 June 1991
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In a sense, I and my Government are on public trial today. We stand accused of an array of wrongdoings and misdemeanours. In her characteristic way, we have already heard of some of them from the Leader of the Opposition. More accusations, I am sure, will be hurled at us in a frenzy of self-justification by others on the benches opposite shortly. I and other members of the Government will attempt to answer those other charges. At the end of the day, I am convinced that the force of our argument will be sufficient to sway any reasonable person - any person, that is, who is not bound by barren ideology and who is not committed only to hatred, chaos and discord.
What I will be putting to you, Mr Speaker, and to this Assembly is a vision of this Canberra - this vibrant, verdant, still in the making capital, a city not much older than many of us here today. Our city has always had its detractors. Sadly, some of our most bitter scoffers have come from within - a result of what one might call a kind of Canberra cringe. Unfortunately, during the most recent chapter of our city's history - that is, our accession to self-government and to equal partnership in the Commonwealth of Australia - the scoffers and the tearers-down have been in their element. Self-government, as we well know, was not so much granted to us as thrust upon us by a cynical Federal Labor Government seeking merely to rid itself of some tiresome expensive thing. The Commonwealth's treatment of us since has been consistently cynical. Well, whether we like it or not, Mr Speaker, self-government is here to stay and we must now make the best of it.
Mr Connolly: You have three No Self Government members in your party.
MR KAINE: Not everybody is prepared to give me the courtesy that I gave to the Leader of the Opposition, obviously, Mr Speaker. I said that, whether we like it or not, self-government is here to stay and we must now make the best of it. In doing so, we first must comprehend the sheer magnitude of the problems - and especially the economic and financial problems - that confront us today, because amid all the fuss and bother we sometimes tend to forget, and in some cases deliberately deny, the underlying basis, the essential rationale, of a government's actions.
Indeed, some political groupings have seen it as in their interests to try to encourage the people of Canberra to lose sight of those underlying objectives and principles. Some people - and I regret that I must include most of the Opposition in this - see it as in their interests to obfuscate, to muddy the waters, to distort and to pander to irrational emotions. My great sadness is that all too often the only result of this disgraceful behaviour is that the community falls even deeper into a crisis of confidence about all their elected representatives. In the end, it is detrimental to everyone in this place and to the community itself.
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