Page 4455 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 19 November 1991
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Ms Follett's presentation speech is not the history of the Bill and, when she stands in response, I expect that she will have the courage - she has left the chamber - to acknowledge what she has done and apologise to this house and to the people of the Territory. She owes it to us. If she does, I will defer any suggestion of a substantive motion. That I believe, and she will get advice that the evidence is there.
Turning to the Bill itself, I also want to debunk the pleasant notion in Ms Follett's introduction speech that the Labor Party has a mortgage on human rights, that the Labor Party is the source of all liberal thought in this democracy, and that the citizens of this Territory needed to rely on Ms Follett's party for salvation.
Look through the history of our nation - for example, Henry Lawson. I will just put a few things on record to show that the history of human rights goes well beyond the Labor Party and its ethic. I refer to a Lawson poem which, interestingly, in my edition appears just after the blood on the wattle poem. I know that Mrs Grassby wants to get that subject up in the Assembly in a day or two. It is called "The Ballad of Mabel Clare". In this poem, Mabel Clare was a young Australian woman, before Federation, who met someone dressed as a lord one evening. He asked her to marry him, and she said, "I am a democratic girl, and cannot wed a swell!". He said:
For you I'll give my fortune up -
I'd go to work for you!
I'll put the money in the cup
And drop the title, too.
Oh, fly with me!
And, of course, "That very night she flew". I know that the feminists do not like this poem; but it is right next to the blood on the wattle poem, and I want to put this in the record. That night she flew with the lord. But then, do you know what - and this is apropos of the little confidence trick earlier in the evening - - -
Ms Follett: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Collaery has referred to a confidence trick, Mr Speaker, and I think that should be withdrawn. It is surely unparliamentary.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, I withdraw it. I do not wish to lose any time. But the record stands.
Debate interrupted.
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