Page 65 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 7 April 1992
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I must take this opportunity to thank all Canberrans for giving me this opportunity to represent them. I must also thank the people of Tuggeranong for their support. It was my professional and social involvement in Tuggeranong that prompted me to seek elected office. I would like to thank the members and supporters of the Australian Labor Party, in particular the Tuggeranong and Lanyon sub-branches, for their hard work and dedication which made my election possible. There are far too many to name individually.
I must also pay a special tribute to Ros Kelly, whom I worked for and with for 11 years. It has been her support of and belief in the ACT that has taught me the respect that this Territory deserves. She has set a standard of local representation which I hope I can meet, and I will always value her support and encouragement. In conclusion, I look forward to working with all my colleagues in this Assembly to ensure that Canberra continues to progress for the good of all Canberrans and, through that, for all Australians.
MRÂ CORNWELL (8.27): Madam Speaker, I begin my maiden speech by extending my congratulations to you upon your election a little more fully than I did at the formal swearing-in. I trust that you will bring honour and dignity to the position of Speaker of this young legislature and I wish you well in what I am sure will sometimes be a very trying post.
Similarly, I extend my best wishes to the Chief Minister, both upon her election to that demanding role and for leading her party to the electoral success that assured her of the job. I thought the Labor Party image-makers created a superb vehicle for victory in portraying you, Chief Minister, as a benign nun or everybody's favourite aunt, with each of those creations featuring a more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger expression, with head slightly to one side.
I have no doubt that you convinced the electorate with that warm, comforting persona; but I promise you that such an impression of forbearance and forgiveness will be rigorously tested in this much smaller arena over the next three years, should we on this side of the house have cause to do so. Happily, for my own part, no such circumstance has yet arisen, because I find myself currently in agreement with your aspirations for this, the Second Legislative Assembly for the ACT.
We all have a responsibility which transcends party politics and petty egos, and that responsibility is to earn respect and integrity for this chamber from the citizens of the ACT and of Australia. As you yourself put it, Chief Minister, the choice really is "between the instability, the antics and the rancour of the First Assembly and the great potential for rational, intelligent and informed decisions that the new composition of this Second Assembly provides".
While you quite correctly have identified the First Assembly as a less than desirable example to emulate, its behaviour has regrettably overshadowed its reason for being, namely, self-government itself. Further, in so doing, the First Assembly has done an injustice to a group of very worthy people. The injustice was by accident, I would like to think, because the political adventurers and opportunists who made up a significant proportion of the First Assembly would not have known of these people's existence. Later, perhaps, if they had heard of them, no doubt it was to advantage to be silent, for truth is child of time.
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