Page 835 - Week 03 - Thursday, 25 March 1993
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MR DE DOMENICO: You might think that, Mr Lamont, but you are wrong. Mr Lamont should have talked also about employment needs in Canberra in the year 2001. Notwithstanding any fiddling about the edges and renaming little things, the most important issue affecting Australians, Canberrans and anybody else is not whether we should change the name from one thing to another but what we can do to make sure that all future generations of Australians can live as comfortably as, if not more comfortably than, we do today.
As I said, I also was at the lunch Mr Lamont attended. When matters such as "The need for the Government to address the Centenary of Federation with a view of Canberra as a Capital of the Australian Republic" are put forward as matters of public importance, no wonder the credibility of this place goes down a notch or two. This is the country where it is easier to knock than to build; it is easier to condemn than to contribute; it is easier to take the soft options or to do nothing than to meet the challenge of making hard decisions.
The rest of Australia is in certain respects overtaking us. It is going to take Canberra more pain than merely the republicanism debate to kick-start the development of pride and confidence in our national capital by the rest of Australia to a level that will take us into the next century. The most important thing we have to do as an Assembly is not to waste our time talking about so-called matters of public importance presented by Mr Lamont but to ask what we are going to do to make all Australians proud of our national capital and proud of our national sovereign country called Australia.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (3.52): Madam Speaker, I somewhat relish the opportunity to get up in the debate on an MPI on the subject of Australian republicanism. For as long as I have been able to think about these issues I have been in favour of an Australian republic. It is probably a factor of my particular Australian Celtic upbringing that I have always favoured republicanism.
When I was a student at Adelaide University I was president of the Labor Club and co-convener with a fellow law student, a young man of Greek extraction by the name of Nick, of the Adelaide University republican movement. The interesting thing about Nick was that he was vice-president of the university Liberal Club. We ran that republican association for a couple of years at Adelaide University. We ran a number of seminars. We brought in people such as Donald Horne, who was very prominent in the debate then. We kept quite a bit of interest going for a few years. I have lost contact with Nick over the years. He went into private practice and business in Adelaide and has done rather well; but he has been forced out of the Liberal Party, despite having a lot of promise and being a very able young man from a migrant background. The Liberal Party ground him out of their system probably because, as a young man, he espoused ideas such as republicanism.
I noted the other night on the 7.30 Report a very able and articulate young man who is the president of the Young Liberal Movement in New South Wales. He was the sort of person that we do not relish facing on the hustings. This very able fellow was saying openly that he was in favour of republicanism. He also made the point, which I thought was interesting, that he thought that Bob Menzies, if he were around today, could well favour a republic. We often enjoy making a bit of fun of Menzies. Of course, when World War I broke out
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