Page 2249 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 17 August 1993
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MR KAINE: I support this motion with great personal regret. I will not go to the length that the Chief Minister has. She outlined his life and his career very well, and there would be no point in my restating that; but there are a few things that I would like to say about Hector. He was, as has already been noted, a scholar, a soldier and an historian. He spent his early life in the United States and in the United Kingdom, but ultimately he became an Australian.
Hector, I remember, to coin a word, as a "wordsmith". I think that the speeches he made in this place showed that. Sometimes his speeches were perhaps even too scholarly to be really appreciated in this place. He added to the level of debate here something which I think was unique. He was an individual of strong opinions. Those of us who worked with Hector know that he sometimes marched to the beat of a different drum from that which the rest of us heard. I think that was part of his uniqueness.
He came into politics late and in fact was never a politician, in my view, in the sense that people understand politicians. He had a totally different view about politics and what it meant and what it should mean. I respected him for that, and I know that he was respected by the community for that. His experiences in the Alliance joint party room, I think, gave it a certain uniqueness, and I use the word advisedly. Hector and I did not always agree, but at the end of the day I had to respect his opinion. We had some fiery times in the joint party room.
I think that his definition of the challenges for this Assembly that the Chief Minister referred to reflected the fact that his view about politics, his view about this Assembly and where it was going, was quite different from that of the rest of us. The way he expressed his opinions, I suggest, was typical of the fact that he saw things differently, and he defined them differently. The Alliance was an experiment unique in Australian political history. Hector Kinloch was very much a part of that experiment and I believe that he will be remembered by all of us who knew him, if for nothing else, as a man of principle.
I too add my condolences to Lucy and the children. I finish as I began: I support this motion with great personal regret.
MR MOORE: I rise to support the motion. I would like to begin my speech, Madam Speaker, by quoting from Dr Kinloch's inaugural speech, as we prefer to call it, or maiden speech in this Assembly. He concluded it with these words:
Finally, I conclude on this note of thanks: one could thank many people, but may I personally say what an honour and joy it is to be a member of this Assembly at this stage in my life, and particularly in the company of so many good people on all sides of this Assembly. Let us, friends - and I am sure you will agree with this - grow old gracefully together.
Madam Speaker, it is with regret that it is Dr Kinloch who has left our ranks before anybody else. I would like to think of the very best times that I remember him. I remember him particularly for three speeches. The first was the speech that I have quoted from. It was in that speech that he drew on his own strength and his own knowledge. It was in that speech that he compared members of the Assembly to people from his historical background. Rather than going through those, because people can look at that speech on 24 May 1989 if they so wish,
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