Page 3586 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 19 October 1993
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40 per cent of Australia's land is now under native title. The famous Mabo decision of the High Court ... assisted in the development of true reconciliation between Indigenous and Immigrant Australia ...
I think that is a wonderful thing to aspire to. Madam Speaker, as a member of this Assembly, I am happy to see this report come in. As I said, there are some parts of it that I do not particularly subscribe to, but I believe that it contains statements, aims and objectives of a social nature, particularly, that we should keep in our minds as goals for this community. In some cases, hopefully, we can transmit those ideas to some of the other communities on this Earth. If some of these things are attained - not all of them; just some of them - I think it will be a better place.
MR KAINE (4.10): Madam Speaker, it is rather hilarious to hear a member of the Labor Party talking about members of the Opposition joking about this document. It is quite hilarious when you think that the Government undertook this study only at the insistence of this Assembly. In fact the initiative for it came from an Independent member of the Assembly. I remember that when this was first brought up in the Assembly the Government did not want to have a bar of it. Ms Szuty put forward a motion and it received the support of the other Independents and the Opposition in this Assembly. That was how this motion was passed. Now we have a member of the Government claiming credit for all this and accusing the Opposition of joking about it. Well, the joke is on the Government.
Having said that, Madam Speaker, I think that one of the best things that could come out of the development of Canberra over the next 30 years would be the removal from debate in this place of some of the acrimony that we currently have to endure.
Mr Wood: You start it.
MR KAINE: No, that is not true, Mr Wood. Without going into the detail of these documents, which, generally speaking, I subscribe to, I think that the net result of this study is beneficial. At least somebody has had a bit of a look ahead to see what we might be and the directions that we might be taking. I think there is a lot of odd stuff in here. For example, I found it almost offensive that there is a presumption in here that we are going to become a republic. That is by no means a foregone conclusion. I know that certain elements of the community would like us to become a republic, and I take no particular exception to that; but the debate has not even begun, let alone been concluded. This document says:
Although Australia is a republic it still supports three tiers of government.
Who says that it is going to be a republic? Under the heading "Canberra 2003" it says:
The euphoria of the Republic lives.
There are major presumptions here; first of all, that the bulk of our population will opt for a republic, and, secondly, that it can be achieved in the sort of timescale talked about here. That is the sort of thing that puts a question mark about the validity of the report. I am not saying that we will not be a republic.
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