Page 2780 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 13 September 1994
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Mr Acting Speaker, I believe that it is important for the Assembly to note the tenor of the comments made by Marion Le in the Canberra Times of 7 September and again last Saturday. As she pointed out, it would be all too easy to blame John Newman's death on Asians as a whole and use it as an excuse to start some sort of racially based vendetta. This would be an entirely inappropriate reaction, and one which would fly in the face of the principles for which John Newman stood.
Mr Acting Speaker, John Newman's dedication to the people of Cabramatta was unquestioned. He stood for equal access to the law for all his constituents and he sought to bring about circumstances in which that would be the case. While it is perhaps ironic that his assassination should be the first murder recorded in Cabramatta since 1992, I am sure that we all applaud his unstinting work for his constituents and deplore the tragic circumstances of his death. I support the motion and I extend my condolences and those of my colleague, Mr Moore, to his family and friends.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Acting Speaker, I want briefly to add my support for this motion as well. In a sense, the person that John Newman was is not important in this debate. The importance is the symbolic nature of his death. It represents, I think, the encroachment on a principle of non-violent political activity in this country which, at least to my knowledge, has not been encroached upon previously. There have been in the past in Australia cases of individuals who have been the subject of political violence, of course. Members will recall, for example, an assassination attempt on Arthur Calwell in the 1960s, and an attempt on the life of a son of Queen Victoria in the last century. So, political violence, unfortunately, is not a new thing in this country. What is new, to a large extent, is an attack on and, in fact, the murder of a serving Australian politician. That, as far as I am aware, is an entirely new phenomenon, and it is a matter, I think, of great concern to everybody who values the way in which Australian politicians operate within the Australian society.
The fact of life is, Mr Acting Speaker, that Australian politicians at all levels are extraordinarily vulnerable people. We do not, as in other countries, ride around in bulletproof limousines. We do not, with only a couple of exceptions, travel with bodyguards. We live lives which are associated with and are very much part of the fabric of our respective communities. The result of that is that we are necessarily vulnerable to these sorts of attacks. It is, I think, despite the sadness of this occasion, a matter of some consolation to us all that, in 200 years or so of white settlement in Australia, at least, this is the first such occasion on which this kind of political violence in this form has taken place.
As Mrs Carnell has indicated, we should value the principle that political dialogue in this country can take place in a relatively non-violent way, and that acts of this kind, particularly against elected representatives, are extremely rare. I hope, as we all assess the reaction of the Australian community to this particular murder, that it will remain an event of great rareness in our community.
Question resolved in the affirmative, members standing in their places.
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