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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 12 Hansard (19 November) . . Page.. 3820 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

Mrs Carnell and Mr Humphries made the point that we are supporting a motion which is generally the same as that moved by the Prime Minister. I suppose the reason why the Prime Minister did not include a clause like that which exists at subparagraph (c) of the amendment proposed by the Leader of the Opposition is that the Feds already have it and do not have to. It should not be any trouble for us. The ALP announced its position on this issue early in the piece and Mrs Carnell was quick to say, "Me too". She put together a motion which subsequently found its way to the Assembly. It was made clear that that was the motion that was going to be moved in the Assembly, and here it is. The Leader of the Opposition has quite properly proposed a sensible amendment which ought to be adopted without dissent. I again say that I am disappointed that Mr Humphries has moved in the way that he has, and I indicate that the Labor Party will be opposing the proposal by Mr Humphries.

MR KAINE (10.38): Mr Speaker, I intend to be brief. I have said before on occasions in this place, Mr Speaker, that I am disappointed at some of the things that happen here, and tonight is one such occasion. The motion that was put forward by Mrs Carnell is based on such Australian fundamentalism that there should have been no debate about it. We should have voted on it almost without debate, except for contributions by one or two people to support the thought that is inherent in it. What have we had? We have had an hour-and-a-half of debate which seems to be based on the premise that some of us are more cultural than the rest, and those who came here within the last 40 years are more multicultural than the ones who came before that. Instead of us supporting the motion unanimously, the debate, to anybody who has been sitting aside and listening to it, has been based on the premise that there are huge divisions on this issue.

I submit, Mr Speaker, that we have come to the point where, if the people in this place really mean what this motion says, they should vote on it unequivocally, without qualification, without further circumlocution and without any more of this strange debate that we have had. They should simply convey to the community out there that the words that are in this motion are what we really mean without qualification. I would be much more gratified, and I think our community would be much more gratified, with this motion, if we were to do that right now and cut this debate off without further divisiveness.

MR OSBORNE (10.40): I am a little bit sad, having sat back for the last hour and listened to the political debate that has gone on in this Assembly. I would have thought that we were mature enough at least to have tried to be unanimous, without people trying to undermine the intent. It is very sad, Mr Speaker, that we even have to debate this issue. Unfortunately, we are doing so, and I will be very brief.

Mr Speaker, I would like to speak first on the Aboriginal reconciliation issue. Some of my closest friends are Aboriginal. I played football with a fellow called Ricky Walford, who I consider to be one of my closest friends. I spent many off-seasons up at Walgett with him. It is sad that some people, under parliamentary privilege, have taken an opportunity to attack him and his people. Mr Speaker, I was at the national prayer breakfast about a week-and-a-half ago and a speaker there, an Aboriginal pastor, related a story about himself as a child when he was living in a remote community in Western Australia. He was four years old. He and his sister were sitting under a tree near

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