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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (27 February) . . Page.. 624 ..

MR SPEAKER: I do not think we are encouraging people to pick it, Mr Whitecross.

MR WHITECROSS: I was talking about growing it, not about picking it. It would be an offence to pick it because it is in a national park. It might have been nice if we had had a floral emblem that you could grow in any numbers in the city, where all the citizens of Canberra actually live.

Mr Berry: It grows on median strips.

MR WHITECROSS: If I can criticise a member of my own party, Mr Speaker, Mr Berry says that it grows on median strips, but Mr Berry is wrong. That is not the royal bluebell that grows on median strips; it is the common bluebell.

Ms Reilly: It is the republican bluebell.

MR WHITECROSS: That is right; it is the republican bluebell perhaps. I can understand that Mr Berry would overlook the royal bluebell. He is a republican, of course, and would turn a blind eye to the royal bluebell.

In terms of the use of these symbols of our Territory, a symbol that would live happily in the grasslands and woodlands of Canberra city might be a more appropriate floral emblem; but I accept that in 1982 this other floral emblem was adopted and that, therefore, as part of the formalities of this motion, it is appropriate to endorse it. I hope one day we will find an opportunity to reconsider this matter and perhaps come up with something that, for my part, would be a more living symbol of our city than the alpine flower we currently have.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General): Mr Speaker, on Tuesday I took on notice a question from Mr Osborne about the number of dogs registered in the ACT. I seek leave to have my answer to his question incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

Document incorporated at Appendix 3.

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