Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3046 ..

MR STANHOPE: It really is quite staggering to hear these interjections from the One Nation sorts of representatives over there.

MR SPEAKER: Do not respond to interjections, please, Mr Stanhope. They are out of order.

MR STANHOPE: This is the most wonderful coalition I have ever seen, Kerrie Tucker and Paul Osborne, the Greens-

Mr Kaine: And me. Don't leave me out. I think your position is untenable.

MR SPEAKER: Sit down, please, Mr Kaine.

MR STANHOPE: You want to be part of the party but you are not part of the coalition. I really am concerned when I see the rigorous Left and the outrageous Right combined on an issue. I do wonder what the agenda is.

Ms Tucker: Could it be we look at the issues and do not be so superficial, Mr Stanhope?

MR STANHOPE: Oh, be so superficial and so condescending, so holier-than-thou, so isolationist. I am looking at the issues.

Mr Osborne: He is embarrassed.

MR STANHOPE: I am not a bit embarrassed. I am not a bit embarrassed in relation to my attitude to human rights and my defence of human rights. I take the point that Mr Moore made; that we can disagree on these issues. I do disagree with those who think we should isolate ourselves from those whose practices and attitudes we disagree with. I do not agree-

Ms Tucker: We don't want to isolate. We don't want to congratulate.

MR SPEAKER: Order, Ms Tucker! Please.

MR STANHOPE: I do not approve of or support the attitude of the Chinese government and its repression of Tibet, or the crackdown on any sort of organisation or collectivisation. I do not support any of that, in China or anywhere else. I do not support mandatory sentencing, and it is an issue that I have pursued longer and harder in this place than anybody else.

I know that Mr Osborne supports mandatory sentencing and was not prepared to support a motion in this place condemning the governments of the Northern Territory or Western Australia. Mr Osborne does not condemn mandatory sentencing in the Northern Territory. I am prepared to engage with the people of the Northern Territory. I am not suggesting that we do not engage with them in any way.

There is a whole range of things I do not support. I do not support the fact that under the California mandatory sentencing regime one in every three black Americans is in prison. I do not support the fact that in Texas, over the last few years, there have been almost 300 executions, almost every single one of them being a black man. But not for one

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .