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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2001 Week 10 Hansard (30 August) . . Page.. 3880 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

For Mr Osborne, there's a course in family planning, with specific accent on cause and effect.

To Mr Moore goes an honorary doctorate in conflict resolution. After today's road to Damascus speech, it should reach the world as soon as is possible.

To Mr Cornwell, I offer six months in the college of slovenly deportment. He looks too neat and he is a bit prissy-well, most of the time-so we need to round him down.

Mr Rugendyke will receive training for the police force entrance exam. We would like to see him rejoin a modern police force and escape the time warp he seems to be in with the force he left.

For Mrs Burke, there will be a scholarship to the school of kickboxing. The pollyanna image will not work for another period. You will get special tuition from Kate Carnell in the squirrel grip, and there will be motivational videos from Maggie Thatcher.

For myself, I am going off on a course of applied plausible interactive response prevarication, on the off-chance that I am re-elected and the ALP is in government. I will need it on the front bench. Prevarication means dissembling and probably making the same speech for 31/2 years.

I seriously thank all of the staff here, particularly the staff who have served me-Jeff House, Adrian Kirchner, Steve Ramsden, and Peter Madden, I consider myself lucky to have had those people serve me, particularly with the measly salary allowance I get to pay them.

Valedictory

MR HUMPHRIES (Chief Minister, Minister for Community Affairs and Treasurer) (10.49): By the way, this is not my Christmas speech, so Mr Quinlan has the floor to himself tonight on those sorts of matters.

We are all facing election in 51 days. At that election some of us will be retired by the electorate and others will retire under their own steam. In the latter category, of course, falls the minister for health, Michael Moore.

Mr Moore is one of the originals left in this place, one of the class of 1989, elected all that time ago last century. He has been elected four times to this place, each time coming from impossibly long distances behind to fall over the line at the last possible moment.

Despite being the last passenger on board the ship, however, on each occasion he has generally behaved more like the captain than a stowaway. Today, for example, when I arrived late at the joint government meeting, I found him sitting in the leader's seat. That is typical of the career of Michael Moore in many ways.

He has been a protagonist of issues. He has been a catalyst for change. He has been an iconoclast. He has been a tenacious foe over the years. He has been a master parliamentary tactician. He has been a stirrer from first till last.

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