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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 114 ..

type attack very shortly and I trust that my own frontbench will be prepared for it. On the other hand, it could be that this may not happen. Perhaps some of them have some doubts about the legislation. I do not know; that is entirely up to them. But I do note that there have not been many contributors from the government bench.

Admittedly, much of what we have discussed tonight will not have a great effect. A great deal of it has been canvassed already: the fact that there are not many adoptions in the ACT, the fact that there are certain restrictions as to who can adopt and who cannot and the question of whether both parents agree to an adoption. So, to some extent, Mr Stanhope’s legislation is tokenistic.

That brings me to a question that I believe needs to be canvassed in a more general sense. I refer to a letter which was sent on 22 November and which was headed “ACT government’s obsession with gay issues”, although it covers more than that. I quote:

I grew up in Canberra and so take an interest in how Canberra has developed socially and politically over the past 10 years. I am slightly perplexed and bemused by the ACT Government’s obsession with controversial issues such as same-sex adoption. Canberra has become famous around the country for seriously weird social standards—

Mr Hargreaves: Like graffiti.

MR CORNWELL: Yes, indeed, Mr Hargreaves! Yes, indeed! The letter continues:

It loves prostitution, X-rated videos, heroin trials and now gay people being able to adopt children, and yet hates circuses—in case any animals get hurt, and hates people having the choice of smoking in clubs. It seems to this observer, that the ACT Government simply does not have enough to do. Whilst other local governments around the country worry about fixing holes in the road, and building schools and developing economic opportunities, the ACT Government must be so thoroughly bored that it feels it must tinker with the very fundamentals of human existence. Once upon a time this was left to individuals’ philosophical and religious choices—now it seems that Mr Stanhope and his ‘Curia’—

I would rather use the term “comic turn”—

see themselves as dictators of social and moral standards. I hope and pray that Canberrans can muster up enough energy to really confront the idiocy of your leaders.

I think that is an interesting comment.

Mr Stanhope: Who wrote that, Greg?

MR CORNWELL: A person called Cathy Ransom sent it as an email. You probably would not have read it, Mr Stanhope. It raises the serious question, however, of what this government is all about because it appears to me that it is desperately keen to be progressive on anything. The point about the “seriously weird social standards” that Cathy Ransom makes is a reasonable question. I also think that other local governments around the country worry about fixing holes in the road.

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