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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 01 Hansard (Tuesday, 10 February 2004) . . Page.. 117 ..

everybody else with a different attitude is wrong. I guarantee that in this chamber right now there are few, if any, people who would want to modify or interfere with the way you live. However, by sheer coincidence, there are a number of you in here that would pour scorn on the way others live. That is not a tolerant society.

By the schoolyard bullying example you used, you want, effectively, to institutionalise that form of bullying—“If you’re not by our values, you’re wrong.” You are virtually saying that those kids deserve to be bullied. You should have been on your feet saying that the problem is these bullies probably live with parents that are giving them the wrong values, the intolerant values, and they are taking that intolerance to the schoolyard. That is a problem.

You talked about what the majority of Canberrans want. That is just a claim rather than anything that you could prove numerically. I did have the privilege many years ago—in the 1970s—to be in the same room as Peter Wilenski, who spent some time reforming the Australian public service and attitudes in the public service. The particular problem then was gender inequity in terms of employment opportunity. Wilenski said, and he was right, “To get any change in society, first you must legislate, then you educate.”

There would not be anybody in this place now who would argue against equal employment opportunity, but if we took you lot back 50 years ago, you would be arguing against it because you still have this model family. You would have Bill’s family of the little woman and the stern man. You would have Mr Pratt saying, “Send the boys out and give them hard labour,” and, “They need the old man to come home and give them a smack. They need stern bloody discipline occasionally when the old man comes home.”

MR SPEAKER: Order! Mr Quinlan, please direct your comments through the chair.

MR QUINLAN: My apologies, Mr Speaker. We have heard it said that this is the proper way, that these are fundamental principles, that this is the appropriate way. We have heard reference to moral fibre and sanctity in this place. What that does distil down to is intolerance. There is only one difference between the two sides in this argument, that is, acceptance.

Mrs Dunne: You’re right and we’re wrong, or the other way round.

MR QUINLAN: That’s the way you think, Mrs Dunne, isn’t it? That is exactly the way you think. It is either black or white. That’s the problem. There is one difference in this debate, that is, whether you accept that people are different. Decent people are different from you. Different people have different values. They are still law-abiding people that fit into society, but have different values and you will not accept it. We will.

Mr Cornwell: You don’t have to legislate for it, Mr Quinlan.

MR QUINLAN: In your case, Mr Cornwell, I think we do.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Health and Minister for Planning) (9.07): I am very pleased to rise in the chamber this evening to give my support to this very important piece of reform. Mr Speaker, when I first joined the Australian Labor Party—and I made a conscious decision to join the Labor Party; it was not some natural evolution of my

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