Page 34 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 7 December 2004
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My family history also teaches me never to take such freedoms for granted. Calvin Coolidge wisely said that “Freedom is not only bought with a great price; it is maintained by unremitting effort.” Legislators have a particular responsibility to provide such unremitting effort.
Some say that the way to safeguard such freedoms is through a bill of rights. I disagree. I believe passionately in the rule of law and in the separation of powers. I believe that making laws is the responsibility of elected representatives and not un-elected judges. As a lawyer I am wary of handing over control of our most important freedoms to courts, lawyers and judges. I believe that if the community desires legislative change, the appropriate place is through the legislature, not the judiciary. This is because the legislature, unlike the judiciary, is directly accountable to the people through the ballot box. Of course the judiciary plays a crucial role in our system of government by interpreting the law. However, it is not the role of the judiciary to make the law.
I believe that the family is society’s most important institution. I am a strong believer that the ideal place for a child to be raised is with his or her mother and father. I would like to pay tribute to my parents and the family that they raised. Growing up at a time of soaring rates of family breakdown, I was blessed to be nurtured in a stable, loving family unit. My parents struggled to feed, shelter, clothe and educate their six children and I will be forever grateful for the sacrifices they made on my behalf.
Growing up in a large family taught me about loyalty, commitment and hard work, about fairness and equity, competitiveness and persistence. I also learned about the importance of protecting the vulnerable. Families in particular look after their youngest and most vulnerable members. This comes naturally to most people. The mark of a decent and just society is that it mirrors this ethic and protects its most vulnerable citizens. When a parliament strays from this principle by enacting unjust laws that do not protect the weak, it has failed in its most fundamental duty. While I am a member of this Assembly I will always strive to serve the interests of the weak and the vulnerable, those without voices and those who cannot protect themselves.
Education funding was a significant issue of the recent ACT election. Many have tried to categorise this debate about schools funding as a public versus private one. Some people unfortunately categorise it as a rich versus poor issue. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nationally, more than 30 per cent of students in private schools are from families with an income of less than $41,600 per annum.
My five siblings and I all attended Catholic schools in Canberra. My parents paid for this education, despite my father’s modest income, not because the facilities at these schools were necessarily superior to those of government schools but because what was taught at these schools was more closely aligned with their own beliefs. This is a decision that nearly 40 per cent of Canberra parents make. They deserve to be supported in making it. Yet, despite the fact that nearly 40 per cent of ACT school students attend non-government schools, the ACT government provides less than 10 per cent of its total current education expenditure to such schools.
Unless we believe the government knows better than parents what is good for their children—and I certainly do not—then it makes no sense to stifle this choice by
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