Page 1312 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 5 April 2005
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willingness to mix with people. Just by the very body language of the person, he was able to get through that he was a person that genuinely was concerned for all of humankind.
He has been the pope through a period, I think, where particularly Western religions struggled a bit to hold, on one hand, to traditional beliefs in a world where there is change, a world of discovery and a world where we have come to understand more of our origins and more of the whole universe that surrounds us—a time when conditions in the world have changed; where we do face problems with overpopulation; where we do face problems in just feeding ourselves and in overuse of arable land; and of course the AIDS pandemics and other problems that arise from time to time and test fundamental beliefs.
I expect that, in the years to come, the world will continue to change and religions will change. Certainly from my time when I went off to mass as a school kid and the very few times that I go there now, there is just a world of difference. I have to watch the people around me to know when to jump up and sit down and all that. And the rules have all changed. I expect that change will occur again. I think Cardinal Pell was predicting another conservative was likely to replace John Paul II. But I think that it will be inevitable that there be some adaptation to the conditions of today and tomorrow.
But all that being said, for the man, John Paul II, I am relatively certain that he will be, on balance, remembered kindly by history, remembered for his support and his work in relation to the freedom of Poland and the breaking down of the communist bloc and for his obvious humanity and ability to communicate.
Question resolved in the affirmative, members standing in their places.
Naval helicopter crash in Indonesia
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Minister for Arts, Heritage and Indigenous Affairs): I move:
That the Assembly expresses its profound sorrow at the death of nine Australians in a helicopter accident in Indonesia and tenders its heartfelt sympathy and condolences to the families, colleagues and friends in their bereavement.
Mr Speaker, these deaths are especially poignant because of the circumstances in which they occurred. There is special sorrow reserved for those who, in coming to the aid of others, become victims themselves. It is worth reflecting that, for most of our history as a nation, apart from a few, thankfully brief albeit bloody and destructive periods of war, coming to the aid of others has been the main vocation of our servicemen and women. Some of our most enduring and iconic images of our service personnel are drawn from places other than the field of battle. They are images of men and women sandbagging river banks, distributing food and blankets, comforting a stricken child.
This was the proud legacy of assistance and comfort that the nine men and women of the HMAS Kanimbla were continuing in Nias at the time of their deaths. The nine were on a flight to a village on the remote west coast of Nias, transporting emergency medical help to locals affected by a massive earthquake. The HMAS Kanimbla, on which the ill-
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