Page 3996 - Week 12 - Thursday, 20 October 2005
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MR SPEAKER: No, I do not want you to respond. This is a resolution of continuing effect that draws attention to the issues surrounding the naming of members of the community who ordinarily are not able to express their views in this place. I just ask you to read the resolution.
MR PRATT: I take note of your observation, Mr Speaker, and I will do that.
Mr Allan MacDonald
Mr Joseph Kuba
MS MacDONALD (Brindabella) (6.12): I had not intended to speak this evening, but I think it would be remiss of me not to and, for my own sake, note that 4 October 2005 had special significance to me and to my family, being the 20th anniversary of the death of my father and also the first anniversary of the death of my sister-in-law’s father.
Allan Hutchison MacDonald and Joseph Kuba were both wonderful men in their own communities and I just want to pay tribute to their memory and to the wonderful contributions that they made both to their families and to their society.
I have spoken in this place before about my father. In fact, in my first speech in this place I spoke about my dad, and even after 20 years I still find it difficult to believe that he has gone and not to get emotional about the fact that I cannot have a conversation with him. But it was a very big shock and, I suppose, very strange for me, my brother and my mother that my sister-in-law’s father also died on 4 October, 19 years after my father.
My nephew Jacob MacDonald observed, on the first anniversary of Joe’s death, that he believes that Joe and Allan have sought each other out and, having both been smokers in their lifetime, which of course was not good for their health, and both having enjoyed a beer, are probably having a smoke and a beer together. I would add to that that, as they both enjoyed fishing, they are probably sitting on the bank of a river having a smoke, a beer and a conversation about politics in former Eastern bloc Europe, Joe being of Czech descent and having escaped the communist then-Czechoslovakia, or in Australia, which was a topic of interest to my father. I just wanted to pay tribute to their memory.
Australian Railway Historical Society
Family relationship centres
MRS BURKE (Molonglo) (6.15): I have two positive things that I hope to end the day on. I will start with the Australian Railway Historical Society, which I believe have written to all members who wrote and lobbied for the society’s tenure in Kingston. In the September issue of their magazine they said they were “delighted to advise a positive development in relation to the society’s tenure of our Canberra Railway Museum site”. They said they were a little nervous and concerned at that time although they expressed gratitude and thanks to the planning minister, Mr Corbell, that “the government now realised the lack of tenure was a serious problem with our Kingston Museum site”. They said that there was talk at that stage of their being given “a conditional lease on the site (not a licence) for at least 10 years, and probably 20 years”.
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