Page 3964 - Week 10 - Thursday, 28 August 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
During the First Assembly, I got a reputation—I do not know if it was really well deserved—for being a bit of a law-and-order merchant. Mr Speaker, I think you nicknamed me “Hang Them High Bill And Take Away Their Skateboards”. That probably had something to do with me introducing the very sensible move-on powers. I remember Paul Whalan, when he was in here, saying: “You watch, mate. If you get these through, I reckon one of my sons is going to be the first one moved on.” Sure enough; that happened. Paul said, “I told you so.” One of the other things was dry areas and stopping people drinking inappropriately in certain places. I am pleased to see that continue—as do the move-on areas. In fact that has been refined by Mr Corbell quite recently, which is good to see. Good legislation stands the test of time.
I had responsibilities in government for police, justice, sport, recreation and racing. I got to know the local sporting community really well. I was delighted to have a few little ticks in the box there, in particular being instrumental, with Jim Roberts and Harry Marr, in setting up ACTSport, the peak lobby group of sport. I am pleased to see that that continues to this day.
Following the Second Assembly, some of the colourful characters departed. We got more into stable government. There were not changes of government every six months or so. The place became much more predictable, possibly more boring. It certainly changed a bit.
It was quite exciting when there was a change of government for the Third Assembly and Fourth Assembly, with my colleague Kate Carnell becoming Chief Minister. I had the honour, the privilege and the pleasure to be a minister in her government. That was a great experience. I had not had a huge amount of experience in some of the areas before. Education—yes, I had gone to school; that helped. It was an interesting experience being the education minister. In being housing minister, I found having done a fair bit of legal aid work as a solicitor handy. There were also children and family services and sport and recreation in that third government.
I pay tribute to some great people in there, like Cheryl Vardon, who was the chief executive of education when I started, who was replaced by Fran Hinton, who I had a very long and pleasurable professional relationship with when she was CEO. While Cheryl was still the CEO and Fran the 2IC, I recall another initiative that I have been very proud of; that was physical education in our schools from kindergarten to year 10. There were 33 people on my committee, including Roberta McRae from the Labor Party and Kerrie Tucker from the Greens, so it had everyone. It was a bit big, but we got almost a consensus in the end.
The department did not like it. I can remember Fran, as 2IC, trying to talk me out of it and Cheryl tugging her saying: “Fran. No, no. Fran, look, the minister really wants this.” So Fran went, “Fair enough,” and off we went. It was great working with them and with the late Norm Fisher from the CIT. We got literacy and numeracy testing in for years 3 and 5 and then that was extended. We got compulsory IT and certificates for the year 10 students. There were some new schools. We closed very few schools, unlike some people I know, but there you go. So education was a great experience. I had the great privilege to be the minister and look after that for many years.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .