Page 3966 - Week 10 - Thursday, 28 August 2008
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there and other governments accept it, if it stands the test of time, that means it must be good legislation.
In more recent times, I have been pleased to see some of the things that I have been bashing my head against a brick wall about, in terms of the criminal law especially, even starting to be realised by the current government. That includes improvements in sexual assault matters, making it easier for victims. It is good to see the government finally coming on board in areas like that, although I think they still need to be a little bit more serious in terms of fixing up the law in such things as sentencing, which has been a passion of mine for the last five or six years.
I look back on some great colleagues to work with. I pay tribute to colleagues in the Carnell ministry. Kate herself was an interesting person to work with—vivacious, very active. She was someone you could have an argument with, but if you had a good argument she would often accept your point of view. I found that she was excellent to work with and an outstanding Chief Minister. There is Gary Humphries, Senator Humphries now, who I have worked with for many years.
There is old Dipper De Dominico, Tony De Dominico. Incidentally, it was me in the big bin and the little dipper pushing the big bin rather than vice versa when we introduced wheelie bins. That was just to show you how very easy it was for anyone—even someone as small as Tony—to push a big lump like me in a wheelie bin. I want to correct that, because everyone thought it was the other way round. He was a good minister to work with.
In the Fourth Assembly, my colleague Brendan Smyth came in and later there was Michael Moore. Michael was an interesting character. He was colourful. He split from the Residents Rally, but in a very difficult situation he got himself elected at four different times. He came into our government with 39 points of difference, like the 39 steps. He exercised only three. I appreciated his support on things like the Belconnen pool—and even some of the tougher criminal law matters I had, which amazed me because I always thought he was a bit of a bleeding leftie. But there you go.
Kerrie Tucker I could pay tribute to. Kerrie was a good committee chair. She worried me immensely. She worried me immensely when I would go down there as the minister. She was always probing. She always had all sorts of points of view on issues. It was very different when we became the opposition and I worked as chair of the legal affairs committee with Kerrie and also with John Hargreaves. We all got on like a house on fire—to the extent that, when Kerrie was leaving the Assembly and had bought a block of land up at Numeralla, I was saying “Look, I’ll teach you how to shoot.” She said, “Right; I’ll come to the range with you.” Fortunately, we both got busy and we never got around to it. Kerrie Tucker wanted me to have a shoot, so that was good.
Since then, I have had the pleasure of working on that committee with Deb Foskey and Karin MacDonald. The committee structure in the Assembly is something that we should be especially proud of. We should not compromise it. The party politics come in—they come in sometimes far too much—but it is always good to see people from the government party go against what their government probably wants of the
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