Page 1020 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 25 February 2009
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MR SESELJA: As did the Chief Minister, indeed. Let us not forget that there is not unanimity in the Labor Party on this. It is not often that we agree with the Chief Minister, but we did see the Chief Minister make statements on this and I believe he said, “I don’t think it was the most-red hot decision.” I have a recollection of him using the term “red-hot” to describe the decision.
Mr Coe: It was red.
MR SESELJA: It was red. But we do need to go to that point. Mr Doszpot has raised a very legitimate concern. I think most of Mr Doszpot’s speech was about multiculturalism and the importance of it, the Multicultural Festival, and we can all support that. And we will agree, I think, on 80 or 90 per cent of issues around the multicultural community. We in the Canberra Liberals are very committed to multiculturalism in the territory. We see a reflection of it even in our own party room and we are very proud of that fact.
Members interjecting—
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER: Order, Mr Hanson! Order, Mr Hargreaves!
MR SESELJA: It is difficult, Madam Assistant Speaker, when Mr Hargreaves is throwing threats across the chamber as he does. We can laugh them off but it is hard sometimes to hear yourself. He does get very upset when anyone criticises him. He does get very upset.
The point that was made, and I think it was made very well, is that we do have a statue of a very divisive character. There is no doubt about it: he is a divisive character. There are some who love him but there are many in the community who believe that he was a person of ill repute. That is the reality. They are the conflicting views of Mr Grassby—there is no doubt about it—and I think that there is a legitimate concern, as expressed by the Chief Minister, in the community that such a divisive character would be honoured in this way.
As I say, he has his supporters and he has his defenders in the multicultural community, to be sure. But that does not mean that we as a community should be honouring someone who is so divisive. It must be said that there were serious and legitimate criticisms of some of the things he did in his public life. Irrespective of whether that could be proven in criminal defamation or not, that does not mean that this is a person who has to be honoured by the taxpayer.
There is some level of rewriting of history to suggest that Al Grassby is somehow the father of multiculturalism. I do not accept that and I think there are many in the multicultural community and more broadly that do not accept that he is the father of multiculturalism. They may give him his dues for some things that he did—they may well give him his dues for some positives that he did—but I think it is stretching the truth to suggest that he is the father of multiculturalism in the way that the Labor Party here in the ACT, or at least part of the Labor Party here in the ACT, wants to assign to him.
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