Page 652 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 4 July 1989
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people, the very themes we are on about tonight, the very themes of citizen Duby's motion. On 4 July 1776, in the old State House in Philadelphia, a resolution penned by Thomas Jefferson, amended by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and two other colleagues, passed on 2 July, was accepted on 4 July and proclaimed by the Second Continental Congress. I make no apology for reading this great passage. It means an enormous amount to me; I hope it will always mean a great deal to this Assembly. It is:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - that to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
MRS GRASSBY (Minister for Housing and Urban Services) (9.35): I rise also to support the motion, to support the Chief Minister and to support also Mr Wood who is, I agree, one of the hardest working members, since he seems to be on every committee, and I agree that he should be paid more. I think the Chief Minister once described him as being her entire back bench. He does such a wonderful job, and I think it is very important that it be recognised in this house just how much work he really does.
I have spent a lot of my life in and out of Canberra in the last 25 years, and I have also spent a lot of time living in other States and overseas, but it was here that I liked best. Now, following the implementation of self-government, which was a positive step in the right direction, it really is the best place for anybody to live. I have always prized the fact that I am a citizen of Australia, and until I came to Canberra I was always able to vote in State, municipal and Federal elections, thus having a say in all the levels of government.
But when I came to Canberra to live I was denied the right to a say in the way my taxes were to be spent. This made me very upset, and one of the very things for which I worked hard in the Labor Party, as did each one of the members here, was for us to have self-government and have the right to be in self-government. First of all, I want to thank the people of Canberra for voting for my party and, secondly, I wish to acknowledge the fact that many of our fellow Canberrans realised that there should be no taxation without representation. In fact, 80 per cent of the voters voted for self-government parties in the election.
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