Page 2015 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 24 October 1989
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industrial arbitration and the rest. It then states how the party moved on to other things. The headings in the encyclopaedia are "Rise and Fall", "The Split and Afterwards" and so on. So I trust that, in the early days of the Residents Rally reorganisation, the Deputy Chief Minister will realise that if he wishes to get through some of this socially necessary industrial type of legislation he should recall the necessity to work with the whole of the Assembly and cease his divisive comments and the attempt today to exploit what has been a settling activity in the Residents Rally.
MRS GRASSBY (Minister for Housing and Urban Services) (9.48): I rise to respond to some of the things I just heard Mr Collaery say. The Labor Party may have had many rises and falls, but it is still here after many years. The Labor Party was born on the backs of the unions and we have never forgotten that. That is the basis of our party and that is why we are still here.
A member: They are on your back now, are they not?
MRS GRASSBY: No, they are not on our back. I am proud to say that I am a member of three unions. My father, who owned many businesses, always asked people before he employed them, "Do you belong to the union?". If they did not, he said, "Well, you know, I cannot employ you". When they could not understand that, he said, "If you cannot be true to your mates, you will not be true to me". I am not afraid to say that I am proud to belong to a union and to be part of it.
I point out that the Labor Party has been around a long time. I cannot remember how many names the Liberal Party has had, but there have been many over the years. I always remember the lovely saying attributed to Billy Hughes. He was asked, "You said you once belonged to many parties, Mr Hughes, but I notice you have never joined the National Party". He probably would never have joined the Residents Rally either. He replied, "A man has got to have some respect, hasn't he?"
I hope, Mr Collaery, that at the end of as long a period as the Labor Party has existed you will be able to say that the Residents Rally still exists. But if you keep losing your members at the rate you are losing them now, I am not sure you will be able to do that.
Mr Humphries talked about education. I am a member of the Southern Cross Club and the thing that worries me is that, very often when people talk about education, they are saying that workers do not really need education. The attitude is: "We will look after you; do not worry about it". I have heard that story before. It is a great line among people in business. They say, "We will look after you; do not worry about it; we will educate you". The trouble is they do not educate people, they do not tell them about the faults in the workplace.
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