Page 2546 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 15 November 1989
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why he is allowing his good nature and his loyalty to be exploited in this way. He probably knows that his presence on this committee is, like his presence on the casino committee would have been, against his better judgment and against all his better instincts. He should also recognise there is nothing more to be said about the casino.
Despite Dr Kinloch's zeal, which I respect entirely, the Rally has been outvoted. They have lost the cause. The casino is going ahead despite them, despite me, despite the eager but small opposition. All that can be achieved is a last gasp of protest. All that this committee provides the Rally with is the opportunity to push one more time for some recognition of its casino policy. All that they are likely to achieve is some disruption of the committee's proceedings followed by a final, small, uncompromising voice of dissent against recommendations framed in the political reality that a casino decision has been made.
Is this their agenda? Is this what they are hoping for? If so, what are we to say about their view of the committee system? Is this committee - is any committee - something to be toyed with to ensure that one party has its petulant way? Is it something to be tampered with somewhere along the way to suit the whims of individual members, or should it be left to do the job that was asked of it? Is it to become the forum for one member to intrude his personal convictions, however genuine they might be?
I have shared offices with the members of the "President's Rally"; I have worked with them. Try as I might, I was often unable to share in the way they discovered improbable political advantage in the strangest and most obscure manoeuvres, so I cannot be certain about what the answers are. All I can say is that, without some entirely innocent and rational explanation, this Assembly is entitled to question to motives behind Mr Jensen's attempt to ensconce his colleague on the cultural affairs committee.
The most generous interpretation to place on this motion is that it is the product of spite and rancour, another descent by the Rally into the politics of personality. If we cannot allow the Rally that, we will be forced to conclude that it is motivated by a contemptuous attitude towards me, towards the other members of the cultural affairs committee, towards the committee system, and ultimately therefore towards the Assembly.
Either way, it is a monumental error of judgment. Clearly, since my departure the Rally members are bereft of someone to help protect them from themselves. I am not a vengeful person by nature, and if I must I will step into the breach yet again in the spirit of compromise. I am prepared to offer this solution. Dr Kinloch should be allowed to stick to his early and quite proper resolve not to become involved in committee deliberations touching on the casino. Mr Jensen is already on record as dissenting from the findings of the casino committee and might regard his
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