Page 2986 - Week 10 - Thursday, 16 August 1990
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DEATH OF REAR-ADMIRAL SIR DAVID JAMES MARTIN
MR COLLAERY (Deputy Chief Minister): Mr Speaker, I move:
That the Assembly expresses its deep regret at the death of His Excellency Rear-Admiral Sir David James Martin, KCMG, AO, and tenders its profound sympathy to his widow and family in their bereavement.
I do not think many words are needed today, which will be a day of great eulogies for this great Australian, other than for me to say briefly that those of us who saw that courageous man last Tuesday performing his last public functions with great courage would truly accept that this great son of Australia has fulfilled a great destiny for our nation. Mr Speaker, I commend the motion to the house.
MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition): We on this side of the house are happy to join with the Government in supporting this motion of condolence on the death of Rear-Admiral Sir David Martin. Sir David Martin had a very long and distinguished naval career. He served in Korea in the early part of his service with the Navy, and served until 1988. He had a great many distinguishing aspects to his career, including involvement with the Bicentenary and his association with the First Fleeters. He was a very distinguished Australian indeed and, I think, a very much loved Governor of New South Wales. With the death of Sir David Martin we have, indeed, lost a great Australian.
There is one other point that I would like to make, and that is that the disease which killed Sir David Martin was caused by asbestos contamination. It may be a tragic truth that it takes the death of a great and prominent man from a disease like this to bring into focus the great danger of people working with asbestos and to make us think of the very many other people in private enterprise, as well as in public employment, who have been exposed to asbestos and who have suffered painful and often untimely deaths.
When Sir David Martin died I think he was only 57 years of age, which is no great age for a person who led the kind of fit and active life that he did. I think it is a tragedy indeed that it was a product that he worked with - namely, asbestos - that brought about his untimely end. I hope that, if there is a lesson to be learnt from his death, it is that everybody who works with this product is at risk and that, as a community, as a society, we must take responsibility for that.
Question resolved in the affirmative, members standing in their places.
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