Page 3767 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 17 October 1990
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Residents Rally
MR MOORE (4.43): I thought that in the adjournment debate, Mr Speaker, I might comment on a couple of matters that have appeared in the paper. The most recent of them is a letter by Dr Kinloch in this morning's paper. I decided not to comment on the sycophantic nature of the particular letter - some people have described it as gush - but rather to refer to some of the comments in it. It is a letter in which Dr Kinloch describes his colleagues Bernard and Norm as "men of idealism" or, to use Gus's term, "moral conscience". Of course, the only way the Residents Rally can get a letter like this in the paper is to write it themselves.
He was responding to an advertisement that Gus Petersilka put in the Canberra Times a little while ago, on 9 October, where Gus Petersilka suggested that if the other members of the Residents Rally themselves were realistic "they would concede that without Hector Kinloch there would be no Residents Rally in power". Depending on your definition of "power", if Gus Petersilka means power in the Assembly, well, that is simply nonsense. I think one could say that about Bernard Collaery certainly, or about me, certainly; but Dr Kinloch, as far as the Residents Rally and the political party are concerned, was an afterthought that was discussed between Mr Collaery and me for some time as to whether or not we would include him in the political party. When he did come in, of course, his contribution was significant. Gus Petersilka goes on in that advertisement to say:
Perhaps Hector should stand as an independent and give the voters a chance to show whether ...
and so forth. Well, of course, Hector will not be able to stand like an independent because he would not have anybody to tell him what to do in political terms - not to take away from his very strong stance on education. That brings me to this comment that he made in his letter:
All three of us are keenly involved in matters relating to education.
At an earlier point he talked about how they had followed their policies. I will just read this one: "The Rally remains committed to the idea of neighbourhood schools". The definition of "neighbourhood" is clearly set out in the Metropolitan Policy Plan and also in the Gungahlin Policy Plan of 1989; so they know what a neighbourhood school is. So the statement that "all three of us are keenly involved in matters relating to education" hardly seems true, Dr Kinloch, when Mr Collaery can say that they have no intention now of commenting on education matters, as I heard him say, I think on the radio, some time ago. When Mr Collaery closes the debate I would be delighted to hear how he will suggest what he has actually said and how he is going to take on that matter.
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