Page 498 - Week 02 - Thursday, 3 March 1994
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MR MOORE (3.42): I wish to make a comment or two on this motion, Madam Speaker. One of the disadvantages of moving from this particular site is that we are going to lose a rather significant address - 1 Constitution Avenue. As far as I am concerned, that has always been a very sensible address.
Ms Follett: We can fix it if you want to keep the address. Do you want to keep it?
Mr Connolly: We will just change the street names.
MR MOORE: Already I hear Ministers making suggestions about changing - - -
Mr Cornwell: Michael, why don't you stay here and the rest of us will move?
MR MOORE: I would be happy to do that, provided the Assembly as such stayed here as well. Madam Speaker, we will be moving closer to the statue of Ethos. The dictionary that Mr Stevenson keeps on his desk, the Shorter Oxford Dictionary - a big upgrade in standard, I must say, from the old dictionary - defines "ethos" as "the prevalent tone or sentiment of a people or community". Moving closer to Ethos is in fact an appropriate time for us to think about how we can all improve the way we operate in terms of the prevalent tone and sentiment - the ethos - of the Assembly as part of the ethos of the community. Madam Speaker and members, thank you for the opportunity to say those few words.
MR HUMPHRIES (3.44): Madam Speaker, I also wanted to say something sentimental and syrupy about this chamber that we are in today, but I am afraid that I have racked my memory of experiences in this building over the last five years and I really cannot find anything much very lyrical to say about this building. This chamber carries with it - indeed the whole building carries with it - the air of temporariness which it had on self-government day, when it was quickly put together after the ACT gained self-government, and it really has not improved very much since that time. So, in a sense, I will not be sorry to see this building behind me, and I will be glad to see the new building, even if it is still in the process of being built. I am sure that it will be a better building.
Ms Follett: We are going anyway.
MR HUMPHRIES: I certainly take the Chief Minister's point, and I will be going with her. Madam Speaker, I was present in 1988 when the Senate chamber was used for the very last time. That was a quite sentimental day, because that was a much older chamber than this one is.
Mr Berry: You have lost this argument, Gary. We are not going over there.
MR HUMPHRIES: If I convinced you, I would be very worried, Mr Berry, so I am quite happy to know that. The occasion of decommissioning the old Senate chamber was marked by a female Labor senator rising and dancing on the table between the Opposition and Government benches. If Ms Follett, Mrs Grassby or some other member of the Opposition - perhaps you, Madam Speaker, or Ms Ellis - would like to - - -
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