Page 1558 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 7 May 2008
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in all the people that I have spoken to who has a good word to say for the land rent scheme. Last night somebody—a lawyer—said to me, “Look, I have seen the process go through the law society. There is some benefit to people who would otherwise be in government housing. There is the slight chance that people in that very narrow window of people who may be able to get themselves out of government housing if they do not have to buy a block of land or if they only have to buy the house or build the house may be able to do it. But what that actually means,” she said to me, “is that really it is cost shifting from the government, which should perhaps be providing government housing or community housing. They are shifting that cost onto poor people.”
The consensus of people who understand the land rent proposals as put forward by the Chief Minister know that it will not work. The young people to whom it is directed are suspicious of the notion, and they know that Jon Stanhope is not looking after their best interests.
At 6.00 pm, in accordance with standing order 34, the debate was interrupted and the resumption of the debate made an order of the day for the next sitting. The motion for the adjournment of the Assembly was put.
Adjournment
Holocaust
MR MULCAHY (Molonglo) (6.00): I am glad to be speaking on the topic of the Holocaust as a follow-up to Holocaust Remembrance Day which was held last Wednesday, while the Assembly was in recess. This is an important event to ensure that our memories of the horrors which have occurred in recent human history are preserved forever as a warning to future generations. I, along with several other members of the Assembly, was fortunate last Wednesday to be able to attend a ceremony for this remembrance at the National Jewish Centre to pay my respects to the victims of the Holocaust and to contemplate the horror of this terrifying event in human history.
It is truly difficult to comprehend the full horror of the Holocaust, even though it is an era that is still within the living memory of many in our community. It is truly difficult to comprehend the suffering and loss of life that was part of that horrible chapter in history. Even the photographs of mass graves, which give us a vivid image of this depravity, fail to capture the sheer magnitude of this horrendous period during which many millions of people were brutally murdered in the pursuit of totalitarian ideals.
Thirty-one years ago, I visited Dachau. My visit there lasted little more than about five minutes because it was such a gut-wrenching experience. It was such a traumatic place to visit that I could not continue the visit to that memorial to those victims near Munich.
I have previously spoken on the Holocaust in a speech in February 2005, a month after I visited Berlin, on the occasion of the anniversary of the liberation of inmates at the Auschwitz concentration camp. It is a subject which we must reflect on from time
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