Page 3977 - Week 10 - Thursday, 28 August 2008
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
everybody was behind you. Party politics are a little bit different from that. Nevertheless, it is a steeling experience.
As a Labor sympathiser, I joined the Labor Party when Australia decided to break out of the political doldrums in the 1970s and it seemed to me a time when the tool of working people was primed to make a difference. Canberra was the place to be as the political process devoured Fraser. Hawke came along and the debate about self-government proceeded.
As the First Assembly election loomed, I was approached by a group of left union colleagues who said to me that they wanted me to stand for the election, which came as a bit of a surprise. I wondered why they did not want to stand themselves. They said, with great speeches that would almost bring you to tears, that this was to bring to the Assembly a focus on ordinary working Canberrans and to campaign for the things that mattered to them. I was sort of convinced by that. And I was not sure whether it was a vote of confidence in my political skills or whether it was really the fact that none of them wanted to do it because they did not quite know what was in store for them. And neither did I. They know who they are and I hope that they are content with the outcome.
Tonight is a night for boasts. They are self-satisfying and I am just not going to miss the chance tonight. You do not get a chance to boast about everything very often. There are many things to talk about and there is far too little time to do it. But I will have a bit of a boast. I trust that these things have improved life for a lot of people.
I start from the beginning: the establishment of a health promotion fund from tobacco taxes and the funding for the first Aboriginal health service in the ACT. I have to say that a lot of these things have not stayed the same; they have been improved; and they will be changed. They were just my go at them, which I enjoyed and was very excited about.
There was the first smoke-free areas legislation. I remember tangling with Richard over here over tobacco issues when he was working for the Hotels Association, I think. Richard would have noticed then that I was pretty passionate about this and I have stayed that way ever since.
There was a sports advisory panel and a Tuggeranong pool, Bill. We were in the same business, this pool building. I do remember the struggles in cabinet to get the money for it because in those days we did not have much and Rosemary Follett rightly wanted to spend the money somewhere else more wisely, she thought. I thought differently but eventually the money was found and the pool was built and it was ready to be opened. I had gone through all of the stuff you go through in building these things and Rosemary wanted to open it. I got the picture, but I had to take my clothes off to do it.
There was the Mental Health Advisory Council. Ros Kelly had a shot at me. She said, “You would do anything to get your picture in the paper.” That coming from Ros!
Our first hospice, that was an interesting time. We struggled against all sorts of adversity there but it happened. I notice the Woden Valley hospital has been recently
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .