Page 589 - Week 02 - Thursday, 19 February 2015
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… Mr Abbott’s personal support has also undergone a savage hit after his disastrous decision to award Prince Philip a knighthood …
Voters’ outrage over Mr Abbott’s knighthood folly is underlined by the Galaxy finding that 70 per cent of Australians disapprove of the decision.
Just 14 per cent of Australians support his “captain’s call” which horrified his own … backbenchers.
Madam Deputy Speaker, I now go to the local Canberra Times, which, under the heading “Abbott’s knighthood decision for Prince Philip adds fuel to the republican debate”, said:
At worst it shows hubris rather than mature collaboration with colleagues; ideology rather than pragmatism; unreconstructed old-fashioned values rather than being open to modern Australia.
The question that the Chief Minister, through this motion, puts forward is quite simple. It simply asks this Assembly, through the Speaker, to write to the Prime Minister to convey the Assembly’s position on this matter. It is a simple question. With 70 per cent of Australians, according to this article, disapproving of that decision, it is fair and reasonable to assume that many fellow members of this community, fellow Canberrans, also disapprove of this decision. And it is right and proper for the Canberra Liberals to have a view, the same as it is for other members of the community. But it is also right and proper for the community to be very clear and to know what that view is.
Through this motion we may get an understanding of the views of Mr Hanson and the Canberra Liberals on this matter. I ask him to support this because, according to one Galaxy poll, 70 per cent of Australians disapprove of this decision. So it is right and proper to understand that people in our community are unhappy with that decision and call on this Assembly to express their views. I call on members of this Assembly to support without hesitation the motion moved by the Chief Minister.
Visitor
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Lamont, a former Deputy Chief Minister of this place, is with us. We welcome him to this place this morning.
Order of Australia
Debate resumed.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.55): It is great to hear Ms Burch quoting favourably from the Canberra Times to start her speech. Yesterday I thought it was the instrument of evil—the devil’s words—but now, apparently, when it suits her purpose, the Canberra Times gets it right. So there is a curiosity there. What Ms Burch in her speech has done is simply confirm what Mr Hanson said: this is just a wedge issue; we all get this. CityNews got it right with their headline, “Barr moves to wedge Hanson on knighthoods”.
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