Hansard debates

  Hon. BILL FORWOOD  (Templestowe)  -- Mr Deputy  President, I believe that  the
Governor's Speech yesterday was an accurate  and forceful representation  of the
problems facing Victoria  today;  it  was also a statement of the direction that
the people of Victoria requested that  this  government  take in the years ahead
and for which they gave an overwhelming mandate on 3 October.
I am proud  to  respond to His Excellency's  Speech.  I am also  both  proud and
humble to have  been  elected by the people of Templestowe Province to represent
them in this  52nd Parliament  of Victoria.  I am  proud that  the Liberal Party
chose me  to represent it at the  election and I am conscious of the fact that I
got not one vote because of who I am, but rather that the party which I have the
honour to represent was the recipient.

I would like to thank my four colleagues from the other place: Mr  Vin Heffernan
from Ivanhoe, Mr David  Perrin in  Bulleen, Mr Victor Perton in Doncaster and Mr
Wayne Phillips in Eltham for their  support and assistance during  the campaign,
and likewise my friend and colleague the Honourable Bruce Skeggs.
It is 25 years since  the first  member of  Templestowe Province  was elected to
this place. The Honourable Vasey Houghton gave his maiden speech in October 1967
at the commencement of a long and distinguished career as  a  Parliamentarian, a
local  member and especially as a Minister, before his retirement in 1985.I  was
fortunate that he called into my  office in  Eltham last week. I greatly enjoyed
our conversation. He is  a man of humanity, openness and vigour -- all qualities
which I  believe go towards becoming a rounded human being and a contributor  in
our society. I look forward to many further conversations with him.

The  second  member   of  Templestowe  Province  was  Sir  Raymond  Garrett,   a
distinguished  former President of  this  House. May I  take this opportunity to
congratulate  the  President on his election to this high office, an  office  in
which I am sure he  will continue in the  fine tradition established by so  many
former Presidents, including Sir Raymond.
Sir Raymond continues to live in the electorate which he represented and which I
now have the  honour  to serve and I  look forward, also, to spending  time with
him. In his maiden speech he said:
  My view is that we, as legislators, should try to do the greatest good for the
  greatest amount of people.
I fully endorse those sentiments.

As I said, I am honoured to follow in the footsteps of such fine Liberal members
of the Templestowe Province and I pledge myself to uphold  the high  standard of
service and duty set by my predecessors.
As a slight  aside, I have always valued the word  pledge . It is not a word  of
everyday occurrence but it is a word pregnant with meaning. It is strange for me
to see its current use these days -- the 1988
election campaign for example -- or even its use  in a more immediate context as
a descriptive  term  for  part of  the  administrative structure  of  honourable
members opposite.
I have been fortunate in my life to have had the opportunity to work and live in
the  country and in the city, primarily in  Melbourne but  also in  Adelaide and
Canberra.

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I also  lived for  some years  in the Northern Territory and  have developed,  I
hope,  an  understanding  of  some  of the  north-south  issues,  which are  not
particularly apparent to the vast majority  of Australians who live primarily on
the eastern seaboard.
I hope and trust that each of the locations in which I have lived, together with
the people I have got to know, have broadened  my outlook and that that  process
will enable me to bring to this place an attitude that is receptive to new ideas
and to the views of others.
I am conscious that I represent all the electors  in Templestowe  Province. As a
fundamental proposition,  I  believe that people  of goodwill, operating  from a
sound philosophical and economic viewpoint, and given accurate information,  are
more likely than not to act in the broad common interest.

As a farmer I was involved in the start of the process of creating a viable farm
unit from scratch. We started in 1975.  Seventeen  years  later, with hard work,
intelligence and  a love  for the land, a truly fine property has been  created.
That land has been developed with care and an understanding of  what is possible
and right.
I subscribe to  the view  that in  Australia today  the farming community is the
most environmentally  conscious part of our  society. After all, a farmer's land
is  his  or her prime  asset,  one which must be  nurtured  to be productive.  I
enjoyed farming, especially the sense  of community that is  possible in country
areas.  I am  concerned, however,  at how little city people know about  life in
rural  areas.  There are not many  votes  out there, and  I  think that  country
people are disadvantaged by some governments because of that.

I hope that although I represent  a city province I will be able  to advance the
cause of rural Victoria.
  Honourable Members -- Hear, hear!

  Hon. BILL FORWOOD --  I was fortunate to work  for some years in  the Northern
Territory.  Although I was there for a couple of years before Cyclone Tracy hit,
I went  back  for my main stint in 1980, some  18 months after the assumption of
full self-government.  I participated  in a  very minor way in the early days of
that  bout of renewed development in the north. In many ways I draw a comparison
between the task in the Northern Territory then, in  building a  society for the
first time after  years of benign neglect by successive Federal governments, and
the task of rebuilding that faces Victoria today.

It was in the Northern Territory that I first  became a Liberal because I wanted
to have my say in the  progress that was being made. It is of great regret to me
that southern Australia  has no vision for  the  north. It is my  view  that the
careful, rational  and controlled development of northern Australia should  be a
national project and that,  as such, it would benefit all Australians. I believe
that some initiatives by Victoria  in  that  area  would  repay  our  efforts  a
thousandfold,  especially  if  we  used  an  association  with  the north  as  a
springboard into Asia.
During  my time in the Northern Territory I  worked on  a number  of development
projects, the latest  of  which was the Seven Spirit Wilderness, which last week
was  the winner of  the 1992 Australian Tourism  Industry Association award  for
best resort. Seven Spirit Wilderness is on Aboriginal land  and  in  a  national
park.  It provides the  quintessential wilderness experience.  Rex Hunt and Tony
Lockett are up there fishing today.

I worked closely on  that project with traditional  Aboriginal elders, who  have
become  my  friends.  I worked  with  the environment unit  of  the conservation
commission, with  builders  and  with  shippers  and the like. It is possible in
Australia, and in Victoria, for difficult things  to  be done for mutual benefit
and for the common good. I pledge  myself to  continue to  strive for excellence
during my time as a servant of the Victorian people.
As  always in circumstances such as  these there are many people to thank and to
congratulate. I  congratulate the Ministers on  their appointments. I  thank the
staff of the House  for the assistance they  have  given me since I  arrived. In
particular, I wish to thank many friends and supporters across the board in  the
Liberal Party, who have been true friends to me since I arrived in 1987.
Finally, I thank my family, especially my wife, Anne,  and my  children who have
supported, encouraged

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and put up with me during the good times and difficult times.
I also  thank my mother, Bettie, and my late father, Archie, who instilled in me
a  sense of  Christian  values,  of  service and  of  what  it  means to  be  an
Australian. Fifty years  ago my  father was  at El  Alamein fighting for what he
believed in and with a faith in Australia as a nation of the future. I know that
he would have been delighted to have been here today.
I think he would  have liked even more to have been with Anne and me last Sunday
when, among the apple blossoms at Merricks, we attended the wedding of Marty and
Stephanie  Kamener.  Neither was born  in  Australia. Marty's  parents,  Bob and
Renate, emigrated to Australia from South Africa because of a deep  loathing for
the   political  system  there.   Their  social   conscience  has  significantly
contributed to their new nation. Stephanie is a cockney of West  Indian heritage
who chose to come here and to become an Australian citizen.

She is also a  very fine chef. Their wedding was attended by friends  and family
from all over Australia, from Israel and from the United Kingdom.
One special  guest  was  Vai  Stanton, a Kungarakung and Gurindji woman from the
Northern Territory. Marty has been working on an oral history with Vai, who is a
mine of information  about Aboriginal history  and culture, and especially about
relationships with  long socks , the Aboriginal  name for the white  bureaucrats
who were in charge of native welfare as it then was.
Vai was an adviser to Bill Hayden, now the Governor-General,  on social security
in the early 1970s and is currently the coordinator of my namesake, FORWAAD, the
Foundation of Rehabilitation with  Aboriginal Alcohol Related  Difficulties. Her
office was in Charles Street, and I lived nearby  in Eden Street and, because of
the similarity  between  my name and  FORWAAD,  we swapped  telephone  calls  on
irregular basis.

On Sunday Vai gave a small  gift of paperbark to Marty  and Stephanie. She said,
You are  part of  my tribe;  come back . A traditional Aboriginal elder and  two
people from very  different backgrounds who  had  chosen to make  Victoria their
home  were  among  a  truly cosmopolitan group  of  friends.  This,  to  me,  is
Australia, and Victoria, at its best. It is something we should strive to create
as  we  go  about  the  important  business  of  rebuilding  Victoria,  for  all
Victorians, and making it a productive, vibrant and fair society. Thank you.
  Honourable Members -- Hear, hear!