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12024 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY Wednesday 28 February 2001 ______ Mr Speaker (The Hon. John Henry Murray) took the chair at 10.00 a.m. Mr Speaker offered the Prayer. AUDITOR-GENERAL'S REPORT Mr Speaker tabled, pursuant to the Public Finance and Audit Act 1983, the report entitled "Auditor- General's Report 2001—Volume One". Ordered to be printed. ADDRESS TO HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR OF NEW SOUTH WALES Mr CARR (Maroubra—Premier, Minister for the Arts, and Minister for Citizenship) [10.02 a.m.]: I move: That the following Address be adopted by this House and forwarded to His Excellency: To His Excellency the Honourable Gordon Samuels, Companion of the Order of Australia, Governor of the State of New South Wales in the Commonwealth of Australia. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY: — We, the Members of the Legislative Assembly, in Parliament assembled, desire to express our deep appreciation to your Excellency on the occasion of your vacation of the Office of Governor of New South Wales. We further offer your Excellency our sincere congratulations on undertaking the duties of your office with distinction and devotion and extend to your Excellency and Mrs Samuels the warm regards of the House. It is altogether appropriate and fitting that this House should pay tribute to His Excellency the Governor of New South Wales, the Hon. Gordon Samuels, AC, CVO, QC, on completion of his period as Governor of the State. We should honour him for the job that he has done and pay tribute to the hard work of both the Governor and Mrs Samuels. We should recognise the importance of the position of Governor and acknowledge the fact that the Hon. Gordon Samuels is the first Governor to complete the duties of the office without having lived in Government House. That residence is now an historic house museum for the people of New South Wales. I do not think that fact is contested any longer: the matter was explored at the beginning of the last election campaign but the Coalition then relegated the issue. Through their vote at the last State election, the people of New South Wales put paid to any suggestion that there was something wrong with the public owning Government House and having it as a house museum. When I had the honour to announce the appointment of Gordon Samuels in January 1996, I said, without reservation: The eminence of the new Governor reaffirms the significance of the Office. Gordon Samuels was the last Australian Governor to have served in the Second World War. In the tradition of Governor Macquarie, he was an officer in the British army. In coming to Australia he was returning to his father's former home in New South Wales and was part of the great, immensely productive wave of postwar immigration to Australia. Gordon Samuels had a distinguished career at the New South Wales Bar from 1952. He was a judge of the Supreme Court from 1974 to 1993, Chancellor of the University of New South Wales from 1976 to 1994 and Chairman of the Law Reform Commission from 1993 to 1996. His appointment engendered a bit of controversy because of the decision by the Government—by me—that the Governor would no longer live in Government House. But that was only one of a number of controversies that has surrounded the office of Governor from time to time. There was controversy in 1946 when my distinguished predecessor William McKell—a great Premier of New South Wales—insisted that he appoint an Australian as Governor of this State. Premier McKell recommended an Australian for that post but the Dominions office countered and gave the New South Wales Premier a list of 15 British generals, admirals and air vice-marshals. When Premier McKell said, "No, an 28 February 2001 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 12025 Australian shall be Governor of New South Wales", as a trump card, Lord Addison of the Dominions office produced for appointment the name of the brother-in-law of King George VI. Lord Addison wrote to William McKell a letter that included the paragraph: I am happy to think that this solution has presented itself and sincerely hope that the honour of having the Queen's brother, the second surviving son of the late Earl of Strathmore, as Governor of your State is one that would greatly appeal to you and your colleagues. Well, it did not—and an Australian was appointed Governor of New South Wales. That was a trauma for many good citizens of New South Wales, as was the appointment of the first Australian Governor-General, Sir Isaac Isaacs, by the Scullin Government. That appointment and the appointment of William McKell as Governor- General were also traumatic for the Dominions office. Honourable members may recall that Menzies called McKell's appointment a "black day" but then, to his credit, went on to work creatively and constructively with the former Premier of New South Wales. The events of 1946—the behaviour of Lord Addison and the Atlee Labour Government regarding the appointment of the King's brother-in-law and the months of wrangling with the Dominions office—remind me of the lines from Belloc's Cautionary Tales addressed by Lord Lundy to his wayward nephew: We had intended you to be, The next Prime Minister but three. The stocks were sold; the press was squared; The middle class was quite prepared. But as it is, my language fails. Go out, and govern New South Wales. We have moved beyond those days and we now happily contemplate—we would contemplate nothing other than—having an Australian as Governor of New South Wales and an Australian as Governor-General. Gordon Samuels was a very good choice as Governor of New South Wales and he has worked very effectively and very hard, supported at all times by Mrs Samuels. At a farewell dinner on Wednesday 21 February the Governor gave an excellent speech in the presence of the Leader of the Opposition and me. He spent some time dwelling on his happiness at having done without Government House. He said that he and his wife had moved into their retirement home at Bronte and the idea of moving after that into an official residence did not appeal to them. He accepted the appointment I canvassed with him. He was very happy with the proposition that a Governor no longer should live at Government House. He referred to that as a controversy at that time. He said: It was a pretty bouncy period. He said that the media were "permanently encamped about our house in Bronte"—and we all know what the media is like. He also said that it seemed "we had television cameras in the drawing room for several days on end." He went on to say: The whole thing seemed to be beaten up. It became a political issue. He said that the media, however, did not make any personal attack on his wife and also said: The furore continued on a diminishing scale for a year or more. Of course, it has been diminishing since then. The Governor went on to say during his speech last Wednesday night: I think now that there had been some misjudgment about the likely public reaction to the abandonment of Government House as a vice-regal residence, and to the possibility that the Governor would not devote all his time and energies to vice-regal duties. The opposition was mounted mainly by dedicated traditionalists, but others with various agendas joined the cause. I received a large quantity of letters urging me to insist upon a "return" to Government House, and upbraiding me for my spineless compliance with the plans of the villainous Carr. Many were "form" letters, composed and circulated for signature by one agency. Few were rational, and fewer still persuasive. But none was seriously offensive. In particular none contained any anti-semitic sentiments. One correspondent - if I may call her that - attributed my stubborn refusal to live at Government House to the assertion in Exodus (Chap 33 v 3) that the Jews "are a stiff necked people". I took this as rather a compliment, although I think that God originally intended otherwise. I have always thought that this absence of rancour and abuse was a significant tribute to the basic decency of our society. As time went on it became perfectly clear that the Governor was going to devote all of his time, and his wife all of her time, to the job, which they intended to perform in pretty much the usual way, including the pomp and ceremony of formal openings of Parliament. But those who nurtured doctrinal or psychological opposition to change refused to take any heed of the fact that their warhorse had foundered under them. 12026 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY 28 February 2001 He meant, if I have interpreted His Excellency correctly, that attempts to make a political issue out of the Governor not living at Government House did not last long as a warhorse. A few honourable members who are present would not have had the pleasure during the previous Parliament of hearing a dozen petitions every day from people who, I would have assumed, were members of Liberal Party branches. But we all know that there are few people in the Liberal Party branches these days. I remember those petitions lamented the fact that somehow the role of the Governor had changed because of the decision on the status of Government House. But as soon as Parliament convened after the election, the issue evaporated. There has not been a single petition on that theme since.