E&OE................................................................................................
Well thank you very much, Edwina, for those warm words of introduction.
Can I welcome everybody here tonight. As Chairman, can I say how much
I savour the moment of at last being in charge of the Senate.
Tonight's debate is on the subject that this House believes that
religion has no place in politics. There was once a time in Australian
society where people were exhorted, particularly if they belonged
to clubs, never to talk about two things and those two things were
religion or politics. And I can remember as a young person when I
first started to develop a great interest in politics that I thought
to myself: heavens, if you can't talk about politics and you
can't talk about religion life would be a pretty dull thing.
Australian political history has been dotted with periods in its time
where the interaction between the church rather than religion and
politics has been a controversial issue. And there was, for a significant
period of Australia's history after World War II, a long-running
debate about the extent to which formal pronouncements of the church
and in relation to political issues should be countenanced. And it
still remains, on certain moral issues, it still remains a lively
topic of conversation. So I think for this House it is, indeed, a
very apt subject of debate.
Now, tonight's debate, as always, is between a government and
an opposition. The members of the Government, which comprise the Australian
Schools Debating Team, are Imogen Saunders, from St Hilda's Anglican
School for Girls in Perth; Richard Howard from The Shore School in
Sydney and Simon Quinn from St Joseph's College in Brisbane.
For the Opposition, Bishop George Browning of the Diocese of Canberra
and Goulburn, the Hon. Gary Humphries, the ACT Deputy Chief Minister,
and Christopher Erskine, a well known lawyer in the city of Canberra
and the President of the Australian Debaters' Federation. Importantly
on my left we have the three adjudicators or are they on my
right? Just put their hands up. No, they're in the middle. And
those people are Belinda Holloway, Benjamin O'Donnell and Tonia
Riszko.
I understand that the rules of a debate which involve a right of replay,
the Government going first and the Opposition second in the right
of reply involve a speech of eight minutes, a bell after one minute
to allow the interruption time and then another bell at seven and
two bells at eight. There are some capable timekeepers on my left
who will look after all of those things for which I am very, very
grateful. After the debate is over if anybody wants to ask any questions
or hurl any insults at the Chair or anybody else, they're perfectly
entitled to do so.
Can I very seriously and sincerely compliment Minter Ellison on its
public spiritedness in sponsoring the team and being responsible for
getting this debate together. I think debating is a marvellous past
time. It's a great intellectual stimulant. It's a great
trainer of the mind. And I think Minter Ellison are to be thanked
by the debating fraternity of Australia for the contribution that
they are making towards that cause in sponsoring this debate.
So let us to the task and the battle. This House believes that religion
has no place in politics. The first speaker for the Government - and
I will, just so you all know, say something of each speaker as I introduce
them, not too long but just so you know a little bit about them -
the first speaker for the Government is Imogen Saunders. Imogen was
a member of the 1998 Western Australian State Debating Team. She has
just completed year 11 at St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls
in Perth. The first speaker for the Government, Imogen Saunders.
[ends]