When the mace, the symbol of the authority of the Speaker, parliament and the link with Westminster, the Mother of Parliaments, was presented to the NT Legislative Assembly , flowery speeches were made all round on May 17, 1979.
Our mace was given us by a Commonwealth Parliament delegation consisting of the Speaker of the Senate, Condor Laucke, and House of Representatives Speaker, Billy Snedden, to acknowledge self government in 1978.
The then Opposition (ALP) Leader, Jon Isaacs, a champion orator , injected an unexpected historical note of levity into the mace proceedings . In the Victorian parliament , he said, the mace had once disappeared and featured in an outrageous romp in a Little Lonsdale Street house of ill fame.
Isaacs bravely vowed that no member of his side of the House would partake in any such dishonourable act with the NT mace. What the other side did was entirely up to them .
At a function that evening , part of the mace celebrations, Snedden entertained the audience with a good yarn. The Liberals, he said, were campaigning door- to -door when a little boy opened the door and told them both his parents were out. The Lib door-knocker gave him a clip about the ears and said , "Tell your parents that the Labor candidate called".
Apart from a failed attempt to throttle an ABC reporter with a cord and some alleged shenanigans on an Assembly desk which could have led to splinters in a disadvantageous position, there seems not to have been any ( known ) incidents similar to the one involving the Victorian mace. (Sir Billy Snedden , however, apparently came to an embarrassing end ).
The Territory mace presentation was recalled when the 1979 NT Cabinet records CD was recently released containing a photo of Chief Minister, Paul Everingham, the Legislative Assembly Speaker, Les McFarlane , and Isaacs, posing –smiling or leering? - with the Legislative Assembly mace , crafted from gold and silver gilt, weighing 4.2 kilos, in the open sunlight of Little Mitchell Street , an unusual locale for such a treasure.
Also in the CD slideshow is a group photo of all the honourable members , and not one male is in a suit , unlike today . ( Isaacs attracted media attention when he wore a cool safari suit to the Assembly ). Dawn Lawrie, as usual, stands out as a refreshing jingly –jangly fashion plate in the photograph . At first glance, a small schoolgirl seems to have gate –crashed the photo at the end of the back row, but on closer examination turns out to be wee June D’Rosario . Rolf Harris looks overdressed in trousers and sportscoat as is Mayor Dr Ella Stack in her sweaty robes of office. Some other subjects covered : the demise of the whopper croc Sweetheart, the arrival of a Vietnamese refugee boat, the welcome arrival of a Viking boat made from beer cans, the start of construction on the Smith Street Mall.
Our mace was given us by a Commonwealth Parliament delegation consisting of the Speaker of the Senate, Condor Laucke, and House of Representatives Speaker, Billy Snedden, to acknowledge self government in 1978.
The then Opposition (ALP) Leader, Jon Isaacs, a champion orator , injected an unexpected historical note of levity into the mace proceedings . In the Victorian parliament , he said, the mace had once disappeared and featured in an outrageous romp in a Little Lonsdale Street house of ill fame.
Isaacs bravely vowed that no member of his side of the House would partake in any such dishonourable act with the NT mace. What the other side did was entirely up to them .
At a function that evening , part of the mace celebrations, Snedden entertained the audience with a good yarn. The Liberals, he said, were campaigning door- to -door when a little boy opened the door and told them both his parents were out. The Lib door-knocker gave him a clip about the ears and said , "Tell your parents that the Labor candidate called".
Apart from a failed attempt to throttle an ABC reporter with a cord and some alleged shenanigans on an Assembly desk which could have led to splinters in a disadvantageous position, there seems not to have been any ( known ) incidents similar to the one involving the Victorian mace. (Sir Billy Snedden , however, apparently came to an embarrassing end ).
The Territory mace presentation was recalled when the 1979 NT Cabinet records CD was recently released containing a photo of Chief Minister, Paul Everingham, the Legislative Assembly Speaker, Les McFarlane , and Isaacs, posing –smiling or leering? - with the Legislative Assembly mace , crafted from gold and silver gilt, weighing 4.2 kilos, in the open sunlight of Little Mitchell Street , an unusual locale for such a treasure.
Also in the CD slideshow is a group photo of all the honourable members , and not one male is in a suit , unlike today . ( Isaacs attracted media attention when he wore a cool safari suit to the Assembly ). Dawn Lawrie, as usual, stands out as a refreshing jingly –jangly fashion plate in the photograph . At first glance, a small schoolgirl seems to have gate –crashed the photo at the end of the back row, but on closer examination turns out to be wee June D’Rosario . Rolf Harris looks overdressed in trousers and sportscoat as is Mayor Dr Ella Stack in her sweaty robes of office. Some other subjects covered : the demise of the whopper croc Sweetheart, the arrival of a Vietnamese refugee boat, the welcome arrival of a Viking boat made from beer cans, the start of construction on the Smith Street Mall.
