Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Murray, before I go to what will be a bit of a wander because, as everyone knows, it is not often I get up in this place, I would first like to comment on your speech and the starkness of the reality of what happened to tens of thousands of children who were wards of the state or locked away in all sorts of institutions and boarding schools. I will not dwell on it, but I think that your speech should be circulated to every person in the parliament. I have discovered that, the more you know about human nature and the more you worry about human nature, the worse you feel. The more you know about Mother Nature and the more you worry about Mother Nature, the better you feel. One of the great disappointments in public life for me is that, if you have an inquiring mind, the more you know, the worse you feel about what you know.

I commend you on your speech. There is a lot of hard work that would need to be done. Obviously I have a very strong view, for instance, that priests ought to be able to get married. It is just stupid. They used to be able to get married and then, in the 1200s or so, the church decided they had better protect the estate of the church. I have to say it is so well documented—