Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Colleagues, I am very proud to be able to participate in this motion put forward by the member for Fremantle. She follows the former member for Fremantle, who was a great advocate of democracy in every sense of the word—one of the few people I have heard in this place actually speak about genuine reform to the parliamentary practices and traditions of this place and throughout Australia. I am a beneficiary of a democratic community, like everybody here. I also work in, and am a participant in, an institution of our democratic system, our parliamentary system. Like all of you in this place I have stood for election not just for federal parliament but for state parliament and local government as well. That means that I have been part and parcel of a democratic community and I have been able to participate in it and be genuinely free to do that. Thus, I want to be able to participate in this debate and to celebrate democracy.

In the interim between losing my seat in 2004 and regaining it in the last election—

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