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Legislative Council - Fifty-First Parliament, Second Session (51-2)
2008-06-18 Daily Xml
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KENNEDY, MR R.F.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN (15:28): I rise today to acknowledge the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Robert Francis Kennedy, who died on 6 June 1968, after being shot the day before. Bobby Kennedy, of course, died young and without fulfilling his potential, as had his elder brothers President John F. Kennedy and Joseph Kennedy, who was killed in the Second World War. There are many debates about how Bobby Kennedy would have gone in the primaries, and it is certainly my view that he would have ended up being the presidential nominee on the Democratic side—and indeed would have had success in the general elections—so I think it is a great loss to the US and the world that that did not happen.

People tend to romanticise the Kennedys, including a lot of people on the Liberal side of politics in Australia as well as the Labor side, but I think the canonisation of the Kennedys that often occurs is perhaps misguided, in that it sees them as holding positions or being representative of politics which I do not think they really did or were. I think Jack and Bobby Kennedy, in particular, were not bleeding heart liberals in the modern sense in the way that the Left has become particularly obsessive about identity politics in the more recent decades. I do not think that was the sort of thing that Jack and Bobby were particularly about.

Within the Democratic Party of the United States, a number of different competing groups or interests are always represented (as I suppose there are in any party) and on which that party tends to support and rely. There was an interesting article in The Weekly Standard by Noemie Emery in June this year talking about the current presidential race, but the thing I found interesting was that she spoke about a longstanding divide within the Democratic Party between academicians and Jacksonians—or warriors and priests—essentially saying that there was always a strain of the Democratic Party that was more about nuance and liberal politics, but it has been the more hard-edged leg of the Democratic Party, particularly on security and war issues, that has prevailed. In the article she said:

Academicians traffic in words and abstractions, and admire those who do likewise. Jacksonians prefer men of action, whose achievements are tangible. Academicians love nuance, Jacksonians clarity; academicians love fairness, Jacksonians justice; academicians dislike force and think it is vulgar; Jacksonians admire it, when justly applied.

To some degree, in my view, that sums up what Bobby Kennedy stood for. He was not a 'Lefty' in the modern sense. He was certainly tough on crime issues and a supporter of the proper use of force.

I conclude my contribution with a quote from Bobby Kennedy. I know there are many great quotes to which one could refer, including his extraordinary contribution after the death of Martin Luther King, but this speech was made at the University of Kansas in March 1968 (not three months before he was assassinated), when he talked about the gross national product. He said:

Our gross national product...counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armoured cars for police who fight riots in our streets...Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.

I think those words very much sum up Robert Francis Kennedy. May he have eternal rest.

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