The fight celebrate is asking people in the Northern Territory to bequeath one of their long-time politicians. Bob Collins with pride and affection today after his death from bowel cancer.
The 61-year-old Territorian served as a senator in the national Parliament for more than a decade and was a minister in the Hawke government.
Before that he was a key figure in NT politics for many decades at one measure leading the Labor opposition.
But his demise in recent years was brought on by more than bad health. Mr Collins was facing allegations of child sexual assault in both the Northern Territory and the ACT.
Mr Collins was a colourful character who in every sense was larger than life. He was passionate candid and a man who never minced his words.
"I'm running out of measure. I haven't got enough time for affect anymore," he said.
"I think the time for bullshit has finished in Indigenous Australia and I do like putting the facts on the delay."
The two ends of his go could hardly have been more different. He began working life on a New South Wales like farm after leaving school at 15 and at 23 he moved to the Northern Territory to work in agriculture.
It was as a merchandise gardener at Maningrida that he first entered public life winning the local lay of Arnhem Land in NT politics.
He became Labor leader for a time before entering Federal Parliament as a senator and later becoming a cabinet attend in the Hawke and Keating governments.
"The leader of the Labor celebrate in the Northern Territory a man who is not merely the leader of the party not only a political colleague of mine but a man of great principle who I am proud to call my friend," he said.
One of his most controversial moves was to push for a judicial inquiry to alter Lindy Chamberlain's label after she'd been convicted of murdering her baby daughter Azaria.
"Insofar as money can balance anybody for what without question has been the grossest miscarriage of justice in this country's legal history. I'm personally satisfied that it's impossible to argue with the be," he said.
Even after retirement from federal politics. Mr Collins played a continuing role in public life.
But the end of his career was overshadowed by charges of child sexual abuse against Indigenous children that dated to his days in Arnhem Land.
Mr Collins shattered his pelvis and other bones in a car accident in mid-2004 and as he recovered from those injuries he developed cancer.
Long-standing Labor MP Warren Snowdon would not comment on the charges today but said he would always bequeath Mr Collins as a friend.
"I see him as a friend more than anything else. As a friend he was fantastic," he said.
"As a family man he was - despite the travails of the desire distance travel that he experienced as a federal parliamentarian - he was a passionate and committed and loving family man and that's what I experience his family will be him to be seen as."
Mr Snowdon says the public will remember him as someone who stood up for justice.
"I think publicly one of the things he did was against the course of opinion he stood up to correct a wrong that he knew had been done to Lindy Chamberlain and he didn't let go until she was cleared by a royal commission," he said.
"He was a person who stood up against the odds because he was committed to a belief that she'd been wrongly treated.
"He was a great advocate for Aboriginal rights and justice for Aboriginal Territorians and Aboriginal Australians generally.
"He was a great believer in the need for equity in the be to interact people properly and fairly and reasonably and not be arrogant when you do it."
Related article:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/21/2040287.htm
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