Falklands : The Hon Mrs Sharon Halford's Motion for Adjournment Speech
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 29.10.2010 (Article Archived on 17.11.2010)
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I, too would like to welcome. H. E. and his wife to the Islands. Hopefully we will be able to work well together for the continued betterment of the Islands.
LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT SPEECHES
The Hon Mrs Sharon Halford:
Mr Speaker, Honourable Members, I, too would like to welcome. H. E. and his wife to the Islands. Hopefully we will be able to work well together for the continued betterment of the Islands.
The Honourable Emma on my left has just mentioned roads. As Chair of the Transport Advisory Committee I don’t think it is for me to comment on what might happen to these roads in this session. But I will admit that when I used to take tourists – and I hate being a ‘When I’ but when I used to take tourists to Gypsy Cove they certainly got an experience to behold because you had to drive across a moonscape. We didn’t have the track that is there now. And having heard so much about the track, I took my mother down there yesterday. I was a little worried doing so because she’s aged and because of the road being so bad, I thought she might get a bit of a rough time. But I discovered that there were no more holes in that road than there were driving out to where I live. I couldn’t actually see that it was that bad but obviously for tourists it must be.
Anyway, I think it fair to say that during the amazing rescue of the Chilean miners, many of us like others world-wide were glued to our televisions and, of course, grateful to have this facility. For isolated communities it goes to show how important our communications are to enable us to keep pace with what is going on in the outside world.
Having to spend more time in Stanley this week than I would ordinarily choose to do, I have taken the opportunity of driving around looking at a few things. One thing that jumped out at me, probably because of the tedious winds we have been enduring this week, are tall the overgrown trees in people’s yards that are dancing with the overhead power lines. Trees may be lovely, little attractive things when they are first planted. And as much as I like to see them, I do believe that they should be properly maintained to keep them within properties and away from services. Perhaps this is for the agendas for some of the spring gardeners out there.
Talking of gardening, I am indeed pleased that the growing season is once more upon us. Whilst out shopping yesterday I nearly burnt my fingers when I picked up two carrots in a bag on the shelf to then discover that they cost nearly £2.00 and one of them was in poor condition. Needless to say the bag went back on the shelf very quickly. So gardening appears to be ever more appealing.
|It was also brought to our attention this week that some of the youth groups here in the Islands are struggling to find people to run them. I’m sure that for the youngsters that belong to the various groups, they are a great source of organized entertainment and learning, which many Mums and Dads would like to see continue. (I make) a plea, then, to Mums and Dads to consider giving some of their time to help not only your own children but others, too.
Recently a clue in a crossword puzzle made me think of our neighbours across the water. Now, why was that? The clue asked what bird lays its eggs in the nests of others. And, of course, the answer is the Cuckoo – too lazy to get on and do anything for itself but likes to make use of what others have. No doubt my thoughts were driven in this direction because of all the tweeting and twittering that has been emanating from both the President and Foreign Minister of Argentina of late. However, I would like to send a personal thank-you to both the President and Foreign Minister of Argentina for their incredible promotion of the Falklands’ case and the need for our continued defence from a belligerent neighbour. They did the background work for the people undertaking the recent defence review in the UK and left them in no doubt of our need.
I also would like to thank the UK Government for their continued support.
And finally, there was a suggestion in the September Environmental minutes that may be FIG Officers or appointed nominees should have the same rights to go upon land to monitor seabird populations as currently applies to FIG appointed geologists.
This has caused concern to many of you landowners out there. And rest assured that should this suggestion be taken further then I, for one, would not be supporting it.
I support the Motion.
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