Last Friday's Parliament sitting had a number of members provide some (non political) discussion to honour the memory of Queen Elizabeth II.
Of particular interest to me, amongst the babble, when I was driving, was some talk of her and her Defender, during an address by Garth Hamilton MP from Toowoomba.
His speech, Immortalised in Hansard has some interesting points:
Hansard Display
– Parliament of Australia
"It would not take too much imagination to see her [The Queen] cheering on her ponies as they came up the long hill and towards the final straight at Clifford Park or to see her letting her corgis off the leash at Queens Park golf course on a cold and foggy Toowoomba morning, maybe holding a hot coffee, or to see her navigating some of the muddy dirt roads after a storm out past Bogie in her old Land Rover Defender. My only personal connection to Her Majesty is a shared ownership of the same vehicle. Her Majesty's experience as a mechanic during World War II would have been well needed, I suspect, on more than a few hunting trips around Balmoral as they have a tendency to break down on occasion, leading to the wonderful line, 'It's not broken; it's British.' There is some analogy there to the triumph of will and determination over our physical bounds that I think speaks well to the British spirit."
So any of you Toowoomba fellas out there- congratulate your local member on a fine choice of automobile. Maybe also chip him about his lack of faith for LR reliability... it's now on the record!
