Welcome

Welcome to Shane Stone's website in conjunction with The Stone Family in Australia - the two websites sit side by side. The Archive search engines provide access specific to their respective sites - Stone Family or Shane Stone. Some archives overlap whilst others are specific to the Stone family and others to Shane Stone's public career.

I boxed up my archives on retirement from Parliament and was immediately confronted with what to do with all those boxes. In my view archives give context and informed commentary. Occasionally I dipped into archives to correct the public record and defend CLP legacy. During 6 years as Liberal Party Federal President and thereafter I added to the archives depending on my current activities. The Northern Territory Archive Service has a basement full of boxes and I didn’t expect them to do anything special with my archives. Occasionally journalists, politicians, university and school students requested information and I have always obliged. What then to do with my archives? The easy option, a trip to the tip - the harder option, make them available with unrestricted access online. When it comes to archives access is often an issue. Why bother? First, archives are important - they can help frame the future through an insight into the past relying on documents, photographs, and multimedia. Documented archives can be a road map for what works. When media fail the test of being a reliable recorder of history archives fill the gaps. Second, my archives are a source of material that will help those interested in researching the period I served. In the Northern Territory, our achievement in engaging the Asia-Pacific, law and order reforms and important social and economic initiatives have been progressively forgotten by our own and diminished by our critics. The CLP has repeatedly failed to defend the Party legacy in Government and Opposition. For the keen students of NT history, my website offers material on the CLP dating from the Party’s foundation, before my involvement and since. The material has been included to help safeguard the Party’s heritage and corporate memory. A political party that doesn’t remember where it came from or its history will not endure. Third, archives can red flag and warn against poor behaviour among the political class. Witness the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd era; Terry Mill’s overthrow demonstrated the CLP ignored past lessons. On the conservative side, we witnessed the upheaval and transactional costs of the Abbott-Turnbull era. In a democracy, the top job is the gift of the people, not the politicians, and you can’t seize the position from the people’s choice and expect to overcome that dishonour. How many times does that lesson need to be learned? The Wentworth by-election result wasn’t about Malcolm - it was about behaviour. Scott Morrison’s emphatic re-election marks a new beginning.

Corrections and additions are welcome. I don’t have all the names of those featured and appreciate assistance in identifying people and events for posterity. Thank you to those who have contributed through Archive Contributions. Currently uploaded archives comprise over 2000 documents and more than 6000 images together with video and audio recordings. I hope my archives will assist those who have an interest in this period of the Northern Territory’s history and politics generally.

Recently I added a new tool that links related archives, images and documents, making for easier navigation. Simply click on the light blue print forming part of the description of the Archive you are reading. Further, if you click on a particular Name you will see all Archives relating to that person.

I am delighted multi-media are making extensive use of this website; no permission required, simply acknowledge, please.

My story before I forget

This is my ‘yarn’, it is not a ‘rear vision’ view of my public career. I write to celebrate success and step up where I was wrong. In that sense, I haven’t embarked upon a journey of self-justification at the expense of self-reflection. Politics is not a spectator sport. If you want to change and improve things get into the arena. I was master of my destiny, I believe that my failings were outweighed by success; there are no rueful ruminations or excuses. Privileged to have ‘a swing’ I will not ‘die wondering’. Autobiographies have limitations except when an online version. ‘My Story’ includes photos, documents, and many footnotes. The English idiom “A picture is worth a thousand words” has special relevance to my yarn; the reader will find over 9000 articles and photos with commentary. ‘My Story’ is meant to be interesting, not a heavy tome for the political elite in the ‘establishment bubble’. There will be different interpretations attributed to certain events, however, the reader has the advantage of unrestricted access to unsanitized archives where people can draw their own conclusions. It all becomes a lot clearer looking back; everyone’s an expert with hindsight. My lifelong inspiration has been my parents, Les and Pam Stone, ordinary people who did good and made a difference in the community they lived in. Children learn by example. I chose for my Coat of Arms the motto ‘Strength Honour Service’ as encapsulating what my parents stood for and what I aspired to. My parents together with a Catholic education, especially those outstanding men in the Christian Brothers have largely defined me throughout life.

Archive 7,695 records and counting


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