Prime Minister Pays Tribute
to Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin
Tuesday September 5, 2006
Australian Prime Minister John Howard today paid tribute to Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin who was killed by a stingray in Queensland yesterday. The Prime Minister spoke in the Australian Parliament calling Irwin a "great Australian icon."
"I found him essentially very much a person of what you saw is what you got — there was nothing contrived, he was a genuine, one-off remarkable Australian individual and I am distressed at his death," ABC News reported the Prime Minister as saying.
Numerous tributes
Prime Minister Howard's tribute was but one of many from all echelons of the Australian Government to be paid to Steve Irwin.
In Canberra, US Ambassador to Australia Robert McCallum said Irwin "represented those things that Americans find so appealing about Australia."
He added that "in many ways Irwin was Australia's unofficial ambassador to the United States" and would be enormously missed.
In Beerwah on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, floral tributes were piling high at the entrance to Irwin's Australia Zoo which remained open "because Irwin would have wanted it that way."
State funeral proposed
On the State Government level, Queensland is considering holding a state funeral for the Australian naturalist and television star, but this would depend on how Irwin's widow Terri would want the Crocodile Hunter to be farewelled.
Steve Irwin's producer and close friend John Stainton was quoted as saying: "I feel that when you're in a public place like he was that people do need to be able to share some closure and I think it [a state funeral] probably would be fitting."
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin Dies
Steve Irwin: Crocodile Hunter (1962-2006)
Stingrays and Other Dangerous Creatures
"I found him essentially very much a person of what you saw is what you got — there was nothing contrived, he was a genuine, one-off remarkable Australian individual and I am distressed at his death," ABC News reported the Prime Minister as saying.
Numerous tributes
Prime Minister Howard's tribute was but one of many from all echelons of the Australian Government to be paid to Steve Irwin.
In Canberra, US Ambassador to Australia Robert McCallum said Irwin "represented those things that Americans find so appealing about Australia."
He added that "in many ways Irwin was Australia's unofficial ambassador to the United States" and would be enormously missed.
In Beerwah on Queensland's Sunshine Coast, floral tributes were piling high at the entrance to Irwin's Australia Zoo which remained open "because Irwin would have wanted it that way."
State funeral proposed
On the State Government level, Queensland is considering holding a state funeral for the Australian naturalist and television star, but this would depend on how Irwin's widow Terri would want the Crocodile Hunter to be farewelled.
Steve Irwin's producer and close friend John Stainton was quoted as saying: "I feel that when you're in a public place like he was that people do need to be able to share some closure and I think it [a state funeral] probably would be fitting."
Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin Dies
Steve Irwin: Crocodile Hunter (1962-2006)
Stingrays and Other Dangerous Creatures
Comments
No comments yet. Leave a Comment