Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Exactly, but it is also called arithmetic. Both Rick and I were reasonably good at it. We knew his chances were a long shot and he did not win. But what a difference he would have made if he had. In some ways what happened to him on Boxing Day would have been even more tragic if he had been elected, because he would have held the balance in the Senate after the last election. He would have been the key player who would have prevented some of the things that have happened from occurring had he won in 1998. There is no doubt that, once he was elected, he would have been re-elected. I regret that he was not. I do not think it was the biggest regret in Rick’s life. I think he went on and did some other and better things—and quite what his relationship with Linda would have been in those circumstances is a very interesting question. But it was, nevertheless, for the nation a great loss—not just because you can imagine the individual decisions made in the Senate that would have been different with that arithmetic but bringing that person into the parliament would have been a significant contribution. We all want to be able to say that, if we engage in public life, we made a difference and that we leave the world better than we found it. There is no doubt that Rick can say that.

I want to conclude—because a lot of people wish to speak—by just saying something about Linda. I do not know the rest of Rick’s family. I share the condolences extended to others but I can only do it formally because I do not know any of the others. But I know Linda very well. I have known her for a very long time—not before I met Rick, because that goes back a long way, but before I got to know Rick very well I knew Linda as a public servant and before that I know she was a schoolteacher. I knew her as a dynamo, as a person who also got things done. I was delighted when she became a Labor member of parliament. I look forward to her carrying on the struggle to which she is and has been committed and to which she and Rick were committed. It will be harder for her now but the need for her work is now twice as great.

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