Annette Ellis (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Many words have been said today by colleagues on both sides of the House—colleagues who knew Rick Farley much better than I did. However, I want very sincerely to extend my condolences. My first recollection of Rick Farley was when I worked in this building not as a member of parliament but as a member of staff in a ministerial office at the time of the development of things like Landcare. I remember seeing from the side the sorts of contributions that were being made by people like Rick Farley and Phillip Toyne, who have been mentioned in this morning’s discussion as virtually a duo. I remember very fondly being quite amazed at the level of dedication of Rick Farley at the time. I had absolute admiration for the effort put in by Rick Farley. He was someone I admired very greatly from a distance and someone I got to know informally at that time. From then on, I have constantly been an admirer of the work he contributed to through his continuing career and up until his untimely illness and death.

The other experience I had of Rick was in more contemporary times. As the member for Fraser has already detailed, Rick Farley ran in the 1998 federal election as a Democrat candidate for the ACT in the Senate. In the ACT, federal elections almost become a personal affair because of the size of the town and because of the fact that we only have four positions in the parliament—two in the House and two in the Senate. So it becomes inevitable that, when you are out on the hustings, you really get to know other candidates quite well. I very much admired the way Rick Farley conducted himself during that campaign. I share absolutely the member for Fraser’s wish that he had succeeded. I was hopeful that he was the one who could break the mould and achieve a second non-government Senate position for the ACT, but it was not to happen. If it had happened, of course, history would have taken a quite different path, not only for Rick but for our country.

I want to endorse the comments of the member for Lingiari, who said that, in measuring our feeling of loss, we really need to measure our feeling of gain—to celebrate the achievements of and the contribution by Rick Farley. I agree with that entirely. In my view, particularly when I think about Indigenous matters in this country, he is certainly leaving for me—and I hope for a lot of other people—a benchmark and a certain measure. We should dedicate a great deal of the move forward in Aboriginal reconciliation to Rick Farley, because of the work he put in, the belief he had and his attitude to the whole of our society, not just to the Indigenous part of our society. He had a view as to how it could all work. He saw the possibilities and the potential. When we consider how we can take Indigenous matters forward in Australia we should have Rick Farley and his attitude to those issues foremost in our minds.

His passing is certainly a loss to our country. To his partner, Linda Burney, whom I know, to his children, to his extended family and to all those friends and acquaintances who knew him so much better than me, I send my very sincere condolences and warmest wishes. It is certainly a loss to them, but it is really also a great loss for our nation and for the potential that Rick Farley would have continued to show if fate had dealt him a different hand. We will mourn the loss of Rick Farley, but we have so much to learn from him. I hope that we all do that through our own sincere contribution to the betterment of our society into the future.

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