Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Hansard source

He wished me well. He did not add a qualification, Prime Minister; he just wished me well. I hope your relationship with him is good. In similar vein, I would like to pass on my thanks, appreciation and Christmas greetings to Tim Gartrell, the ALP national secretary, and all the staff who assist us at the ALP national secretariat.

To the staff of the parliamentary Labor Party—all those who assist us in this place and make our lives possible given the impossible demands we often place on them—through these remarks I would also pass on our particular thanks for their work during what has been a difficult and challenging year for us all. I send thanks to our electorate staff, who keep the home fires burning while we are here in Canberra. Increasingly, in my experience during my time in parliament, our electorate staff shoulder a greater and greater burden in terms of the people who fall between the cracks out there in the community.

This is not a debate about the blame game, Prime Minister, but people fall between the cracks of those responsible, whether it is a Commonwealth agency, a state agency or local government. Often there is simply nowhere for them to go. Our electorate staff are increasingly becoming undersalaried counsellors for the community at large. There is a great social fracturing out there in Australia at the moment which we need to be mindful of. I think our electorate offices often become the point at which that is made manifest to us. I find in my experience as a member the complexity, depth and number of cases of people in acute need increasing and increasing greatly year by year. So we thank our electorate staff one and all.

Finally on the subject of staff, I particularly acknowledge the role played by David Fredericks, the former chief of staff of the former Leader of the Opposition, Mr Beazley. ‘Freddo’, as he is known to everyone in this building, was a very good and very loyal chief of staff and someone who managed the Leader of the Opposition’s office with great professionalism and distinction. I know he had a good professional relationship with the Prime Minister’s private office, and he was held and continues to be held in high regard by all of us in the parliamentary Labor Party. In the deputy leader’s office and the office of the Manager of Opposition Business, I would also pay particular tribute to the role played by Silvana Anthony and the work that she has done.

The Prime Minister also rightly referred to our troops abroad. The Prime Minister is right. This always goes and should go beyond politics. It goes beyond whether we support a particular military engagement or not. I have visited and met with our troops in the field in Iraq. I have seen their operations in East Timor. When I was in Afghanistan they were not there, but they are back there now, so I know something of the terrain in which are they operating. These are very difficult and dangerous operating environments. You know that intellectually and then you go there. I know many members of the parliament have gone there and have seen what they are doing in the field. At times like this, at Christmas, when they are separated from their families, the acuteness of the sense of separation knows no easy description. So I would ask all members to bear our men and women in uniform in mind and in their prayers at this difficult time. I am particularly concerned about the operating environment in Afghanistan. I think it is going to become increasingly difficult and dangerous. I worry greatly about the safety of our troops there; I know the Prime Minister would as well. But at this time we send them our best greetings. It is a good thing that in this parliament and this country we have got to a stage where sentiments of this nature have absolutely no divide anymore.

Finally, on my personal staff, I thank my own chief of staff, Alister Jordan, who has been with me for the last five years. He needs a rest as well, and I am giving him this weekend off—then it is back to work! Then there are my policy advisers, Kate Callaghan and—I can confirm publicly the name of my other policy adviser—James Bond. I thank them for their work as well. I assure those on the government benches that they will be engaging in no James Bond-like activities.

I thank my own electorate staff, Gina Tilley, Mary Mawhinney, Louise Bell, Fleur Foster and Joel Lyneham, who have assisted me enormously in dealing with my community in Brisbane. Volunteers also have assisted both in my parliamentary office and back home in Brisbane: Marcus Bartley Johns, Roseanne Toohey, Denise Jefferson, Joan Dunn and Lorna Clarke—I thank them all. Without them, handling the correspondence load into my office would simply be impossible. To the people of my electorate of Griffith in Brisbane, I thank them very much.

On family, I thank my wife of 25 years, Therese, and my kids, Jessica, Nicholas and Marcus. The Prime Minister has said this and Kim has said this: family is everything. It is true. Nothing more needs to be said. That is where it begins; that is where it ends.

In conclusion, we all have a really big year ahead of us. We are all human beings in this place. We are full of human foibles and failings. We get things right; we get things wrong. But there is a decency about Australian political life which I think we always need to remind ourselves of. We listened in the Great Hall yesterday to remarks by the Korean President on the nature of the Australian democracy—that we have these things called smooth political transitions, as we hope to have at the end of next year. But the point he was making was actually much more profound than that. It was actually about the nature of our Australian democracy—the fact that, despite the real political and ideas divide which exists within Australian politics and the robustness with which it is fought, there is a humanity about this place in the fact that we have friendships across this chamber which will endure well beyond our time in this chamber. So, Mr Speaker, with those concluding remarks, I wish you, all members of parliament and those who are listening to this broadcast all the best for the Christmas season. May we return refreshed and ready for what lies ahead for us in 2007.

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