John Anderson (Gwydir, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I indicate at the outset that I understand you may give me a little latitude in terms of speaking to the matter in hand before the House. This will be the last time I speak in this place, some 18½ years after I was sworn in and just over 18 years since I gave my maiden speech as the second person to do so in the House of Representatives who never served in the old parliament, following the by-election on Ralph Hunt’s retirement in 1989.

I have had a very privileged run; I have been very fortunate. I had 13 years on the front bench, 9½ of those in cabinet in government, six years as my party’s leader and as Deputy Prime Minister. I can only say to the House that I have deeply appreciated the courtesies, the understandings that have been extended to me in so many ways, even when I have stood for things that not all might have agreed with and when you have those inevitable moments that everyone in public life has when things do not seem to be going so well.

I feel in a way I have already bored you with my remarks, as I exited the scene a little over two years ago when I stepped aside as Deputy PM, so it is kind of you—those of you who are present—to come in again tonight. Now is the time for me, though, to go out to pasture. I am looking forward to it with a sense of real anticipation, even excitement, notwithstanding the great privilege that it has been being here for all these years.

There are a few things I want to reflect on tonight. Perhaps the toughest task I was ever involved in was as one of the first six members of the razor gang set up in 1996; a dreadful process. We spent I think five months of the first 14 in government locked up preparing the first two budgets. It was a very grinding exercise that never seemed to end and yet it was worthwhile. The fruits of those exercises I think are now well established.

I think of some of the other things I was involved in—Agriculture Advancing Australia, with the restoration of farm management deposits. I think they have been immensely valuable to the farm sector through these very difficult times. I think of the Farm Family Restart package, which helped people exit with dignity when there was no other future for them—that was part of Agriculture Advancing Australia. I think too of FarmBiz, which at the time I wondered about, but farmers everywhere have told me that it has helped them lift their professionalism and the way in which they go about their business. I see that reflected in the incredible way that Australia’s livestock farmers have coped with this drought in terms of the management of their pastures and the much more rapid and effective decision-making processes and so forth that they go through, and I draw much satisfaction from it.

I think of AQIS reform. Somebody had a go at me the other day when I mentioned it because of the quarantine issues that the current minister is currently grappling with. The resources we put in to provide the services were not there when we got into government. No service is ever perfect, and you may very well find things that have to be done differently in the future. But compare it to the service we had when we got into government in 1996 and compare it to the old days when the red meat industry was regularly shut down because the government could not provide inspectors—do you remember Mudginberri?—and yet at the same time there were scores of inspectors headquartered in country towns, being billed against meat producers, who were doing nothing but could not be moved on. We reformed all of that. As I speak, I understand the total bill to the red meat industry in today’s dollars would be about $40 million this year for the inspection services provided by AQIS. When the member for Hotham was last the minister for primary industries it was $140 million. That is $100 million odd—a lot more in today’s terms—that does not leave farmers’ hands in the form of taxes paid to Canberra for services that were, to put it mildly, barely adequate.

I think of the regional policy that we pursued so actively for so many years and some of the people who helped me put it together—Stephen Oxley up there, Peter Langhorne and others too numerous to mention who helped us with all of that stuff. From time to time you hear a bit of criticism of regional policy. I just say: there is a case for social justice. Many people in rural and regional Australia felt for many years, understandably, that the contribution they made was underrecognised, that the services they got were out of kilter in proportion to the contribution they made to the wellbeing of the nation and that social disharmony is not the ideal platform for political stability—and political stability is needed if you are to take a nation forward and to engage in the economic reforms that have taken the country forward.

I do not apologise for what we have done in regional Australia. I do not say that everything was right, but I do say that we put back into those country towns banking services, postal services, mobile phone towers when Telstra would not do it and Roads to Recovery. All of those things have been good and worthwhile things to do. I would ask those who would tut-tut in the leafy suburbs about the likes of One Nation to not tut-tut when we go out to grapple with the real problems that some of those people deal with.

AusLink and the National Water Initiative were two big national policies that I was very proud of. I believe that both are world’s best practice—they are both in capable hands now, and I am very pleased about that—but I mention them here tonight for one reason only. I have a very high regard for the best intellects in the Public Service—and I include the head of Treasury, Dr Ken Henry—but I was astounded to read that at the Sydney Institute in the spring of 2005, shortly after I stepped aside as Deputy Prime Minister, Dr Henry spoke of AusLink and water in these terms:

In water, electricity and land transport, we can’t afford anything less than world’s best practice.

He gave the reasons why we in Australia cannot afford less than world’s best practice. He went on to say:

... in each of these areas, ambitious Commonwealth-State programmes are in place to take reform much further:

He listed them in this order: the National Water Initiative, AusLink and the COAG Australian Energy Market Agreement.

I have had the opportunity to say to the head of the Treasury face to face that Treasury loudly protested that, when big policy issues are involved, you need the deep intellect of departments such as Treasury. That is fine—I welcome it—but I made the point to him that I faced open hostility on AusLink: ‘No, you can’t spend any more money.’ But then: ‘That was until we discovered that the ports, Mr Deputy Prime Minister, were not working well enough and that we had to do something about infrastructure.’ Treasury should have been deeply engaging with us rather than obstructing us, as they did. This simple attitude of saying no overlooks the fact that some investments by the Commonwealth produce money—they are not simple outlays or recurrent expenditure.

I would have welcomed Treasury’s engagement. With the National Water Initiative we got a passive, ‘All right, we will let it progress,’ rather than provision of the deep intellectual input that that department now says that it wants to provide and that I know it can provide. I make those comments in the spirit of wanting to be helpful as I pass from this scene. There are deep intellects in the bureaucracy, but they really need to engage in these solid policy issues. They have not always been, and I dare say nothing has changed. I know there are times when they have to say, ‘That’s a political matter,’ or, ‘We disapprove’—we all know that—but there are times when their active engagement would short-cut the route to better policy outcomes. I would encourage that approach from them.

In terms of social policy, I have always had a deep commitment to those things. I simply say, without wanting to in any way do anything other than accord full credit to those who were responsible, that policies like the new schools policy—which replaces the old ‘no new schools’ policy—are tremendously important. It gives parents choice and ensures a far better guardianship for many of the values and beliefs that many of our parents would want emulated and taken forward for the betterment and indeed the maintenance of a stable society. Some might ask why the government did not go for income splitting, but I believe that the way that the family tax benefit now works, whereby if you earn around $53,000 you are as well off or even better off if one parent stays at home, gives parents real choice. I think it is very high quality social policy. I am privileged—there is no other word for it—to have been associated with a government that has moved in those sorts of directions over the last 11½ years.

I think, too, of mutual obligation. As a civilised society we do need to recognise that we will be judged by the way we treat the less fortunate, but part of treating them well is to get them to recognise that a little social obligation is a very good thing. I have been very surprised and delighted at the change in attitude that many parents have told me they have found in their young people when they have been through something like Work for the Dole or Green Corp, for which I give full credit to Tony Abbott. Those sorts of things have been very good.

Let me say that this wonderful country is, in my view, economically—and, I would argue, in many other ways—stronger now than it was in 1996, and that is for the better. On almost every reasonable indicator, we are a massively fortunate nation. Employment—labour market penetration—is now at the highest levels we have ever seen in our society. On longevity, provided only if we take reasonable care of our own health: which society could have looked to the lifespan that we as men and women in this country enjoy? Think of health care. Yes, it can always be improved—we have vigorous debates about it—but we are wealthy enough that we can spend more on health care in this country than the total GDPs of 65 per cent of the nations on earth.

Look at the way in which we can communicate. Look at the transport revolution that has done so much to give us freedoms we could never have dreamt of. Sound aviation policy means that more Australians than ever are flying despite the tragedy of the loss of Ansett a few years ago. These things are all good, but I have come to realise—perhaps I knew it before I started here—that happiness is not a function of material wealth. Happiness is a rare commodity in Australia today. I think most of us in this place would know of people who are happy, who are content with their lot and have a sense of hope; however, happiness is not as common as we might like in this country. I acknowledge that events such as crippling drought leave many people with extraordinary, deep worries that are, understandably, very hard to cope with. However, we now have an epidemic of depression—which is, of course, the opposite of happiness—in the Western world, including in this country.

It amazed me to realise this, as I thought back over it, that many of the happiest people I have known are people who in material terms have not been well off at all. The most outstanding example of all was the Watoto Children’s Choir—a group of 30 or 35 young Africans. I listened to them in the foyer of Parliament House and I met with them. Those kids had nothing. They did not even have their parents, let alone a home, a DVD or an iPod, which many kids think are important. They did not have any of those things, yet the joy as they sang and danced as only the Africans can and the hope as they told me of their aspirations—they wanted to be teachers, doctors and farmers—really struck me. It was a powerful reminder for me that happiness is not a function of our material wellbeing but, rather, of beliefs which shape values and attitudes and determine whether or not we have hope and whether or not we are in effective relationships with others. Those are the things that I think will determine the strength of the nation in the future.

I say to the House that, ultimately, the beliefs of the people will shape our society for better or for worse in the long run. That is of greater material interest to us all, including in government, because we are a function of a society that puts us here and supports us or chooses to withdraw its support. One of the reasons that I believe the government is absolutely right to insist on the better teaching of history is that it will help us to understand the consequences, for good and for bad, of different belief systems or of no belief systems. Whilst I would obviously recognise the need to separate church and state, I do think we need to put our young people in a position where they are better able to make judgements about what they believe and why and what will work for them and our society.

This year, 2007, is in fact the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade—not slave ownership itself; that took another 30 years to achieve—by the then global superpower, Great Britain. It is sobering to realise that just 200 years ago freedom was only a far-off dream for an estimated, according to the reliable historians—or the ones I would regard as reliable—90 per cent of humanity. Most of humanity was either in slavery or little better off in serfdom—and, of course, in our country, they were in irons.

The story of William Wilberforce and his supporters, as told in Amazing Grace, is a story of transformed lives transforming society. It is an astonishingly powerful story, the outcomes of which were of undeniably great benefit not only to those slaves who gained their freedom but to all of society as well. Our freedoms grew historically as we expanded our understanding of who belonged to the family of human beings. Our freedoms, I note in passing, will contract as we exclude people from the human family.

The ending of the slave trade came about through the first of the great human rights campaigns—perhaps the biggest of them all—and, arguably, the first major modern political campaign. It led directly to a further political campaign: to end the corruption of the electoral system in Great Britain, to enable in 1833 a truly representative parliament to act on the people’s wishes and to actually free the slaves—having ended the trade—whose owners were granted massive compensation. What for? For the loss of their goods and chattels. But we do not think of black people as goods and chattels anymore; we recognise them fully as members of the human family.

It is a very powerful story, yet only 500,000 people have been to see Amazing Grace. I wish every Australian could see it. It gives great and valuable insights into our society—into the condition that we confront as people. And as we confront our endless problems—terrorism, global warming, energy security and the epidemic of depression, as I have mentioned, that sweeps the modern age—we can, I think, learn a lot more from history than we have been doing to date. I am convinced that history shows us that a loss of the beliefs or, worse, a denial of the beliefs that a culture is built on will ultimately lead to the decline and even destruction of that culture.

Dawkins and Hitchins et al would have us believe that the problem is that we have not been secular enough. They would say that we ought to be more secular. As I see it, we gave secularism a great run in the 20th century. We tried atheistic communism and got 60 million dead in Russia and we got the killing fields of Pol Pot—and goodness only knows how many dead in China. We tried atheistic right-wing fascism in Germany and beyond and got the gas chambers and another 60 million dead. Today we are not so arrogant; we are beginning to question again. But I would urge that we learn the lessons of history when we seek out and respond to the truth. When we do not sit on the fence, we in fact will find that truth is available to us. I deeply and sincerely believe that. I think if Wilberforce were here today he would say, ‘Your society is not so different to the one that I have been active in, and the great truth remains,’—challenging us that the central figure in history said to us: ‘There is such a thing as the truth, and I am it and the way to God is through me.’ I put that challenge there. We are free to respond either way, but I say that as a society we should no longer go on ignoring it. We can no longer go on skirting around it, either as individuals or collectively.

Let me finally, but most importantly perhaps of all tonight, say a heartfelt thanks to so many, and I have mentioned some already who are here tonight. I thank all of my friends in the National Party—past and present. I think of Ralph Hunt, whose place I took in this House. I think of Ian Sinclair, who mentored me for so long as I sat over on the cross-benches. I think of my leader Mark Vaile and the other cabinet members from the National Party. I think of our wonderful ladies—Kay Hull, the member for Riverina; De-Anne Kelly, the member for Dawson; Fiona Nash, Senator for New South Wales—and the other members, many of whom are here. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your friendship and your support. And I say precisely the same to my Liberal colleagues here and to those members opposite, many of whom I have enjoyed a very good relationship with over the years—some of them even when we have disagreed vehemently on policy matters. In their absence, I thank old friends, the Prime Minister, of course, Peter Costello and other cabinet members.

A long way from home, I thank tonight my long-time campaign director, Ruth Strang, who is in the gallery tonight with her husband, John. She has run six of the seven campaigns that I have been through. It makes you realise how short federal terms have been historically. I have been here since 1989 and I have been through seven campaigns if you count the by-election. I thank Margaret Illingworth, whose brother served in this place as a Liberal member for many years, Virginia Armitage, Warwick Knight and so many others from the home front—my extended family. In particular, of course, I thank my beautiful-in-every-way wife—described by one perceptive media writer as ‘indefatigably sunny’. I hope I pronounced that properly; it was something like that. Being from the National Party, I had to look the word up in the dictionary!

My father loathed front, but he would have forgiven me for saying tonight that no man can know greater pride than I do in my four children: Jessica, who cannot be here with us tonight as she is at Sydney university; my son, Nicholas; my second daughter, Georgina; and my youngest daughter, Laura—who are up in the gallery tonight. Thank you all very much.

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