Geoff Prosser (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today will be the last time I will get the opportunity to address this House. I entered parliament in 1987, in Old Parliament House. I listened to the address of my colleague David Jull, the member for Fadden, when he spoke in fond terms of his memories of Old Parliament House. I felt that I was very privileged to come into Old Parliament House. The camaraderie and the closeness meant that you got to know everyone better. Even the food was better there. We had a lot of mates and it was a very different place.

I recall in those days that there were no computers. There was not even a fax machine. Obviously, coming from business, I got a fax machine and had it sent over. I said to one of the attendants: ‘Can you get me a double-adaptor plug? I want to plug in my fax machine.’ The retort was: ‘Good heavens! You can’t have another phone line.’ I said, ‘I don’t need another phone line.’ In the end, I said, ‘I’ll fix this up.’ Nowadays, we get mobile phones, computers, faxes, photocopiers and goodness knows what else, but in those days we did not have a fax machine in our offices. I considered a fax machine essential to keep me in contact with my office and my electorate.

When I first came in, the whip, Ewen Cameron, sat me alongside the late Roger Shipton. Roger taught me about parliament. I was very fortunate to sit alongside a person who understood the proceedings of this House. Roger would always tell me what was going on, and he would explain the play that was coming up for the day. If I wanted to know why a particular person did something, Roger would explain it. Today I can see when a motion is coming up—a censure motion against the government, or whatever—because I understand, and I would not have done so had it not been for Roger Shipton.

A great friend of mine, Charlie Martella, convinced me to get into this place. Charlie has been a friend all the way through. He convinced me to get into this place—and he tried his damnedest to keep me in this place just recently!—and it was he who said I should run. Indeed, when I did run, I got in in very controversial circumstances. I stood for preselection against a sitting member—before it was fashionable, I might add—in Manjumup in March 1987. There were 94 people on the preselection committee, and I was fortunate enough to be preselected. Subsequently I realised that there was a lot of pain and angst for a lot of people in my party and in my division, and I worked very hard to make sure that I lived up to their expectations. And for those who did not think they had any expectations of me, I worked harder to prove that I was a worthy candidate and a worthy member. I have had a fantastic electorate in Forrest, which used to go all the way down to Albany. Because of the huge growth in the south-west, I lost Albany, Denmark and Boyup Brook. That was a shame, because I like those areas particularly.

On the leaders I have had since I have been in this place: John Howard was the Leader of the Opposition. When we came up here to new Parliament House, there was a challenge by Andrew Peacock and Peacock became the leader. We then moved on to John Hewson, Alexander Downer and back to John Howard, our Prime Minister. I was fortunate enough to go onto the front bench fairly early in my career. I served as shadow minister for small business, housing and customs. In those days we had a housing shadow portfolio, so at least the Liberal Party in those days recognised the importance of housing.

After the 1993 election, I was made the shadow minister for manufacturing and service industries and in the lead-up to the 1996 election I was the shadow minister for finance. I was fortunate enough in government to be the Minister for Small Business, Consumer Affairs and Customs, and I feel privileged to have been appointed a minister. I want to particularly thank my brother Steve. He is not only my brother but my best friend. I could never, ever have entered parliament if it were not for the fact that my brother took over and ran not only my business but also our joint business, Citigate Properties. That is pretty rare. I could not have walked away. I was locked in.

What interested me in federal politics? It was Malcolm Fraser. I was in the building and construction industry when he was elected. The building unions in those days—right up until quite recently, I might add—were out of control. The BLF would come along and claim the site. They were nothing short of thugs. It was a rough-and-tumble game. I felt that Fraser had a mandate to do something, and that he had not done so. It really gave me a focus: that, if I had a view and an opportunity came up, I should get in and try to make a difference. I think I have been given that opportunity and I think I have made a difference.

I want to acknowledge the burden on families of federal members of parliament, particularly those from Western Australia. My wife has raised our three children, who were all young when I got into politics. I was an absentee father for most of the time. It was tough on Sundays in particular. The kids would be out the back swimming and we would be having a barbecue but, at about two o’clock, I would look at my watch and think, ‘I’ve got to go in, shower, pack, get in the car and get to Perth’—in those days, there were no direct flights—‘and get to Canberra.’ When I got into the ministry, the one who resented it most was my youngest son, Michael. I can clearly recall the day when the Prime Minister rang up and I was not home. My wife left a note: ‘The Prime Minister wants you to give him a call. Here’s his number; he is at Kirribilli.’ I went down to my office at home and rang the Prime Minister. As I came back, my son said, ‘What did John Howard want?’ I said, ‘That’s for me to know.’ He said, ‘You’re not going back to Canberra.’ He felt so much angst about my going back to Canberra and said, ‘I’m going to ring the Prime Minister and tell him that you’re not coming back to Canberra.’ I jokingly said, ‘Yeah, Michael, you ring the Prime Minister.’ Unbeknown to me, I left the Prime Minister’s Kirribilli phone number in my office. My youngest son wandered down, picked up the phone, rang the Prime Minister and was about to tell him ‘what for’ when I realised where he had gone. I almost had a shorter ministerial career than I eventually had anyway. I guess we joke about it now—at the time Michael would have been seven. I did not realise—some of us do not—the impact of being away so much from a very young family. I chuckle that my youngest son was about to tell the Prime Minister where to shove it, because he did not want his dad to go back to Canberra.

I would also like to thank my then chief of staff, Peter Johnson, who worked for me during the ministry days. Peter now has a very large law practice in Bali. I would like to thank the Liberal Party for giving me the opportunity and the honour to enter federal politics and to play a part in this great institution.

What were the most exciting parts? The most exciting part of my political career was, without a doubt, Fightback. Fightback was what I got into politics for. It set the scene for the economic reform we enjoy today. Fightback proposed the GST. I remind everyone that if Fightback had got up your fuel today would be 38c a litre cheaper than it is, because Fightback was going to scrap excise. Fightback also proposed the scrapping of payroll tax. Payroll tax is not a federal tax but the whole Fightback package was to try and make Australia more competitive and more productive. Sure it was visionary, and sure we lost, but I feel so proud that I was part of that team. It was probably a stupid thing to do from opposition, but we dared to be different and we set the scene for what has been achieved since. I still think that Fightback was a great package and I think it would have made us better off than we are today—and we are very well off through the economic reforms that this government has introduced.

The most satisfying thing for me was to be the minister for customs; there is no doubt about that. Customs are a great bunch of people. They have a huge challenge and all Australians should be satisfied with the role that Customs play in protecting Australia’s borders from not only dutiable imports but drugs and a whole range of other things. I was very lucky when I became the minister. The customs patrol fleet was designed when we only had territorial responsibility out to 12 nautical miles. Now it is out to 200 nautical miles and I thought, ‘Well, the fleet is no good.’ At a time when we were trying to get the budget back into shape, I proposed eight new patrol boats and actually got them. I have been forever thankful to the people in the economic portfolios who supported me in that area, John Fahey and Peter Costello, when everyone else was pretty ticked off that I got $50 million in a package to get eight new customs patrol boats.

I would like to acknowledge the CEO of Customs in those days, Lionel Woodward, and Tom Anderson, who was my DLO. Tom was a very good and dear friend, and is still a friend today. I would also like to acknowledge John Drury, Mick Roche, John Jeffrey and Les Jones. I entered parliament to make a difference. I think that I have been lucky to play a part in a team that has made a difference. We have played a part in change. As the shadow minister for finance it was particularly challenging to do the repayment schedule to see what $98 billion would do to the interest repayments as they were freed up and what date we would become debt free. I had a young staffer seconded from Finance, and I asked him to do the repayment schedule. He did not have a program or a computer to do it on so I simply pulled the figures out and did the repayment schedule, to his great amazement. He asked how I had worked it out. I said, ‘Mate, if you’ve got as many big loans as I have you would know that this is the same but it has a whole lot more noughts on the end.’

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