Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I also congratulate you on your deserved election as Speaker of this House, and I second the motion moved by the member for Ballarat. I was elected at the same time as Anna Burke in 1998, so one can see that, with the elevation of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and the fine speeches of the returned brother from Braddon and the member for Capricornia, it is a vintage that is reaching maturity. Anna’s honour in this particular role as Deputy Speaker is deserved as she is one of the great characters of this federal parliament. Not surprisingly, her honours thesis at university was on Trollope’s great works, the Barchester Chronicles, which are about the characters and intrigues of the Victorian era and the Victorian church. The member for Chisholm is one of the people around this place that make a difference, as the member for Ballarat recounted, not just in the areas of anaphylaxis and children and eating disorders of young models; the Do Not Call Register is something that I think impressed this whole parliament. In fact, she is a paradigm of a parliamentarian who is able to use her parliamentary skills as an opposition backbencher to convince a government to take up an issue. So she is a person who has made a great deal of difference in this place.

In another context, the Prime Minister used the word ‘schadenfreude’, which is an unfortunate expression that means taking pleasure in the misfortune of others. I would like to introduce another word to this parliament, ‘nachas’, which means the derived pleasure one gets in seeing one’s friends and people who deserve to do well.

If Anna becomes Deputy Speaker, I know her husband, Steve, who has done such a great job in helping her with the two kids that she has borne while she has been a member of this parliament, John and Maddie, will get nachas from her activities, as will her mum, Joan. All of her friends in Melbourne and her wider political circle will get great pleasure from her new role, but I think all members of this House who appreciate what individual members of parliament can do will derive great pleasure from the success of the Deputy Speaker.

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