Paul Neville (Hinkler, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to second the nomination of Bruce Scott for the role of Deputy Speaker. In nominating Mr Bruce Scott, my colleague has explained to the parliament that he is vastly experienced in the field of primary industry. He is a former Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, he has served on the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and been a chair of one of its subcommittees, and he has spent six years on the Speaker’s panel, so he does not come to the job in any way inexperienced.

Coming from as big an electorate as he does, he has insights into what drives the robustness of this place and its passions when it comes to talking about matters of the outback and of primary industry. A Speaker or a Deputy Speaker, in assessing when someone is passionate about something, needs to be able to empathise with what the person on his or her feet is saying. I think Bruce Scott would add a new dimension to that.

We have heard that the speakership has been coveted rather well over recent years by Victorians, and it is no less so today with your good self, Mr Speaker, and the first nomination for Deputy Speaker. I suggest to you that someone from an electorate of 600,000 square kilometres in Queensland could add another dimension to that even-handedness.

In Bruce Scott’s electorate there are 154 schools—I do not have anything like that in my electorate—and you can tell from that that there are lots of little places he has to go to. He has 419 postcodes, which tells you how many communities he is expected to visit. I raise those things with you, Mr Speaker, to show that Mr Scott is someone who can empathise with people on their feet when they talk about things that are perhaps not part of robust across-the-chamber exchanges but are to do with looking after Australians who are sometimes in dire straits.

In his electorate in the last 12 months he has seen the worst drought in a decade, he has seen floods of gargantuan proportions and he has seen fire. So he adds another perspective to the Speaker and the other Deputy Speaker in coming to this job. We are also conscious, as National Party nominators today, of the bipartisanship of the Liberal Party in allowing this role to be contested by the National Party, and we thank our Liberal colleagues for that.

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