Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, allow me at this stage to congratulate you on your election to this high office. You have been a member of this House for many years, as was indicated during the debate prior to your election, and I have to say that if we have to have a government member I could not honestly think of a better government member to have as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. You have always been firm and fair, you understand the standing orders, and if you have a robust relationship with the clerks, as you attested to in your acceptance speech, it is obviously because you understand, as do the clerks, the standing orders and, on occasions, you might have a genuine difference of opinion on how those standing orders ought to be applied.

I want to say just how proud I am to be an Australian. We have a wonderful democracy. We are the sixth-oldest democracy in the world. Last year on 24 November we had an election. The government won and we lost, and while one might quibble with the outcome one certainly cannot contest the importance of the process. We are singularly fortunate as Australians, because, unlike people in so many other parts of the world, every three years we are able to judge the government of the day. Australians get the government they deserve. That is appropriate, and all of us, regardless of the result, should rejoice in the fact that we are a country which has freedom, stability, and a way of life that has made us the envy of people throughout the world.

In this the first adjournment debate speech I have delivered in the 42nd Parliament, I would genuinely like to take the opportunity of thanking the electorate of Fisher for returning me as its member. It is wonderful to survive a tsunami. Right around the country, people survived tsunamis, and some people, sadly, did not. It is a great privilege to be elected to represent the most wonderful part of Australia and one of the fastest-growing areas in our country. The Sunshine Coast is a place to which people choose to come to bring up their families and to retire. It is undoubtedly an iconic area and I must say that I am singularly fortunate to have been selected at so many elections to represent the people of Fisher in the Australian parliament.

It is always dangerous to cite names and thank people for the debt you owe to them, but I would like to thank my wife, Inge, for her incredible support during the election. She was absolutely wonderful and it would not have been possible to achieve the result that we achieved without her input and support. I would also like to thank my campaign director, Michael Bloyce; my FEC chairman, Ken Hines; all the branches in the electorate of Fisher; and all the membership of the electorate of Fisher for their very strong support. We faced a very difficult election. We have only ever had four prime ministers from Queensland. We had Andrew Fisher, after whom my seat is named; Arthur Fadden, who was Prime Minister for a short time during the war; Frank Forde, who was Prime Minister between Chifley and Curtin; and now we have Kevin Rudd. With Kevin Rudd coming from Queensland it was always going to be an extraordinarily difficult ask for people not only on the Sunshine Coast but throughout Queensland to return the government. The quality, or otherwise, of the Labor candidate did not matter. Every single Liberal Party and National Party candidate at the election on 24 November faced one opponent—that, of course, was Kevin Rudd, who has now been elected as Prime Minister of Australia. I salute his election and I congratulate him. I do believe that our Prime Minister is a person of great integrity and quality. While I do not agree with his policy on many occasions, I think we are fortunate to have a person of very good values elected as Australia’s Prime Minister.

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