Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to add my comments to those of my colleagues who have spoken about Quentin Bryce, a truly awe-inspiring lady. Quentin Bryce, the current Governor of Queensland, is a great friend of Townsville. She has been to Townsville on many occasions and I have been with her, both in Townsville and at Government House in Brisbane. I have come to know her as the person that she is—an absolutely delightful mix of formality and informality. She relaxes you immediately that you are in her presence. She does not just do the job for the sake of doing the job. She does the job because she cares; she does the job because she is interested. She is engaging, and she understands, wherever she is—and, of course, governors get to go to all sorts of interesting places, even to Maranoa, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott—what is being explained to her and she asks very relevant questions. I know that, most recently, she enjoyed her visit to James Cook University, one of the premier tropical universities in the world today, and she enjoys visiting the north.

She is a noncontroversial person, as governors have to be. And it does take a special person to perform that role: to make sure that nobody is offended in the community yet to let the community know how you feel about particular issues. She is the sort of person who would agree with what I am going to say now. It is kind of a bit irreverent, but she would appreciate what I say and she would not take offence at all. She is in fact an air commodore in the Royal Australian Air Force, and she from time to time reviews Air Force parades. The Army would say, ‘We know how to march,’ and the Air Force would say, ‘We know how to march too, but perhaps Army has a better claim to that.’ When the Governor is in her Air Force uniform, she probably has the worst salute that I have ever seen, and she would agree with that. But that is the way things go.

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