Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The Deputy Prime Minister says, ‘She did with Tony Burke.’ It is the season of Christmas, Deputy Prime Minister, and I am sure you are right.

I thank my colleagues above all. Firstly, I thank my predecessor as Leader of the Opposition, Brendan Nelson. People say the job of Leader of the Opposition is the toughest job in politics. I do not know whether that is true or not—the Prime Minister might be in a position to express a view on that—but there is no doubt that Brendan Nelson took over this job at the toughest possible time, and he fulfilled that office with great distinction. He took our side of politics through a very difficult period and we owe him a great debt, and I am very pleased to record that here today. I also say thank you for the great support, loyalty, commitment and tireless effort that I have enjoyed from my deputy leader, Julie Bishop, and from Warren Truss, the Leader of the Nationals, our partners in the coalition.

Moving up to the other place, the place the Prime Minister described as being on a different planet—I would not have thought it was quite that far away—our leaders in the Senate, Senator Minchin and Senator Abetz, have also provided outstanding leadership. We must recognise that, while we naturally see this place as the centre of political action, nonetheless a lot of very hard work has been done in the Senate. They have been doing a lot of very hard work and a lot of very constructive work and I think we should thank them.

All of my colleagues, the shadow ministers, parliamentary secretaries and members of the backbench, have put in an outstanding year. It is very difficult moving from government to opposition, as honourable members on the government benches know. In fact, they have probably had some difficulties moving from opposition to government. But, nonetheless, this transition has been one that we have taken up. Our team has recognised that this adjustment from government to opposition requires us to remain constructive but, nonetheless, to hold the government to account. We have to recognise that we are working with diminished resources. This means everybody is closer to the coalface of policy development, without the support of the public service, among the other resources that are available to government. Through all of that our team has worked very hard.

The Prime Minister spoke very appropriately about the role of a member of parliament—and this applies whether you are the Prime Minister or the humblest backbencher. You have a relationship with your community which is so intimate, so personal—that grassroots relationship. Speaking of somebody who has a marginal seat—quite a marginal seat, in fact—I am very familiar with the importance of remaining closely in touch with my community. All of us do that and it is one of the great assets, one of the great jewels, in our democracy that we have in this place 150 men and women who are directly connected to the Australians in their electorates. Every Australian can say, ‘There is one person in the House of Representatives who represents me.’ That is why, when school groups come into this place, I always say to the young people at the very outset: ‘Remember this place belongs to you. It belongs to each and every one of you.’ I also say, and it bears repeating today, ‘Every member of this place, be they members of the House of Representatives or the Senate, is here for one purpose only, and that is to make Australia a better place for you to grow up in.’ I then remind them that, from time to time, we do disagree. That is important; otherwise, when they look at question time, they will be in for a shock and might be upset. We do disagree: we disagree because we have a different view of how we should get there, but we are all committed to Australia as a stronger, more prosperous nation.

The Prime Minister spoke about our troops overseas and I concur with everything he said about them. When we send our soldiers overseas, they put their lives in harm’s way for our sake. They wear our uniform, they fight under our flag. They take on enormous risks and it requires great skill, great commitment, but above all great courage.

This year we have said farewell and recorded our condolences in this House on the occasion of the deaths of six of our soldiers: Trooper Pearce, Sergeant Locke, Private Worsely, Lance Corporal Marks, Signaller McCarthy and Lieutenant Fussell, whose funeral it is today. I say on behalf of the opposition, we thank all of the service men and women wherever they may serve and we thank again the commitment, the service and the sacrifice of the six men to whom we have said farewell this year, recognising that the battle against terrorism is one we cannot afford to lose and we must be relentless and stalwart in our fight against it. It is only by brave men and women putting their lives in harm’s way for our sake that we can carry that battle on to success.

We have said farewell to other great Australians. This list cannot be exhaustive, obviously, but we have said farewell in this place to former members of the parliament: John Button, Clyde Cameron, Frank Crean—only yesterday—Peter Andren and of course Kim Beazley senior.

We have also said farewell to Sir Charles Court, who died aged 96. In so many ways, Sir Charles created modern Western Australia and in that sense made an enormous contribution to creating modern Australia and the prosperity we enjoy. I note what Kerry Stokes said of Sir Charles—I think it is very apt. He said:

The state’s current economy is a reflection of Sir Charles’s tireless contribution and firm initiative he developed while premier of WA.

Well said. You could not imagine modern Western Australia, that engine of growth, that dynamic state, without Sir Charles Court.

We also said farewell this year to a most remarkable man, a West Australian: Matt Price. What a loss to public life that was. Just as the librarians endeavour to make us look intelligent, Matt Price made us look funny, and he did it so well. We miss him greatly.

We also said farewell to Jane McGrath, whose struggle against cancer was as heroic as it was inspiring. Her death and the courage that she displayed in battling breast cancer raised awareness and consciousness about that disease to a new level. There are many Australians, I believe, whose lives will be saved because of the example and the awareness that she raised by her brave battle.

We have also said farewell to some members who have left the parliament: Mark Vaile—our former Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the National Party, Minister for Transport and Regional Development, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, an outstanding Minister for Trade and a great Australian. After 15 years of service, we said farewell to Mark.

We also said farewell to Peter McGauran, who was, for 25 years, a member of this House—former Minister for Science, minister for citizenship and minister for agriculture, where I worked very closely with him on water reform. I enjoyed our association enormously.

We lost Alexander Downer, who has retired. Alexander was a member of this House for 24 years. He was our longest serving foreign minister and was a Leader of the Opposition. Above all, he was one of the most amusing, wickedly witty, charming men that we would ever see in public life. Alexander’s sense of humour is sorely missed, certainly by everybody on this side of the House and I suspect by a few on the other side as well.

The Prime Minister was very generous in his thanks to the Manager of Opposition Business and we thank him for that. I am not sure whether Joe Hockey does, but I agree with him that managing the business of this House is a very complex business and Joe has done an outstanding job. While we are not entirely convinced that Albo is quite up to Joe’s standard, nonetheless, they work together very collaboratively and I am sure that, over time, they will reach a common peak of exceptional achievement.

It is interesting at this time of year that we speak so warmly of each other, and I will end my comments about the House before I say something about the Liberal Party and my staff and the people on our side of politics who make our work possible. I will just make this observation. The Prime Minister and I have both spoken very warmly of each other and warmly of both sides of politics and it is very good that we are doing that. It would be nice if we could do that more often. We are coming up to the new year; it is time for resolutions. I believe we would all do well, as we take some time off over the holiday period, to resolve to be a little more civil and a little less venomous in our discourse. I spend a lot of time, as we all do, travelling around Australia and the most common sentiment that is expressed to me by members of the public is: why are you all so nasty to each other? I say that, in the spirit of Christmas, we should aim to play the ball and less the man or, indeed, the woman.

The Prime Minister talked about his staff and all of us are supported by our staff. Just like the Clerk and the staff of the parliament make us appear orderly, the library makes us appear intelligent, so our staff enable us to appear competent and coherent. We all owe a great debt to our staff. They are the unsung heroes of politics because they do not get the psychic wage of being on television or standing up in House and giving speeches. They work hours just as long, they get subjected to just as much abuse and criticism but they are not up there in lights.

I thank all of our staff on the coalition side and I particularly note the two chiefs of staff I have had this year: Brad Burke, when I was shadow Treasurer, and Peta Credlin now that I am Leader of the Opposition. Brad Burke of course still plays an absolutely key role in our office as communications director and policy adviser.

We have had many other good members of staff whom I note: Paul Lindwall and Alex Robson on economics, Sally Cray and Tom Tudehope, keeping it all together both in terms of our communications and our logistics, and Kerry Pinkstone, who has recently joined us to head the electorate office. All of those people and many others have made an outstanding contribution without which none of our work, however well that may be regarded, would be possible.

Finally, I join the Prime Minister in saying farewell as we approach the end of the year. We should all resolve to be kinder to each other in the new year. That may be a pious hope but, nonetheless, it is worth making. I believe as we go into this spirit of Christmas that we should remember, as I said at the outset, that at the centre of the very mysterious Christian faith is a simple message of love. Let us not forget that. Prime Minister, happy Christmas!

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