Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to address the House as the Leader of the House in the Rudd Labor government. It was a very long 12-year wait, I must say. The transition to government is never an easy one, and I want to thank those people who contribute to the successful running and smooth operation of the parliament. I must say that the difference between being in opposition and being in government as a minister was roughly what I expected; the difference between being Manager of Opposition Business and Leader of the House is substantial. I underestimated the amount of time and work that it takes to do not the party political activity but the activity on behalf of the parliament in making sure the schedules are correct or setting a sitting pattern, which are not as simple as they might seem in the abstract. But it is a job that I certainly wanted, it is a job that I enjoy and it is an opportunity that I am proud to have. I grew up as a working-class kid of a single mum in a Housing Commission house in inner Sydney. Given those origins, this is a great country where you can become the Leader of the House of Representatives.

I would like to thank you, Mr Speaker, for your adjudication of the House this year. I want to put on the record a couple of things that have been said about you this year. My predecessor, the member for Warringah, only last week said:

Mr Speaker, you have shown exemplary impartiality in your term as Speaker …

I think that is correct. I think you have attained the respect of everyone in this House. That does not mean that I have agreed with all of your decisions from the chair, and perhaps there is a relationship between those two facts. Indeed, some of the most difficult people in this chamber agree. The member for Canning on 18 June said:

Harry Jenkins is probably the best Speaker we have had. I’ve got a lot of time and respect for the way he is conducting himself as Speaker.

Mr Speaker, I think you have brought to your position good humour and good nature. You are an extraordinarily decent Australian bloke. That is the way you are seen, and that matters in terms of your ability to preside over the House in a way that brings credit to the House of Representatives. Notwithstanding the fact that there have been a few dissent motions this year, I think when you reflect on the way you have conducted the House you can be very proud of your achievements.

I want to thank my colleagues. Firstly, I want to thank the Prime Minister not just for the political changes he has brought to implement the Labor platform but also for being a good friend. I spend more time with the Prime Minister than I spend with my family. I have come to admire with some astonishment the Prime Minister’s capacity for work and coherent thought in spite of circumstances which are quite extraordinary. Recently, when the Prime Minister returned from the United States he went via Brisbane because of the natural disaster that had occurred there and then came to the Australian Council of Local Government meeting. I am sure he personally met over 400 mayors there. He did not have lunch during the break because that would have interfered with meeting more people who wanted to discuss local issues with him. He was genuinely interested in hearing a little bit about the communities that those people represent. By and large our mayors and shire presidents around the country, regardless of their political affiliation, are people who do it for very little financial compensation. They do it out of commitment to their local community. Kevin, as the Prime Minister, took that opportunity to give them that respect and he received respect in return.

In the afternoon the Prime Minister told me that I was looking tired and suggested that I have a break that night. I told him I was speaking at the Ethnic Business Awards in Sydney that night. He asked me about the details. I told him that Joseph Assaf was the founder of these awards. Joseph Assaf would be known to many people in this House, including the member for North Sydney—certainly, he is a good friend of mine—and the member for Warringah. It was to be an exceptional night that got together success stories from different ethnic backgrounds. As we were talking about it I realised that he was not only interested; he was thinking of coming, and he did. He flew to Sydney and gave a marvellous off-the-cuff speech, having not rested for some time, and then flew back here early the next morning. I think this Prime Minister will be a great Prime Minister of this nation, and I am proud to call him my friend.

I have known the Deputy Prime Minister since our student days. We have been friends for a very long time. We have both noted that there is something a little disconcerting from time to time when people who sat at conferences together a long time ago, over 25 years ago, are today during question time the Acting Prime Minister and the Leader of the House. She launched my last campaign. She has exceptional capacity to work across the enormous brief that she has in her portfolio. I think she has been an outstanding Deputy Prime Minister.

I met the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, when we were both party officials. He is, as people would know, one of my best mates in this place. We can confide in each other. He has had an extraordinarily difficult task placed on him by the global financial crisis. He is determined and measured. He has a very clear idea of where he wants to take the country. It is particularly pleasing from my perspective that the Treasurer of the country is someone who is concerned with social justice and with outcomes. His background in that area serves him extremely well.

The Deputy Leader of the House, Stephen Smith, when he was not representing the nation as foreign affairs minister, has been a tremendous help and support to me as Leader of the House. On the tactics committee his strategic input is invariably correct. It is concise and to the point. He is a great support on the tactics committee.

I think it has been written who is on the tactics committee so I do not think I have just given up the list. The last person, but certainly not the least person, on our tactics committee from this House is the Chief Government Whip, Roger Price, the member for Chifley. I went to a Chifley FEC function for Roger on a Saturday night last month. The esteem in which Roger is held as a proud Western Sydney representative is mirrored by the esteem in which he is held by the Labor caucus in this House. It is a difficult job being the Chief Government Whip. It is sometimes made more difficult by the person who holds the position of Leader of the House. I accept that that is the case. Often Roger says that he does not agree with decisions or calls that have been made but he implements them anyway. I want to single out Anna George for the work that she does in his office. I say to the backbench that Roger is a tireless advocate on behalf of the backbench towards everyone, from the Prime Minister down. He and his assistants, the member for Shortland, Jill Hall, and the member for Werriwa, Chris Hayes, are an outstanding team, and I thank them for their assistance.

I turn to my staff and single one out. Due to a decision to restrict staff numbers for both the government and the opposition, as Leader of the House I have the great addition of one staff member—that is Jo Haylen. Fortunately, Jo Haylen is able to do the work of five or six people. She is the contact point. She is often the liaison point between my office and the office of the Manager of Opposition Business. Those people who know Jo like her—full stop—without exception. Jo Haylen has a brilliant political career ahead of her, in my opinion. She is an outstanding strategist and she will, I think, have a great future in the Labor movement.

To the rest of my staff, I say that I am very proud of both offices. The ministerial team led by Michael Choueifate, my Chief of Staff, is outstanding. Every single person who worked for me in opposition is still with me today. It is a good place to work, and I try to put into practice the principles in the bill that we just passed—the Fair Work Bill—in terms of the relationships in the office. To Tanya Jackson-Vaughan, who leads the electorate office team, I say that I am not around in the electorate as much as I used to be. That is the truth. On the weekend I leave here. I am on a very early morning flight to Victoria. I get home Sunday night and fly back here Monday morning. People who were ministers in recent times would be conscious of that sort of time factor. The time factor is difficult, and it is difficult to look after your electorate. With the team I have the electorate is looked after. That occurs. They have really picked up the work that they have to do, and I thank them for it.

I am also a member of the ALP National Executive Committee, as people would know, so I have a lot of contact with them and their team. To Karl Bitar, Nick Martin, Elias Hallaj and all the people of the secretariat, I say thank you. And I send a special thankyou to Tim Gartrell. Tim Gartrell was my campaign director in 1996. I like to think we train them well in Grayndler! He won then, against an opposition which was from the Left, as they would see it—the No Aircraft Noise Party and the Greens. He won against the Right in 2007 in playing a critical role in the defeat of the Howard government and the election of Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister. Tim is back in Leichhardt, living in my electorate where he began. He remains a very dear friend and comrade.

I thank the PLO—Tony Levy and the team in the Parliamentary Liaison Office. They keep the House running. They always know when and how to bring things to my attention, and they do a fantastic job—so much so that Tony is actually trying to retire and we are encouraging him not to. He has experience. He served the former government well and he serves this government well. He is a great example of the best of the Australian Public Service. I thank the Clerk, the Deputy Clerk and staff. Ian Harris serves this House extremely well, as does Bernard Wright and the whole team there. They give advice with authority, candour and that great experience that goes beyond the time in which we are here. I certainly thank them.

People in the House would know that from time to time I quote various statistics of how many points of order have been raised or what the activity is. I get that advice, obviously, from the Parliamentary Library and the Chamber Research Office. Governments can rely on them and I thank them for the advice.

To the rest of the House staff including the Sergeant-at-Arms, catering, housekeeping, HRG, IT support, security, the attendants, the staff at Aussies and other DPS staff without whom this House simply would not function, I say thank you. I want to single out three people: firstly, an attendant, Lupco Jonceski. We would be struggling on the front bench here were it not for Lupco. He brings us water, notes and whatever we need. He is a lovely human being and he serves everyone in this House extremely well. By singling him out, I am saying he is representative of the service that we have from the attendants in this House, and I place on record and note that there is such broad support for my comments from other members of the House who are here this evening. I want to single out two other people who are cleaning staff—they clean our offices. They are Anna Jancevska and Luzia Borges. I arrive pretty early in the morning and see them working and they always politely say, ‘Hello, how are things going?’ We should not forget that, when we come back the next day, the fact our offices look a bit different does not just happen, and I thank them for that.

I now get to the opposition. I want to pay tribute, as others have, to Brendan Nelson, the former Leader of the Opposition. Brendan is someone whom I have genuine regard for. As Sydney members who were elected at the same time, we worked together on airport noise issues and a range of other issues. I think that he served his party well. I wish him all the best. I think that it was a great moment when Gillian, at the press conference after Brendan moved on from being Leader of the Opposition, said that she was going to get to spend more time with him. The humanity there was evident to all, and I wish him well.

To the new Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Turnbull, his wife, Lucy, and his family—I recently attended an off-the-record function, so I will not go into it, but Lucy Turnbull was there; I have known Lucy for as long as or longer than I have known Malcolm—I have respect for both of them and I wish them and their family well over Christmas. To Julie Bishop, I wish you well. I think it is tremendous that there are women who have risen to senior positions on both sides of politics. I think that is important if we are going to be truly representative as a nation. I wish you and your family well over Christmas. To Warren Truss, who is one of my shadow ministers and Leader of the National Party, I wish him well, as well as Ian Macdonald, Don Randall, John Forrest, Andrew Robb, Bruce Billson and Scott Morrison, who are my shadows in the parliament.

The last bloke I will mention from the opposition is the member for North Sydney, the Manager of Opposition Business. I told Joe the other day that I was doing talkback radio last Tuesday and that someone rang in and said that they listened to Steve Price’s program, which Joe and I do every fortnight, and said, ‘Do you really dislike each other? It sounds like it.’ The truth is that I am going to damage Joe’s career by saying that Joe and I get on extremely well outside of the chamber. We get on okay most of the time in the chamber as well. In terms of my electorate and aircraft noise, when Joe chaired SACF he came to my electorate, sat down and cared about the people who lived in Tempe and the people who were living in weatherboard houses and were basically being done over by politicians of both sides. He has my respect and I thank him. Most of the time, he is cooperative in making arrangements and in making sure that the House functions effectively. I do think he should not try to break his record of the 150 points of order he has moved this year in next year’s parliament, but I think that he plays a very important role in the parliament.

As someone who moved from opposition to government, I am astounded by the difference. It is very different in terms of the resources that you have. I think it must be very difficult to go the other way and I perfectly understand the people who have decided to leave the parliament, having been long-serving ministers, and I respect their decision. It must be extremely difficult and, from time to time, it does result in frustration. For most of the time the parliament has functioned well. Can we do better? Yes, on both sides. There is no doubt that both government and opposition can do better to improve parliamentary standards.

I am proud, though, that this year we have had a number of reforms: we have had more average questions per question time than before, we have had more ministerial statements and we have had more prime ministerial statements than have ever occurred before. In terms of a number of the indicators, we have made a number of reforms. We have had at least 10 questions asked of every minister on the Rudd government frontbench in the House of Representatives. Last year there were frontbench members who did not get to the dispatch box. I have made a conscious decision, as has the Labor Party, to underline the strength of our team, and I think the team has responded extremely well to that.

The highlight for me in parliament was being the Leader of the House on the day of the apology to the stolen generations. The fact that the then Leader of the Opposition was able to play the role that he did I know would have been difficult. The member for Bradfield deserves a great deal of credit for that. A lot of the things that we do will be forgotten pretty quickly, but that will be spoken about for generations to come. It is important and it could not have occurred in that way were it a partisan act. For that, I think the member for Bradfield deserves a great deal of credit.

I conclude by thanking my family. Carmel Tebbutt, my wife and life partner, has from time to time received some criticism due to her choice in partner. She happens to be the Deputy Premier of New South Wales, and I find it interesting in particular when journalists think it is unusual, given the nature of journalists’ relationships. The fact is that it is unusual for politicians to have relationships with each other. It is because women have not been politicians in large numbers until recent times. That is a fact. It will become more common. She is her own person and her own representative and I am very proud to be her husband, but we are very separate political entities. We engage in politics in different ways. She is an outstanding politician.

To my son, Nathan Albanese, I say: sorry I won’t be at the cricket on Saturday, mate, because I’m opening a road. I have a seven-year-old, and he has known a dad who travels to Canberra all of the time. It is one of the difficulties that we politicians have. I try to make every cricket game. He started this year on Saturday mornings, but this Saturday that is not going to be possible. I thank him for his patience and I hope that we can spend more time as a family over the festive season. To each and every one of you here I say: have a very safe, prosperous and happy Christmas and New Year.

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