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

Firstly, may I thank the Prime Minister for his very warm remarks. I certainly listened carefully and took detailed notes, and I could not find anything that I disagreed with—other than perhaps a few of the confessedly partisan comments. The rest of it was very generous. It has indeed been a remarkable year. The Prime Minister mentioned the inauguration of President Barack Obama at the beginning of the year, and that was certainly a watershed in history.

He went on to refer to the Black Saturday bushfires. That was a tragedy of what many would say were biblical proportions; it was almost beyond imagination. The horror that nature unleashed on the people of Victoria was truly horrendous. I will never forget, as long as I live, inspecting the aftermath with my colleagues Fran Bailey and Darren Chester in particular. We looked at burnt-out vehicles where everything except the steel had melted, where the heat had been so intense that the glass and the windscreen had flowed like liquid and coated the dashboard and the floor and then frozen, where the alloys, the wheels and the engines had melted and just flowed along the ground like water. Those were inconceivable temperatures. Fires moved at previously unheard of speeds. It was truly in the nature of an apocalypse. The Australian people did, as the Prime Minister said, come together in a way that brought out the best of us. Nature showed us her worst side and we responded by showing our best side—the comradeship, the generosity, the extraordinary heroism and the determination to set things right. That was an admirable and beautiful thing to behold.

In particular, our colleagues here—and I mentioned Fran and Darren Chester, but I also mention the member for McMillan, my very good friend Russell Broadbent; all of them suffered with their communities—represented their communities and spoke in this House, as they should have, with moving and powerful eloquence. I will never forget the heartfelt words in this House of those members about those fires. They summed up many of the things that we love so much about Australia. Indeed, as the poet Dorothea Mackellar wrote, ‘We love her beauty and her terror.’ It was a very terrible side of Australia that we saw then. In respect of the families who lost their loved ones and are still suffering with the consequences of those fires, we know this will be a difficult and often very sad Christmas, because there will be places at the Christmas dinner table that will not be filled. There will be loved ones not there. We wish all of them the very best, and our prayers are with them as they recover and rebuild with our support after these terrible experiences.

The Prime Minister reminded us, correctly, of the important work our troops are doing overseas—3,000 Australian troops serving our nation abroad, putting themselves in harm’s way to defend freedom. They do that wearing our uniform. They serve under our flag. We are enormously, unconditionally, proud of their skill, their professionalism and their great courage. I want to particularly note the House’s appreciation and admiration for Trooper Mark Donaldson, who this year was awarded the Victoria Cross. In the great tradition of Victoria Cross winners, he put his own life at enormous risk to save the life of another. It was a remarkable moment of bravery when he ran out, under fire, to collect a wounded Afghan interpreter and carry him back to safety and then, having done that, continued fighting. It is truly the stuff of legend. Trooper Donaldson personified the courage, the spirit, the commitment of the Australian defence forces.

This year we have seen, as the Prime Minister noted, the official end of Australia’s proud, valuable and constructive military engagement in Iraq. I would just note with appreciation that the Minister for Defence, Senator Faulkner, who had been a critic of our involvement in that war, himself acknowledged that our engagement had been a success. That has been noted.

There is, of course, no greater sacrifice than to lay down your life in defence of your country and to protect your comrades in arms. We have lost 11 soldiers in Afghanistan, and one can only imagine how hard it is at this time of year for the families of those brave Australians. We lost four this year and I just record them, brave men who died serving our nation in that very dangerous mission: Private Benjamin Ranaudo, Sergeant Brett Till, Corporal Mathew Hopkins and Private Gregory Sher. At this time of year, which is a special time of year for all the families, whether it is Christmas or Hanukkah, it is important to reflect on and remember the sacrifice that those young men made.

We have also seen a lot of combat here. The Prime Minister called it hand-to-hand combat. Thank heavens it does not ever quite come to that—although there was a moment when the Leader of the House suggested to the member for Sturt that they should step outside. But it was purely just for a chat, I am sure. We would all have followed if we had thought it was going to be more engaging! Nonetheless, there have been occasions of great bipartisanship this year. We have talked about the bushfires. That was one occasion where the House spoke as one in compassion and admiration for the courage of the people who were so cruelly affected by those fires. And we saw just last week the apology, on behalf of the government and supported by me as Leader of the Opposition, to the forgotten Australians and the lost innocents, the child migrants. That was a very moving moment, and I am sure the Prime Minister has received the same responses and correspondence that I have. It delivered a degree of healing and comfort, in some cases a sense of closure, for thousands of Australians who had been so cruelly neglected and ignored.

This is a time for families. I agree with the Prime Minister: when all is said and done, your family is what you have; that is what you are. Of course, this is one of the tragedies of the life experience of so many of those forgotten Australians: they were taken away from their families, and in some cases lied to about their families and their background. Happily, that is not the case for most of us here and we will spend this Christmas period with our families.

The Prime Minister spoke a little bit about love. I would like to say a bit more about that. One of the most remarkable things about the events of 9-11 was that when the passengers on those doomed planes realised their fate, so many of them got onto their mobile phones and called their families. And the one thing they all said, just three words, was: I love you. Facing death, that is what they said. The most important thing they could say was: ‘I love you.’ It is a reminder that love and family is all we have. It defines our humanity. Love is what makes us human. So often we do not love enough. So often we deny or suppress or set to one side our love for each other. Surely this is the time of year when we should be loving and generous to all people, but particularly to our families.

As everybody in this House knows, politics is a tough business. The Prime Minister talked about the press gallery giving us cruel and unusual punishment from time to time—occasionally deserved; probably sometimes not so deserved. But, nonetheless, the thing that we all know, that each and every one of us knows, is that it is our families—our spouses, our husbands and wives—who take it hardest. When the Prime Minister and I are attacked, we can stand up and defend ourselves, we can denounce our accusers and ridicule them and speak for ourselves, but Therese and Lucy just have to take it, and that goes for every spouse in this parliament. It is a tough life, politics, but it is so much tougher for our partners, for our spouses. Today is a day when we should, above all, thank them for the support they give us, because without that we could not do this important national service here.

I thank the Prime Minister for his kind conveyance of thanks and Christmas good wishes to Lucy and me. I reciprocate and wish him and Therese, and all their family, a very happy Christmas. In the Turnbull household it is a particularly happy time of year because our second child, Daisy, has announced her engagement to a young man who seems perfectly suitable. James, her fiance, is a prospective member of our family and we look forward to welcoming him.

See this speech in context