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

It is a great pleasure to join the address-in-reply debate in the Main Committee of the House of Representatives. It is a great privilege and honour for all of us, all 150 members, to be elected to serve in the people’s house, the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia. In the period since Federation only a relatively small number of Australians have been granted this privilege, and I must say that I believe that most members, regardless of their political stance, are elected to parliament for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons. We all seek to make our electorates and the nation as a whole a better place. It is a great responsibility to be given the task of drafting and formulating laws, and of course all of us have the opportunity to stand up and oppose those initiatives which we believe are unhelpful and support those which we consider are in the national interest.

I have been privileged to be returned as the member for Fisher on eight occasions—in 1984, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007 and 2010. I want to thank the residents of the electorate of Fisher, in its many manifestations, over that period for showing their confidence in me so that I am able to be their effective representative in the Australian parliament. There was one election I did not win and that was in 1987, when Michael Lavarch narrowly defeated me. The newspapers contacted both of us after the election, and my first response was that I was ‘quietly confident’. When they did a recheck of the votes and extra votes came in, I was reduced to being ‘cautiously optimistic’. When it looked pretty grim, I was, when the media contacted me, ‘hopeful’. Then, shortly after that they had the declaration of the poll, and I was history! I must say that when I came back six years later—I served the first three years as a member of the National Party then came back as a Liberal in 1993—I think my expectations were much more realistic and I believe that I have been a much more effective member for the experience of having received six years in the sin-bin when I was not in the Australian parliament.

For the last couple of years I have served as a member of the Liberal National Party of Queensland. I suppose I have served in three parties in the Australian parliament and, apart from Billy Hughes whose portrait proudly hangs in my office, I do not know whether any other member has had that particular privilege.

See this speech in context