Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I will not take up the time of the House at great length today for these valedictories, as they are called. I know that we have business to conclude at 12.30 and I see that the Speaker has entered the chamber to do that. I might just make it to that particular time or we might do that business a bit earlier. I begin my valedictory by thanking the parliamentary staff. They sometimes succeed in making members of parliament look like we know what we are doing. They certainly know what they are doing. We would be quite incapable of managing this House, this quite peculiar place, without the parliamentary staff. Members of parliament get elected and then come to Canberra, and the parliamentary staff do their level best to ensure that we do not humiliate ourselves too much. They are led by Bernard Wright and David Elder, the Clerk of the House and the Deputy Clerk of the House. I have known both gentlemen for 18 years and have been very well served by them in government and in opposition, as a backbencher and as a frontbencher, and now, in particular, as the Manager of Opposition Business in the House.

It is said that Leader of Opposition is the worst job in politics. I do not want to take that title from the current Leader of the Opposition, but I think that in a hung parliament the Manager of Opposition Business and the Leader of the House are giving it a good run. We have certainly managed in this extraordinary year to do our level best to continue to hold the government to account from our side, and from the government’s side to try to ensure the opposition does not get in front of the government, with the best humour that we can manage, while not letting the Australian people down in our respective roles. So I thank the parliamentary staff: the clerks; the house attendants, who are led by Cheryl Lane; the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services, Alan Thompson, and his team; all the Comcar drivers; the security staff; the cleaners; the staff of the Parliamentary Library and so on—everybody in this place. All of them ensure the smooth running of the parliament, which is a very important institution in the 14th largest economy in the world. We sometimes underestimate the role that we as members of parliament have in one of the longest-running democracies in the world—since 1901. For almost 110 years Australia has had the same kind of government, and it is testament to the Australian people and to the parliament that that has never been in question, unlike in so many other countries around the world.

I would like to thank, too, all the colleagues of mine, both government and opposition, who make this place so very interesting. I will start with the Speaker, Mr Jenkins, who has been Speaker for three years. Coming up for his second term as Speaker, he was supported by the opposition in a near run thing, but of course the opposition was with the Speaker from the beginning. I am not absolutely certain that the credit to the opposition is being granted by the Speaker where it is due in giving us the leeway that we need in opposition, but he does manage the role of Speaker very well. There is a misunderstanding in the Australian public that the Speaker and I somehow do not get along. I can assure the House that is not true. The Speaker and I have a very good relationship. It is somewhat symbiotic: I make him look good every day and he works to make me look bad every day. But I know it is not personal. My wife sometimes says I miss social signals because my skin has become so thick after 18 years in politics, but I am sure it is not meant personally. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition described it as the Oscar and Felix relationship of the parliament. I think the speaker is more like the ringmaster of a circus, with the performing monkeys being on the government’s side of the House, of course. I do take my hat off to the Speaker. It is a very difficult job; in a hung parliament it is even more difficult. I am sure that when we come back in February I will find that particular affection that I have been looking for from the Speaker. After we have all had a lovely break over Christmas and the new year, and maybe a couple of weeks at the beach, he will return with just a little bit more affection for me as the Manager of Opposition Business.

I would also like to thank the Deputy Speakers, Peter Slipper and Bruce Scott, who do a great job supporting the Speaker. I will not rush to thank the Speaker’s panel, as the opposition has not added any members to the Speaker’s panel for very obvious reasons, for the first time since the early 1960s. But there are good reasons for that, which I will not go into.

I would also like to thank the chief whips on both sides of the House—Joel Fitzgibbon, the member for Hunter, and Warren Entsch, the member for Leichhardt—who head their respective teams. It is a thankless task to be the whip in any kind of parliament, let alone a hung parliament. It is particularly thankless when pairs are so much harder to come by and, unfortunately, children’s birthdays get missed, graduations get missed and important conferences get missed simply because without the pairing arrangements being quite so generous as they have been in the past the whips often have to say no. I thank the member for Leichhardt and his staff: Nathan, Suzanne, Danae, Kylie and Josh. Patrick Secker, the member for Barker, Nola Marino, Mark Coulton and Paul Neville—the National Party whips—all do a sterling job of supporting me as Manager of Opposition Business and the entire House.

I would also like to thank some of the very senior members of the opposition. The Leader of the Opposition has done the most remarkable job in the almost 12 months now that he has been Leader of the Opposition. It is a very difficult job, and who would have predicted last December, a year ago, that one year later we would be in a hung parliament where the opposition had more seats than the government and where there are more Liberal and National party members in the House of Representatives and the Senate together than there are members of the Labor Party? The member for Warringah has taken the coalition to great heights this year. Of course, while we did not win the negotiations, there is an argument that we won the election. He has given great confidence and heart to all the supporters of the coalition around Australia who voted for us, who help us as a political party and who donate to and support the Liberal and National parties.

I give my absolute assurance to the House that on this side there is no sense of anything other than absolute support for the Leader of the Opposition and our leadership team. Julie Bishop, the member for Curtin, has been Deputy Leader of the Opposition for three leaders, which is quite a feat in itself, and that is because she brings an amazing, erudite contribution to the opposition and a great sense of humour. She is my question time buddy. We sit next to each other in the chamber. She and I and Warren Truss, who we sometimes describe as one of the few adults in the chamber, form a team down the front with the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business, the member for Cowper. The four of us try and keep question time rollicking along, holding the government to account, and I think on most tests you would have to say that the opposition have had a good year. Certainly we did not get across the line in the negotiations, but the 17 new faces that have joined our ranks have been a tonic to the opposition. They bring an enthusiastic attitude to all aspects of the parliament. On our side of the House we genuinely could not be more pleased with the contributions that the new members of parliament have made and will make. When I look at some of the long faces on the government side of the House, I have to pinch myself with the realisation that in fact the election really had a terrific outcome for the coalition.

This has been a very difficult year for South Australian voters. We have had three elections. As a South Australian, Mr Deputy Speaker Georganas, I am sure you also feel the weariness of the South Australian voters. There was a state election, a federal election and local government elections. So I hope that we will not have any elections in South Australia for some time, but I do thank all of my South Australian colleagues, certainly on the opposition side and not quite begrudgingly but a little less so on the Labor side. We would like fewer South Australian Labor members of parliament. But I thank all of my South Australian colleagues for the support that they have given me as the senior South Australian Liberal.

I would also like to thank my opposite number, the Leader of the House, Mr Albanese, the member for Grayndler. I believe that his bark is much worse than his bite. It is not easy to be Leader of the House or Manager of the Opposition Business.

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